I mean, I’m sure that she wasn’t in any shape to bear that. So we had to go out and we had to tailor our message, and make sure that we went out there and were clear that yes, a horrible accident had happened, but we weren’t going to go… Read More
Well, given your experience with elephants, what’s your view regarding zoos maintaining elephants, and how it should be done correctly?… Read More
So that was one of the hardest things to manage, because people in the world, that’s the worst thing about social media is people can say whatever they want to say under the cloak of anonymity. And so people say stuff you shouldn’t say, you have no right to say. Read More
They were just vicious. And we had to shut down our Facebook page completely because people were so vicious and against her, not against the zoo, against her. Read More
It’s bad enough, but to be vilified in the world?… Read More
And I’m like, how could you do that?… Read More
I thought there was glass there.” But we, as parents go, but there, for the grace of God, go I, right?… Read More
I mean, you can let the kid go for two seconds on a busy street and they dart out into traffic. I mean, you try everything you can do to keep a child safe, but if you’re a parent, you know that there are times when a split second something… Read More
We had had a million people the year before and, gosh, 850, 900,000 the year before go through that exhibit. Never had an issue. And, it was just a sad situation. Very, very sad. The challenge there that you don’t think you’re gonna have, well, there’s a lot of challenge… Read More
And so the little boy stood up there, and then he put his hands up like this and she thought he was leaning on glass, but still, he was still four foot up on a graphic. But she thought he was leaning on the glass. And that’s what she said… Read More
And several our exhibits before she got there did have glass, right?… Read More
We talk about the things you do as a zoo director that you never think you would do. Well, I’ve had the great fortune of talking to the coroner twice about the results of necropsies. And I’ve had the sad job of telling a wife that she needs to go… Read More
And we had a walkway, a deck above the painted dog exhibit, 14 feet high. And on that exhibit it had slanted graphics so that people wouldn’t put their kids up there, wouldn’t sit their kids up there, because it was slanted backwards so you wouldn’t do that. And it… Read More
Were the lessons learned different from the other incident?… Read More
Or were there different ones?… Read More
Different ones in that case. That was hard, too. So we had a mother who had a two-year-old child who came to our school programs in the morning. They came and attended a school program. I was not there that day, it was a Sunday. But I was home, I… Read More
Do not do that to the family. I mean, people were camped out. The magnitude of it’s just incredible. People were camped out at the young man’s home, media were camped out there, they were banging on people’s doors, they were banging on the neighbor’s doors next door, they were… Read More
And then we went through, everybody has an opinion and a thought process, and managing all that, managing the media, managing the PR. I mean, we had media that wanted to show up in droves to the funeral. And I was able to call that off because of the relationships… Read More
They loved what they were doing. And so they did not sue us. They didn’t actually respond to any of the ambulance chasers that came after them promising them big money if they sued the zoo. They were very understanding that it was just a horrible accident and it was… Read More
You gotta lead. I mean, if you don’t lead any other time, that’s when you gotta lead. And so you have to be able to assure them that everything’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay. This is a horrible accident, it’s a terrible thing, wasn’t our plan, but we’re… Read More