I mean, one of my keepers that was off that weekend, and, you know, Ling-Ling was asleep at the bottom of the exhibit and he was going to pick up the bamboo and he said, oh, you know, she’s asleep. And so he just decided he’d go in and reach… Read More
It was a nightmare. When Ed Gould started, he said, “Well, you know, if you’re gonna breed animals, they should be together more than, you know, a couple of days a year. Get them used to each other.” So they did that, and we started doing that. And finally when… Read More
I mean, female would start bleeding and the male might be whatever, but they did, you know, no one knew how to do it. Read More
Do we not put them together and, you know, are they breeding?… Read More
And so it was kinda like, okay, do we put them together?… Read More
And they followed the instructions that they got from the Chinese. At the time when the pandas came, a Chinese delegation came with them. But I think even the Chinese were learning about pandas. This was really just a diplomatic exchange. The science of pandas wasn’t really known either by… Read More
You know, bamboo grows well in Washington, DC and so once a week you’d go out with the truck and load up and bring back the bamboo. So I filled in a couple of times with the pandas. You’d cook rice, get carrots and apples and bamboo on a regular… Read More
And then we’ll talk about some of the other issues just that revolved around that unique species. Okay, the pandas arrived, I wanna say 1972 or 1973. President Nixon went to China, and opened up China. And presidential animals were always part of the presidential gifts. I mean, we had… Read More
Well, we got an elephant when I was there. But so the giant pandas came to the National Zoo and there was, pandas were, I mean, there hadn’t been pandas since St. Louis’s last panda died in the 40s. So it was a big deal. I know Milwaukee tried to,… Read More
I had a dorcas gazelle that was given to Eisenhower and, I think, was one of the elephants?… Read More
And it was, so, I think, so I spent more time working with pandas than anything else. Elephants, elephants were a concern. I remember my first construction project was redoing one with the Elephant House and we ended up, that one just was basic. Just you could, we had Asian… Read More
Can you give me a general history quickly about how the pandas came there and then what your responsibility was when you got the job that involved the pandas?… Read More
I couldn’t read a blueprint to save my life. I had no idea what was going on. I went to the library and got a book on blueprints, (blows raspberry) So I’ve always had difficulty with doing a construction. Now you talked about the pandas, so let’s talk about the… Read More
Well, I don’t know what kind of issues the, I mean, since the pandas were part of my area, I mean, I just remember pandas were front and center. Read More
I mean, it was just trying to breed, are you gonna breed pandas?… Read More
Well, and I would go to meetings. One interaction I remember with Ted Reed is we had a group called Zoo East. It was Philadelphia, Baltimore, National, and New York were starting cooperative programs. And they were the most boring meetings in the world and, you know, all the guys… Read More