Oh, a hellbender is a salamander. It’s a large, you know, salamander, and it’s the Ozark hellbender that we’re talking about, that is, you know, I’m not sure what its status is, whether it’s threatened, endangered, or what, the Ozark hellbender in Missouri streams. And it was certainly less and… Read More
There was an accident at the university?… Read More
Oh, well the accident was not at the university. It was in my own, when I, in the first years there, I mean, I guess I’m a workaholic, ’cause I would work late all the time. And when I first there, I was learning everything, and just getting, as the… Read More
So I don’t know that we have acquired new things over the years, that many new species. We’re always changing a little bit, but it’s dependent mostly on, you know, endangered species. We don’t deal too much with the, you know, you gotta have some things there, but we concentrate… Read More
Just a quick, can you explain what a hellbender is?… Read More
He’d go down to the bottom of the pool and lay on top of the grate so they couldn’t drain the pool. You know, it’d take hours to drain the pool. I mean, it was just such a neat animal to work with. So just different things like that kinda… Read More
What animal species, if any, would you consider to be the most significant that you acquired during your career, or had input in acquiring?… Read More
Oh well, the zoo acquired, you know, we were centers for reproduction of some. Speke’s gazelle was one that we did a lot of, and we had, at one point I think, all but two of the Speke’s gazelles in captivity, and was getting down to the, you know. So… Read More
But in the water, I mean you know, so we’d have to drain the pool. So we’d, you know, get there. Okay, you know, “Be there at 3:00, we’ll give the antibiotics.” You know, “Okay,” they’ll start draining the pool. So there he’d be sitting on the bottom. I could… Read More
You know, we had a walrus that was such an interesting animal to work with, you know?… Read More
Just some stories, he would have these tusk infections and we’d have to give it, you know, some antibiotics to stop it. Well, if he was eating, that’s fine. You know, we’d just put it in his food. We’d give him something special, give him squid today or something, and… Read More
Well, the only way we could get to him to give him, you know, once he’s outta the water, he’s not very fast, he can’t come after you, you know?… Read More
(laughing) People always ask that question. That’s kinda tough because I like them all. I will have to say that I lean more towards, not a favorite animal, but certainly mammals more so than birds or reptiles. And that’s probably ’cause of a veterinary issue. Mammals, everything we learn in… Read More
Reptiles were a little slower, and so you could do a lot of stuff with reptiles, but mammals were probably my favorite. And you know yeah, there’s some favorite animals that, you know, that you dealt with. I mean, gosh darn, gorillas are impressive animals. Read More
You know and again, trying to get the visitor and the animal as close as possible, they could do some of those things in Europe that we couldn’t do, because of the litigious society that we live in. The zoo ultimately revolves around animals. Read More
Let’s talk about, do you have a favorite animal?… Read More
And, so were there things with the exhibits that you saw at other zoos that you said, “Gee, I gotta bring this back,” Any that jumped to your mind that exhibitry, you said, “I think we could do that better,” or, “Boy, that’s a good idea we haven’t done here”?… Read More
Well we can’t do that, you know?… Read More
You know, there are some exhibits in more, in California or Florida where the climate is quite a bit different than St. Louis. And I wish we could do those in St. Louis, but realize that we have to have enclosures or buildings that they didn’t even need buildings anymore,… Read More
And I wanted to know the operations of how, what was good about it, you know?… Read More