Oh, I disagree with you. I said well, you can disagree all you want, but they came here to see animals for crying out loud. And so that’s still important. People misinterpret when I say that, that that’s not important. It’s vitally important. But don’t forget, you’ve gotta have animals… Read More
Well, what do you mean, we sell a lot of food?… Read More
Okay?… Read More
I know you do. That’s ’cause we got a lot of people coming through the gate. I’m not saying it’s bad food but they did not park in the parking lot, pay whatever they paid to walk in to go buy a hamburger. Read More
Not the fact that we sold X amount of widgets today. Good day. Well, that’s important too. The widgets are important but what’s also important is your animals, ’cause that’s why people are coming. And I got into this wonderful discussion with the food service guy in San Diego about… Read More
Why are we here if we’re not doing it?… Read More
I mean, you’re gonna sit here and store animals. Is that what we’re, you know, that’s certainly not why I got in the business anyway. We’re not sitting here to store animals. I think there was this whole thing about some people going to single-sex species so they don’t have… Read More
I think we gotta pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and say, hey, you know, we gotta get back to some of our roots here. We gotta get back to the days of making sure we have good robust collections. Read More
So everybody seems to be in the same kind of status quo is fine and status quo cannot be fine in our business when it comes to animal management. It’s a very dynamic process. It needs input, it needs change. And I’m not seeing the leadership to get us there. Read More
So what major directions do you think zoos should be taking for their future?… Read More
Yeah, that’s a big question. I think, again, my concern settles on the fact that I’ve strong belief that our collections are not gonna sustain genetically where they need to be because we haven’t been recruiting enough new genetic material. I’m not saying the SSPs are doing a bad job. Read More
But I think there’s been so much dial-down in not importing, not exporting, not doing this, not doing that because maybe it’s politically difficult or maybe it would, you know, raise the ire of someone because why are you importing these animals?… Read More
And that’s all manageable and can all be answered without any difficulty. But the tendency has been to stay away from it. If I don’t have to deal with it, then I don’t have to worry about it. So I see us in kind of a stalled mode right now. Read More
Okay, what issues caused you the most concern during your career?… Read More
And we can fill that niche, as long as we’re giving ’em a quality experience. And so those are the shifts I’ve seen. We kind of went from a nature base away from it, now, kind of back to that and then that ability to be more engaged in what… Read More
And how do you see the future regarding these concerns?… Read More
How do you get to 2 million people a year that come through your gate with that kind of intensity?… Read More
And it’s very difficult. Don’t have an answer for that. But we have seen a shift. And whether it’s driven by, you know, your cell phones, and all the games that are played, and they want all of this action, and they wanna be part of it. I think that… Read More
What changes have you seen during your years in the zoo field regarding visitor attitudes at the national level?… Read More
Yeah, I think, again, it’s their desire to A, to wanna know more about how we do what we do, but also to have that, as I was talking about earlier, that ability to get closer to some of these animals, but in a respectful way. I think that’s what’s… Read More