Well see, and I wouldn’t, you say that to me and I think money’s not, I would update exhibits because most of my exhibits in Milwaukee were built in the 50s. I mean, where our last polar bear died and we can’t get polar bears because, you know, the standards… Read More
Most of my dealing with animal dealers was either getting animals from zoos overseas, you know, Fred Zeadler helped get dorcas gazelles from Hungary from the zoo in Budapest. I don’t ever remember dealing with them and a lot of transportation animal dealers were able to help with transportation. So… Read More
So if somebody said to you, money was no object, you as a curator, what exhibit would you put together?… Read More
What would you put together?… Read More
Oh, a new exhibit or?… Read More
Did you have to deal with animal dealers when you were at Milwaukee or National Zoo?… Read More
Yeah. Read More
What did you feel their role was?… Read More
Can you do it?… Read More
I mean, that’s the problems I think curators are facing now, is how to maintain a healthy, a genetically healthy population. Read More
Is there a wild to do that in?… Read More
It depends on the animal and whether there is a wild to do it in and I think that the big change has been being able to introduce, with veterinary medicine, being able to do sperm collection and ova collection. And then, you know, you may not take the animal… Read More
Well, if you can’t get that male and female together, bringing Chia-Chia to breed Ling-Ling, you’re screwed. (chuckles) You know, there’s more to it than just saying, okay, put a male with a female and you’re gonna get a baby. So I think maintaining healthy populations in captivity is a… Read More
Would you say the role of curator has changed from when you started?… Read More
Well, the basic job of the curator is to supervise keepers and make sure animal care is right and work with veterinarians and maintain the collection, decide which animals you’re gonna breed, which animals you’re not and to find suitable homes for animals that are surplus to the population and… Read More
Do you think zoo animals, you kind of touched on, be introduced into the wild?… Read More
Why do you think education is so important in zoos, or is it?… Read More
Well, I think zoos, of all, education is important. I mean, because we, I mean, we have living creatures there and the education departments, I mean, the Society’s education department, their classes are always, always full. They go from infants and their parents up to like sixth, seventh grade. Have… Read More
So education serves a lot of purpose, a lot of purposes, I mean, they do counting. It can help with mathematics, it can help with reading, ’cause kids are interested in animals. So anything that will get them more interested in learning and being able to talk to their parents,… Read More
The curators decide what the play is going to be about. And they write songs, create puppets, and the the actors go around with the puppets and the kids interact with the puppets. It’s great, yeah, that’s worked. I think Central Park Zoo started that. They started a theater program… Read More