I said, well, you know, I said, working with animals, you, you’ve gotta be prepared to be able to pick up on, on incredibly subtle signals, some of which might save your life and other of others of which might give you an indication that there’s maybe a beginning of… Read More
I said, yeah, I said, and she goes, how, how did you see it?… Read More
It was big. There was a big shopping all the one side of it was a big shopping area and walking down and I grabbed her gently by the arm and just pulled her to one side and, and there was a, a handicapped person and their parent, I assume… Read More
You know, the, the concept of studbook had, studbooks had been used for many years with domestic piece of dog racehorses, a Arabian horses, et cetera. But to have stud books for a zoo and a wild animal, you know, the bison was the first. And I mean, and I… Read More
They might talk about how well there used to be 60 million in America and now we’re, you know, the population’s increasing. There’s a few thousand. But the zoo community, specifically the Bronx Zoo, had a role to play in establishing one of the herds that exists to this day. Read More
How many people tell if they’ve got American bison in their collection?… Read More
How many people tell that story?… Read More
And how many people are aware of that?… Read More
No, I mean I’ve touched on, I mean there’s the classic ones and which I, I actually think that if you were to grab hold of a couple of baby zookeepers and say, okay, write pop quiz, you know, tell me about the story of European bison. I don’t think… Read More
Can you talk about the bigger conservation stories from zoos, the converters, snails, black-footed ferrets, golden Lion, tamarinds, or some others?… Read More
If you see a herd of, of 20 in a big safari park running across a, you know, 30, 40 acres, that’s European bison, they’re socially adept, they’re in a good welfare situation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not stressful or anything like that. ’cause stress is all part… Read More
That when you see a pair of European bison in a zoo, and even if they breed, is it, are you really looking at European bison?… Read More
And it’s because I anticipated that they were gonna give birth. I think one of the reasons why carnivores and zoos lose their first litters is the keepers aren’t prepared or they don’t expect them to be pregnant or they haven’t, there is no nest box. They haven’t put things… Read More
We’re not entirely sure exactly why, but we know that they are much more socially adept individuals when it comes to them being part of the breeding population. Once they mature, you remove bears as was routine in zoos. Bear cubs from their mum prematurely, sometimes at like six months… Read More
People talk about, alright, we’re managing zoo populations for conservation reasons and you know, and it’s important to have as genetically as, as as broad a genetic base as possible. Yes, we are conserving genes, but for many species, particularly the more complex ones, we should also be conserving behavior. Read More
What do you mean?… Read More
And she brought in a domestic kitchen strainer, handheld strainer, so find mesh and the enclosure floors, they were quite small exhibits and just a, a a little layer of sand. And so every day it was possible just to sweep up all the sand and then cve it through… Read More
Do you have any suggestions for those aspiring to make a difference in the zoo world?… Read More
Again, I mean, it’s going back to understand where you’ve come from, understand your industry, be well read, be well traveled so that when it comes time to come up with a new approach, being able to think outside the box. I mean the polar bear enclosures that are built… Read More
But when I was a keeper, you never saw other, other than when I went to the states and I went either out west or down south, you never saw non-Caucasian zookeepers. ’cause culturally it was still okay. That’s, that’s not like a, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a, a… Read More