Well, I had to depend upon them. Certainly they’re the ones who, you know, are with the animals all day, and they know if their animal isn’t acting properly. And so I, like I said, I tried to learn a lot from them, but I also tried to help them. Read More
Did people work at the zoo at night to- Very seldom was there any calls at night, because the keepers weren’t there at nighttime. There were night security, but their responsibilities were not really so much animal care. But, so seldom did I get calls at night, but always on… Read More
Did you start to develop a philosophy of working with the curators and the keepers?… Read More
You indicated, you know, sometimes they don’t like the university guy coming in, telling them what to do, but you had a job to do. Read More
You were on call?… Read More
Did they call you at late at night, the zoo?… Read More
As a veterinarian?… Read More
Yes, yes, did all the the necropsies on animals. Yes, and made all the reports. Read More
When you first started, were there issues that you were aware of that St. Louis Zoo was facing, or anything that was going on that the zoo was involved with, other than veterinary medicine that touched you, or you were aware of?… Read More
Well, I mean I was, as a new recent graduate veterinarian, I was still learning, you know, veterinary medicine. And one other thing that I did continue to do, one thing that I worked out with the director was, I said, “Look, I’m here all, you know, every day, and… Read More
Well, I was the only veterinarian, but since Washington University, who had that grant, you mentioned Barry Commoner, that was still going on. They didn’t hire a veterinarian, but they still had a couple of staff people. There was two technicians that were, one was a histology technician, made the… Read More
Did you have a staff of people in your department who were helping you, or was it just you?… Read More
But from the veterinary standpoint, that division, department, it was you, and you did the pathology also?… Read More
Well, it was challenging. I mean, it was difficult, because you didn’t learn about zoo medicine in vet school. I mean, you learned medicine, but you were applying things that you’d learned for domestic animals on different kinda animals, and they weren’t always the same. The anatomy wasn’t always the… Read More
So I was a little skeptical, and was careful about how to deal with that. And like I said, I wanted to learn as much from them, but I thought, “I’m gonna stay at least two years. I’m gonna do, you know, give it a good shot, and see how… Read More
Whom did you work with?… Read More
It was a zoo, what you would call a taxonomic collection. I mean, we had bears in one area. We had the big cats in another area. The hoofstock were all together, the birds were together. So it was based on taxonomy, but it was a well-rounded collection. We had,… Read More
There were only a few women keepers in the children’s area. And a lot of the keepers were old timers, men who’d been there, some of them for years, but really pretty good animal handlers. And it was, in the beginning, you know, I learned a lot from them, and… Read More
What was your biggest concern when you first started working at the zoo?… Read More
Bill Hoff was the director. He was the director. Marlin had retired and Bill Hoff was the director at the time. Read More