But there was no in-house, full-time veterinarians in most zoos. So for starters, there weren’t many zoo vets. I think at that time there was 46, 48, something like that in all the zoos in all the country. And then women, there were very few. I think maybe I can… Read More
Absolutely, oh yeah. Well for starters, there weren’t many veterinarians period. when I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, Dr. Tom Meehan was the only veterinarian there. Now they have a ton of veterinarians. We’re here at Brookfield, they have 12 veterinarians, it’s crazy. But back then, like I said,… Read More
Now are you one of the few women veterinarians at this time in the profession?… Read More
And so this was his comfort zone. Being in that exhibit was his comfort zone. That was his home. And so he tried to crawl back in. Well unfortunately the ladder didn’t hold like it did on the way up. And it knocked over, and he fell down, he broke… Read More
And they don’t read a book. So, you’d walk in every single day and I would have an interviewer ask me, “What’s a typical zoo day?” There is no such thing. You never know what you’re gonna be dealing with when you walk in that door. It could be a… Read More
I mean, I think that’s one of the most fun things about zoos is that the animals don’t read the book, right?… Read More
Right?… Read More
And in reality, that’s their home. That’s their home space. This animal was born in that facility. Read More
This was all the home he knew, the polar bear, right?… Read More
But anyway, we called the alert, and by the time we got our darting equipment and everything ready to dart the bear, the poor guy had tried to get back across the ladder that he came in. They’re very intelligent animals. And so he had tried to figure out how… Read More
And the zoo’s gonna open in an hour, right?… Read More
We had, at that time, two yearling polar bear cubs that had been born there. And during the day before, one of the maintenance staff had worked on something in the moat, and had left the ladder there in the moat. And so the polar bear had flipped the ladder… Read More
So what kind of zoo did you see when you got there and as you were working there?… Read More
Well, we had a collection of a whole bunch of really neat animals. I mean, we had the classic, tigers and lions, polar bears, which were more plentiful at that time in zoos. We had a polar bear escape. That was fun. I was sitting in my office in my… Read More
Well, I’m always interested in how animals are managed. Part of the veterinarian’s challenge is that we see the animal when the animal is sick or thought to be sick, although I firmly believed that, one of the things Tom taught me was it’s so important that you also know… Read More
There weren’t too many vets that were doing that at the time. But I love looking at that kind of data, and doing a survey, and finding out all that kind of information. So I think that’s the kind of the scientist in me, and so that was really interesting… Read More
But anyway, I was a veterinarian and I wanted to expand on my knowledge of what was going on in the zoo world. SSPs and studbooks were in their infancy at that time. So I begged Satch Krantz to let me go to the very first studbook keeper workshop. And… Read More
How did that come about?… Read More
Well, if you’re the director, the veterinarian in charge, why did you become the international studbook keeper for the Black Howler Monkey?… Read More
But anyway, so it was a hard decision, but one I made to go down there, and I cried all the way to two states away because I knew for sure that this man was not gonna follow me. There was no way that somebody was gonna follow little old… Read More