The one that I actually saw finished was probably the lion exhibit. Because it was the transformation between bars to natural. Getting people to work together to make that happen. You know, that it wasn’t just oh we raised the money and then we built it. It was actually, I… Read More
They didn’t see that connection yet. We couldn’t do it. So more of ours was in the education. I mean that’s why we felt so strongly with it. But we were part of breeding programs too. And developed those on the basis where we could. If that kind of answers… Read More
What was your proudest animal exhibit achievement?… Read More
What you do affects them. I think. Some conservation things are just better suited for educational wise. Some for breeding obviously. Some are institute, but not everybody, like our zoo can’t… “Our zoo,” I’m not there anymore. At the time our zoo didn’t have a budget to put a lot… Read More
Because, and you’re dealing with a community that’s like why are you taking our tax dollars and putting it out there?… Read More
The breeding or the… Or other activities that involve conservation. Okay. I think, again, it’s an individual thing. There are some zoos I would like, you know, in the perfect world it would be nice if all of your conservation would be you can protect things in the wild where… Read More
Is it the main focus?… Read More
You talked about conservation and education. Read More
What do you think the role of conservation breeding in zoos relative to other types of conservation activities?… Read More
They offered to us, because neighbors, to let us put Boomer there. So we had an actual funeral basically. Did press release, invited people if they wanted to come, sent our thing to all our board members and we had a little service for Boomer. But I think those things…… Read More
He’d always sleep with his tongue hanging out and everybody knew Boomer, you know?… Read More
The kids that would come in for their trips. Oh, it’s Boomer! Well when we had to end up putting him down because of his age and some of the complications that he was having, it was very sad. But we tried – one of the saddest days of my… Read More
And it would be going on with them to say okay. Read More
And the newspapers and saying we’re gonna have to put this animal down, you know?… Read More
And it’s very sad for us. Especially if it was a high profile one. We had a lion named Boomer who had come – when we built the new Lion’s Trace, you know, he came in and I used to play with him on the kitchen floor. You know, at… Read More
For surplus animals. Read More
Why is it a difficult position for a zoo to have to decide that?… Read More
Luckily we didn’t have to do it for surplus at the time, but I’ve been gone for 15 years. We had to euthanize some animals. Either due to health or age. Or a combination thereof. And. That one took a lot of working with the press. And again, education programs… Read More
But it’s a hard question. You mentioned before. Euthanasia. And. Read More
Why do you think – did you ever have to consider that as director?… Read More