I mean, we had, Bob Barker came, Kevin Nealon came, we had protests outside the zoo and just trying to get elephants out of the zoo. Well, the keepers were accused of, brought up on animal cruelty charges, using some of the tapes that Don had done for training purposes. Read More
And were you assigned the job then to deal with this controversy or to be the representative?… Read More
We still have African elephants. They got rid of the elephant rides. And finally I told Bruce that I could manage the other animals and he took over managing the elephant keepers and the elephant program. This is when the whole protected contact or voluntary contact was in place or… Read More
Now after you took over the title of curator of large mammals, did you have management issues that you had to deal with that you recollect were major deals?… Read More
Oh, yeah, I mean, not necessarily with the keepers. I mean, with elephants. The elephants at Milwaukee became very controversial. We had, this was just after Chuck started in 1990, 1991. I had three Asian elephants and one Asian elephant was getting increasingly aggressive at another Asian elephant and at… Read More
And so we ended up sending her to Hawthorn-Mellody Farms, which created just a big fear. We had an animal rights activist who played French horn for the Milwaukee Symphony, took a leave of absence to work on this to save Lota. And, I mean, I could see her just… Read More
So you had to deal with union issues?… Read More
Oh yeah. Regarding- Whatever. of the collection. Well, with management issues, whether it, you know, on whatever grievance was at at the time, it usually wasn’t managing the collection. It was always scheduling, you know, or not getting what they wanted, or whatever. You just have to explain this is… Read More
You know, it’s all about this, this is a problem we’re having. It was never anything that I worried about, so. Read More
What would your staff say about your management style?… Read More
I don’t know. I did have the union steward, after he retired, came back once and apologized to me for being so hard on me, ’cause he thought that I was pretty good after all at what I did. So that probably was the best, ’cause, yeah, Germany and I… Read More
Any tricks of the trade for managing people that you developed?… Read More
Like, oh my God, what did I do?… Read More
When someone wants to talk to you, never guess what they wanna talk to you about, ’cause you’re always wrong. Just wait until they talk to you (chuckles) ’cause you get worried. Read More
Five or six years, maybe more than that, since I started, since I retired, so. And Pat’s long gone. You had all these people who were working for you as curator of large mammals, or when you were general curator. Read More
What was your management style?… Read More
I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of it as a management style. You know, you just listen, you listen to people and see what their problems are and try to fix their problems. And if you can’t, you can’t. You tell ’em why. Can’t say it’s always successful, but. Read More
They have, the conservation department is in the Society, yeah. They provide funds for keepers, for Milwaukee County employees to do conservation projects. Pat the Cat is a project that’s been going on for a number of years, ’cause this is when, but with Boese’s work with Runaway Creek, he… Read More
Every school in Belize had copies of “Pat the Cat.” And so that’s taken on a life of its own. And the profits from the book helped the keepers go down and work with the keepers at the Belize Zoo every January. The registrar has been down and work with,… Read More
So that’s been going on for, what, five years now?… Read More