And they, Gary’s starting to really manage that program, whereas the state just wanted to keep just three populations and isolate ’em and not save the others by supplementing those small populations genetically. So in harvesting, interesting story. Talk about what innovations you might, you would hope institutions would adopt. Read More
I was like, really?… Read More
So I went to a guy named, there was a guy named Gary Goki. Do you know Gary works up in North Dad working with Blendings and a guy named Mike Meyer, who is Fish and Wildlife Service. I said, Mike, this, you can’t do this. So I had an… Read More
And I said, that doesn’t make sense to me, you know, why aren’t we managing this?… Read More
He’ll travel extensively. And that’s what got a lot of males killed, is they’d go across roads where the roads had been put through their habitat. And, and I said, well, what about all these other pockets out here there, you know, there’s five animals over here, there’s 10 animals… Read More
And it became a real issue. And I, I finally got ’em all together and basically worked out that a blandings is a blandings is a blandings, same way with Panthers. They have a long generation time and they’ve only been isolated in these small pockets for less than 70,… Read More
And I said, you know, what’s going on with plantings turtle?… Read More
You, you had a population in the Chicago area that’s dying out. You’ve got isolated pockets that are too small to be sustainable because of development around them, but the state won’t let you work with them. And you can’t move one animal from one from Laker pond to another… Read More
And so that’s, that’s a real big concern. I had a conversation with Bob Lacey and Bob, you know, big geneticist, worked for Brookfield Zoo for years, started the whole program as far as you know, genetic analysis and his vortex program and all. And Bob and I sat down… Read More
You know, what’s more important?… Read More
But it was only after I threat, I shouldn’t say it was only after I told the SSP, you know what giraffes of giraffe right now, because they’re, they’re worse off than rhinos are in the wild, right?… Read More
And I said, I need to bolster my population. I’m going to go outside the SSP because there’s other giraffes out there because I need to add some new genetic blood and I need to get my population back up. And you have not been able to provide me an… Read More
And here next year, well three years later, we finally got one in. Read More
Oh, I think they’ll disappear, which is, which to me is, is one of my biggest disappointments. When I, I left the zoo profession for about 10 years. I didn’t leave it in that I had my company and I was doing exhibit designs and things and worked for Ogden… Read More
And so what they’re gonna look like in the future, I don’t know. I hope they look like a zoo and not an amusement park. We’ll just put it that way. Okay. Read More
Are there species or exhibit types that you think will either disappear or emerge?… Read More
Oh God, I have no idea. I hope, I hope they at least look like they do now. I, I am, I am worried about that. Like I said, I, I think we’ve gotten into a trend of creating exhibits for the public and not for the individual species or… Read More
What do you think zoos will look like 25 years from now?… Read More
I think in some cases we have gone overboard and how the association looks at accreditation and what’s important and what isn’t. And sometimes zoos are not accredited, which is important from a public standpoint, from a government view standpoint, from a permitting standpoint, because, you know, the concession stand… Read More
What kind of regulatory or accreditation changes do you think are shaping the profession?… Read More