They had first choice on any animal, any angulate animal born, maybe even others, over the next five years. And I knew VanDerBrink. I’d bought a gorilla from him at Fort Worth, first gorilla we ever had. And he was a reasonable person. And I sat down with him at… Read More
Okay. What else about the Oklahoma City Zoo?… Read More
The staff was pretty, I started to say immoral. Pretty demoralized by all the changes that had happened. A good thing was we had some bond money that some of it was being spent. And a lot of it we could do with other things with. So in a nutshell,… Read More
Oh, a big problem was it had been sort of pawned to an animal dealer. Read More
Ogilvy had signed a contract such that VanDerBrink, remember them?… Read More
The ungulate collection was fantastic. Warren Thomas had done that. There were then holes in it though. I mean, there a male had… He was very proud of the, a gazelle that he had gotten from I think Sudan. Excuse me, it was a white-eared cub. And the male had… Read More
And as you know, tamarins, the father raises the babies, and passes them back and forth to the female. But he in effect carries them, but they had two. And it had had a baby, and the baby had been lost. So there was a problem. The herpetarium, was, I… Read More
They didn’t have any. It was probably, I don’t know whether it was extinct, but couldn’t get any. Well, that whole herd, I mean that, there was about eight animals, nothing sustainable. The golden, they had a pair of golden tamarins in their herpetarium. By the way, they named it… Read More
But after a while, too many things were happening at Fort Worth, good things. We made a master plan for three years with some long range stuff, you know, listed, but an operating plan for three years. Then every year we would sit down, the staff, and we would review… Read More
What did I find?… Read More
Well, the condition of the zoo when I came, it was 1969. The total lack of continuity was a big problem. And I had not been used to that sort of thing. There was no master plan. And I’m a firm, I’m a firm believer in having a realistic master… Read More
When you became director, when you came to Oklahoma City, what was the condition of the zoo?… Read More
He was the angel, the sponsor. And he used to come to the Fort Worth Zoo, and he would talk to me. In fact, he wanted me to come up there when Warren Thomas had left. But I wasn’t about to do that, leave Fort Worth. And I think he… Read More
And they buy animals, but then we have to feed them. The city has to feed them and build facilities for them.” Okay. So I said, “Well, then I’ll come if that happens.” Well, it did happen. And then he, I was interviewed by the city manager, and Kirkpatrick at… Read More
Zoos are so expensive and it takes so long to build a zoo structure that you’ve got to have somebody there for 15, 20, 30 years. Conway is probably the best example of that value. So 15 years ago at Fort Worth I was just beginning to get going. So… Read More
Then there was a director briefly, named Birddog Rogers, do you remember, Birddog?… Read More
And then there were two city employees in the park department who were moved in for brief periods of time. And so you had all of those personnel changes. And this is a big problem with zoos. Zoos, you know, as you know, you’re looking years ahead. You’re building this… Read More
It was just moving, what do you call them, moving chairs or something?… Read More
But Thomas did a great job there. Read More
Did a good job, did a great job. It was his first mistress, as I said. Thomas was, took Jillian Frazier’s place, he was at Denver. Read More