You still have to have your standards, your animal welfare standards, you know, and your care and your, your professionalism of being a zoo professional and professional and zoological institution. But you have to listen to what your community and what your constituents are and what their concerns are regarding… Read More
Now, fortunately, the Lincoln Children’s Zoo has a, has a huge support and endorsement of, of, of its community and its constituents. Okay. And again, it’s because we worked very aggressively to be connected with our community. I served on all kinds of boards of directors, the Humane Society Human… Read More
What issues caused you the most concern during your zoo career, and how do you see the future regarding those concerns?… Read More
And I think that’s what the expectation is today of our visitors, is high animal welfare. Great engagement for them, you know, great time, safety, time for your family. You know, the Lincoln Children’s Zoo today has family restrooms, rooms for mothers to nurse or, or, or, or, or to… Read More
Okay? That was their balanced diet. And so, but that was public behavior too back then. Like I said, throwing marshmallows. I can remember I was a kid 60 years ago, you know, going to the zoo and going to the duck pond and taking along our old cereal Cheerios… Read More
Visitor attitudes have changed a lot over the years. Absolutely. They have. And they haven’t, you know, people come to a zoo or an aquarium 80% of the time as a family, as a family thing to do together, recreational time together. And a lot of those families want the… Read More
You know, and they wanna, they, and today’s generations, they want experiences. You know, they, they want to discover things, you know, and that’s where historically, what I call most zoos are walking gaw zoos where you walk and you stop and you gawk at the animal for 30 seconds. Read More
What changes have you seen during your years in the, the zoo field regarding visitor attitudes?… Read More
This year it’s, you know, and, and keep building that. And so you actually get, get a certificate after several years of, of, you know, for curatorial school. And you mentioned obviously a zoo is about the visitors that come. Read More
So they need to learn how to listen. They need to know how to understand people. They need, how to cooperate with people. They know how to schedule people, how to figure out finances, how to understand the animal world. It’s complex. So that curriculum would probably be at least… Read More
Smart question again, mark. I think everything from knowing what animal resources are out there, you know, regarding the most current SSPs and things such as that, and Stu books and all, what the, where those resources are and how to tap them, and people that you would recommend who… Read More
So in your curator training school, what would you be focusing on?… Read More
They’re nothing alike. Okay?… Read More
A municipal zoo budget is established by the mayor and the city council, and the zoo director gets their funds, and they may get one thing that says zoo, and then the director breaks it out. Or in the private world, it’s, it’s done completely different. Established by a private… Read More
And quite often it’s hard to explain to somebody who’s interviewing for the job, what they’re gonna be doing, and once they’re in the trenches. So I, I think the zoo world should aggressively work on training middle management much, much more. Because I, I don’t, I don’t think there’s… Read More
You don’t get any more. We need more that. So there, you’re in the middle, you’re in no one position. So in every curator at every institution, the responsibilities are different. Some of them never do anything with animals. All they do is manage personnel, manage resources, manage schedules, you… Read More
To be very honest with you, there’s not a curator training school that I’m aware of. Okay. Who to make sure that they understand how a budget works. Especially, you know, a private zoo budget and a municipal zoo budget. Read More
It’s not their talent, it’s not their gift. Okay?… Read More
Again, tho those talents are kind of diametrically opposed. So trying to find somebody who can manage a budget, manage Chanel, manage a collection, being able also be able to assist in the daily care of the collection. Good. What a spectrum of talent. Okay. And so many of those… Read More
How many good numbers people do you know, are really great animal care people?… Read More