Others, I don’t know. What’s your position or your thoughts on, when we have the national organization, that many zoos are members of, who have recommendations, as you mentioned, that zoos will follow or try to follow, but if a zoo wants to bring something in, may not get a… Read More
They had some gazelle and said, “Oh, well, we just imported this group of addra gazelles.” And I’m going, “You have a male and two females. I mean, they’re the only ones in the country. You’re gonna have a breeding population with three animals. I mean, and how long is… Read More
Your thoughts on new trends in zoos in the last quarter century?… Read More
Drastic reduction of animal species in the collection of zoos, immersion landscaping, your thoughts on these trends or other trends?… Read More
Well, I think they’re trends just because we’re not getting animals from the wild. I mean, you have to, zoos have to think about animals as a zoo population. Not your zoo population, but a zoo population, so they’re managed much more cooperatively than they used to be. And luckily… Read More
What would you want in your zoo, from the curatorial level, that you’d wanna see, and money was not a problem, and acquisition was not a problem?… Read More
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
Oh, a new exhibit or?… Read More
What would you put together?… 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
I mean, that’s the problems I think curators are facing now, is how to maintain a healthy, a genetically healthy population. Read More
Can you do it?… 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
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