Stop reproduction? Well, these animals aren’t meant to stop reproduction. That’s not how they evolved. And, and I think that is a, a hazard to them physiologically. And it’s a hazard to that program in order to maintain that species. That’s why. And, and this will get off in a… Read More
And I remember a time when, oh, George Felton, it was the Baton Rouge Zoo and Bill Conway and, oh, I forgot the gentleman’s name now, Louis Desabato and a got, we did a tour of ranches in Texas and we said, you know, how can we cooperate with them?… Read More
But when you don’t remove that surplus and now you’re crowded for space, what’s your alternative?… Read More
And that’s what our age pyramid is, to keep that population sustainable. Read More
And all of a sudden after that, you, you would try to turn a female around to get her reproductive again, and it just wouldn’t happen. And so that whole topic of, of euthanasia, although it seemed to quiet it down to me, it’s still a real issue because it… Read More
And otherwise it, it’s kind of like a no-no. And, and I’ll tell you, in Miami, when I first started, Miami Zoo had a big hoofstock collection. And I would look at what studbooks were available, or I’d go to, at that time it was called isis, the Species Inventory… Read More
I can tell you in the wild that there are a number of biologists and, and field managers that still believe in euthanasia because they know that the environment has a caring capacity. And if you go beyond it, you destroy the environment. And so you’ve gotta manage it to… Read More
But it brings up a very touching subject called euthanasia and how do you manage populations?… Read More
What with ethical debates, what ethical debates are most active, do you think, within the profession today?… Read More
Well, I’ll tell you one that’s been a long term debate and, and I don’t hear much about it right now ’cause I think people have given up and you know, when you talk about small population management, let’s go back to a comment I made. To me, our goal… Read More
You know, that’s interesting. Julie Seale, who is Dr. Seal’s no longer with us, began a group that we originally called the Captive Management Specialist Group. And then they changed it and now it’s the Conservation Planning Specialist group. And I think what’s, and the idea was to connect zoos… Read More
How do you see the role of modern zoos evolving in this global calculation?… Read More
We need to get back to what Julie had envisioned, I think, and how to make that connection and have the conservationists in the field see value in, in what we do. And so I would love to see that begin to come back into focus again in terms of… Read More
I’m still excited about the Pangolin program that, that started back in 2014. It has really provided good information to field biologists and also to rehab facilities in countries of origin. Mainly because the medicine and care of these animals that were confiscated that would go to rehab facility, very… Read More
So I, I love that program and think that it, it’s done a lot. In fact, I’m now on the conservation committee for the Zoological Association of America and we just gave out grants. We had two, we had 230 grant applications, which I think is more than a ZA… Read More
What research or conservation projects are you most excited about right now?… Read More
Is that a huge exhibit for one species or is it a biome that houses five or six species together where you can tell a story, you can talk about the environment and how they interact together, that type of thing. Yeah. You talk about conservation a little. Read More
So what’s the best use of that space?… Read More
And I think in the last 15, 20 years, we really began, although we say we’re building naturalistic exhibits for the species, what we’re really have been doing is doing it for the public and the public’s perception of what it should be. And it, like I said, the research… Read More
Why are we building and designing the way we’re building?… Read More