Interview 27708 – Caption Index: 344
A lot of animals may seem to be comfortable in human presence, but give signs that they’re not, does it, does the show, does the show display behavior which is unnatural for that animal?… Read More
A lot of animals may seem to be comfortable in human presence, but give signs that they’re not, does it, does the show, does the show display behavior which is unnatural for that animal?… Read More
So the question that any animal handler, anybody conducting the show needs to ask is, is this an appropriate behavior to encourage the animal to do, or are we asking it to do something which, which is simply for human entertainment, is not really telling the audience anything valuable about… Read More
Does it fit with firstly that animal’s comfort level?… Read More
But if you are using non-domestic animals, then the whole question is, does what are you actually demonstrating with that animal?… Read More
So how do these animal presentations, we’ll call ’em, have to speak to animal welfare, you mentioned?… Read More
Well, the first thing, I mean, if you’re using, a lot of people now are using domestic animals, which obviously are, are much used to being handled by people. I mean, North Carolina has gone over to actually a very good dog show and is not doing any shows with,… Read More
Yes. Give Example, I would use the example of animal rides, animal shows, but you do feel, why do you feel they need to earn their keep?… Read More
Well, I don’t, I don’t think, I don’t think they need to earn their keep as show pieces. I, I mean, yes, of course there are lots of ways in which one can demonstrate animal behavior, all sorts of aspects of, of animal biology in, in what one might broadly… Read More
Do you think animals need to, in the zoo, need to earn their keep?… Read More
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, capturing, obviously capturing names and addresses as far as far as we could. I mean, you had some reluctance with some people, but being able to get to at least a proportion of those folks a little bit later to ask them what they… Read More
So you had a plan in order to get to them a month later?… Read More
If you, if you are engaging your audience more effectively, then your long-term survival is going to be more assured than it is if you’re not bringing them in. So finding out what they feel about your zoo, their zoo, you know, it’s that it’s your audience that you need… Read More
It isn’t primarily to breed a lot of endangered species, that that may be a part of it, but the, the most important function is, are you serving the purpose that your community wants you to serve within reason?… Read More
And how are you doing that? How are you engaging them?… Read More
I always went, you know, when people ask me the question, what’s the purpose of your zoo?… Read More
Absolutely. And particularly with their, their, you know, their audience, their local audience. Read More
Do you think that’s a good thing for other zoos to be doing?… Read More
Did those surveys about visitor attitude help you as director start to shape things or see things and the directions you might want to take?… Read More
This is, this is why the thousands of acres, 2000 acres that North Carolina has fortunate to have is it’s not just the exhibits themselves, it’s the, the total almost rural experience that you get around those exhibits. So, I mean, if you’ve got exhibits that are crowded together, which… Read More
But that’s why so many zoos over the last 50 years have created an, an outside the city zoo as well, in addition to what they’re doing inside or in, in a few cases, I’ve actually moved outside, which is what London should have done a long time ago. You… Read More