And they all knew that I was, you know, either running London Zoo or, you know, but in later years after, while Welfare was formed here, here in, you know, was in north with, I was a zoo director. But what that did was create a medium in which I… Read More
This is in 1970. And so, yes, I thought this sounds rather interesting. So I did, and it was funded by this organization called The Brook. It was called the Brook Hospital for Animals at the time that had been founded in the 1930s by the wife of the Commanding… Read More
And he, and I’d already done some work in, in Africa on what happened on the back of my involvement with the Kabul Zoo. You know, after the American troops took over Kabul, we raised funds to regenerate that zoo. And then a little bit too, with the Baghdad Zoo,… Read More
A lot, but not, I mean, I’m, I’m very much in touch with the folks. I’ve senior staff and my, you know, my successor and I are very close and we meet frequently to talk about how things are going. So in terms of my involvement with the, with the… Read More
Now you are retired from directorship, but to what extent do you continue to be active in, in the animal conservation field?… Read More
They’d love to be part of the team, if you like, but, but simply don’t see how they’re gonna get there. But if there’s a will in both those organizations to have it all come together, in my view, many will disagree in my view. That’s the way it should… Read More
Absolutely. But I wonder if in the end they might morph into one, again, a bit of background going back a few years at not so much a ZA big comp, but the, you probably know there is a director’s retreat every, usually every January. And I know on several… Read More
And certainly what I’ve found is that you are at that age level and before they reach the young adult and young parent age group where again you can engage them more easily because of the youngsters, you are better off with teenagers trying to encourage those that really want… Read More
Is there room for both?… Read More
We talked about families coming to the zoo and how can zoos do you think, improve their connection with kids and teenagers to heighten their zeal and awareness about the natural world?… Read More
Teenager are, are really tricky and, and and always will be. And I think even more so now with, you know, with, with social media, with every, everything that they tend to be attached to through our, you know, you know, through our devices of one sort or another. I… Read More
And also, you know, marketing can be really expensive and so, and there’s often a lot of resistance I’ve found to other departments in, in your zoo and to your governing body about spending vast sums on marketing. So understanding the ways in which you market to your audience is… Read More
You know, what is appropriate? What is an appropriate mix?… Read More
Yeah, critical, and it comes back to knowing your own audience of understanding what your audience really needs. I mean the, the population dynamics, for example, in rural North Carol, we, you know, we’re North Carolina zoos in, in a very rural situation, so it’s addressing a very mixed audience… Read More
Is it, is it newspapers, is it radio, is it, is it social media?… Read More
What is the medium or media you use to get into that audience and, and what tools do you then use?… Read More
What are the most important aspects about marketing?… Read More
Do you have any advice for the neophyte zoo director about the importance of marketing zoos?… Read More
Is education doing any good, particularly in boosting the image of zoos among the public in the face of the anti zoo groups?… Read More
Yes, but again, I think it comes back to it’s, you know, education in zoos as, as you know, sort of takes so many different forms from the, the, the quality of the interpretives that we talked about earlier to the numbers of staff and volunteers that you’ve got in… Read More