So I mean, in, for example, I remember we had a, a particularly ferocious muskox bull. We had a little group of muskox and, and one, I remember one day when the keepers came running to me to say, the muskox bull has broken out through the roof of his… Read More
So what do you do?… Read More
Was it all trial and error?… Read More
Well, there was, there’d been a fair amount of work for some years by a guy called Tony Harthorne in South Africa. ’cause obviously managing, you know, managing those parks required that sort of knowledge. But the drugs were fairly, the drugs at the time were not particularly effective. And,… Read More
How, what prepared you to do this, if anything?… Read More
Very new, yeah. Read More
So tranquilizing was still a pretty new science when you were there?… Read More
Because, because I’d got this degree in zoology halfway through the veterinary course, I, I actually was eligible for Fellowship, scientific Fellowship of the Zoological Society of London, which I immediately joined. And also I think, you know, through my teens, my interest was very much in Hoofstock. Still is,… Read More
Oh, absolutely. Fresh outta school. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. How did You start coping with, they’re not cows, how did you start coping with some of these unique illnesses? Yeah, or, Well, I had What did you refer with?… Read More
And fortunately, not too much error over those years. Lot of trial. Now many of these species are brand new to you. Read More
There were one or two publications you mentioned. We were talking earlier about Lee Crandall, Murray Fowler, but they were the only thing, there was nothing like the sort of specialist veterinary care that there is today. And so we had, we had to wing it and because it was… Read More
You, you simply drew on what little experience?… Read More
Ba basically it was managing, it was much more than just veterinary. It was managing the entire collection. So here was this 24-year-old coming straight out of VE college into, you know, into a situation where almost immediately I had to manage, I mean, there were what they call overseers. Read More
What were your responsibilities?… Read More
The only vet, but I was the fact previously, and it was still the case at the time, most zoos were reliant on local veterinary practices, you know, who were agricultural or mixed small animal agricultural. And London had had a full-time clinician and a full-time pathologist for quite some… Read More
Now you were the only vet?… Read More
I mean, we even had, you know, several hundred wallabies just roaming free within the, the fenced 600 acres. But it was very much a matter of managing 3000 animals between the size of a wallaby and an and an elephant. Read More
Sort of a large farm. It was nearly, nearly all the keepers had come from farming backgrounds. Very, very different to today when, you know, many keepers start with, with already a first if not a, a, a a, you know, may another degree. So they came from a farming… Read More
So what kind of, when you start in 1969, what kind of zoo do you find at Whip State? Can you describe it?… Read More
And, and a very good director of science, Len Goodwin and Len, certainly Len and Colin were very influential in, in my career. They were the two who really sort of, you know, were very good at pushing me forward. Read More