I was really young too. I was born in 57. Do the math on that one. Well, the zoo director was moved aside. He, they weren’t happy with him for some reason. And I was offered the, the position and damn right, I’m gonna take that job. I, I wanted… Read More
So the parks director, the parks superintendent, who the zoo director answered to said, you want it?… Read More
I want to do it right. I want to help the animals out. I want to affect good change. And so, by God and Gloria, I was gonna become a zoo director. Read More
How does this happen?… Read More
So, because Keep in mind, it was hard to communicate back then. I mean, it was all letter writing. I couldn’t make telephone call to New Zealand. Okay. Or to Mauritius. There probably wasn’t even a telephone in Mauritius. Okay. So it, that was 1983. Now in 1984, you become… Read More
Boy, it opened the world to me. It, it, it, it told me so much that there were people like me around the world committed to making it happen. I mean, you gotta remember that, like I said, this was 1983. There was no internet. There was, you know, there’s… Read More
And I go to the Jersey, Wally Preservation Trust and go, this isn’t a fancy zoo. They’ve got spectacle bears, which are now called Andy and Andy and Bears. They had Rodriguez Fruit bats, which many years later I sent our curator from when I was a director at the… Read More
And it was just, I learned to listen very careful because of all the accents around the table during dinner and breakfast and things like that. It was just a phenomenal opening of the world to me about all these people from around the world. It’s a phenomenal world and… Read More
Was it important and why?… Read More
What value would you say your school in New Jersey gave you?… Read More
What feeling? Oh, Well, what value would you say this professional growth gave you and why was it important and to your professional growth?… Read More
There were a couple. There was a lady who had a private collection of cheetahs and was breeding cheetahs up, up in Northwest United States. A couple other students from the United States. A young man who was like 18, who was heading off to college and became a professor… Read More
But there were, there were United States people. Yeah. Read More
So, yeah. Or was he Canadian?… Read More
Were there any people aside from you, from the United States?… Read More
Gerald Durrell was, he was God. Okay. And I, and this was his zoo. He wasn’t there at the time, sadly. But I got to go to the famous Jersey Wildlife Reservation Trust and learn and meet people from around the world, from Denmark and Mexico, Mauritius. There was an… Read More
Yes it was. He didn’t wanna have anything to do with any of that. He knew it had to happen, but he didn’t wanna do it. And so, and he wanted to punish me and take me away from all the animal responsibilities. It’s like, well, I wanted to be… Read More
How does this come about?… Read More
You know, I had read for years about Gerald Durrell and the Jersey Zoo. Then I saw somewhere advertised that they were doing a summer school on Jersey for zoo professionals and people interested in breeding, you know, an endangered species management. So I applied and they accepted me. I… Read More
I worked with the Zol Lounge ’cause design ladies, we had an event called Zari, which was a, which was the dinner in the zoo. Steaks cooked on the grill and corn on the cob. And we had carriage rides through the zoo. It was a very high end thing… Read More