And then we had this kickback from the commercial zoos who were then still capitalizing it. And so zoos had to rethink their situations, I think, commercially. And so you had the revival of the show, like Steve Martin was bringing in like bird shows and stuff, which were deemed… Read More
I think it’s like, why do you have a carousel in zoo?… Read More
I don’t think elephants should be kept in captivity because I think that’s a huge hot potato that’s they’re gonna have to face in the future. So I really say don’t do that. Obviously, don’t do dolphins getaway or stuff, although the Chinese wanna do it. But I say I… Read More
They won’t see birds flying like that. And then you’ve got like small mammal shows where if it’s non endangered stuff and you have a lot of laughs, but not at the expense of the animals, expense of the people. I think it’s fine. I don’t have problems with that. Read More
But they still do it. But it’s more shows, which is like elephant shows, primate shows, small mammal shows, sea lion shows. A lot of people do them and call them presentations and think that it makes it more palatable if you call it presentation. Well, I say, I mean… Read More
Well, no, that’s more for shows. So I just feel call a spade a spade. I mean, we can come back to the breakfast. I think the breakfast is okay and it’s been modified. You’re not allowed to sit with the orangutan anymore. The orangutans are in the rear. That… Read More
Why?… Read More
But you don’t like the word presentation?… Read More
You had talked about breakfast and tea, and I might say, or people might say, does this type of presentation still have a place in zoos?… Read More
What was your relationship with her?… Read More
She had 5,000 people came to her funeral a week or whatever it was. She’s buried next to… I don’t know where they buried. I think he’s buried next to Dr. Ong, who was also buried in the zoo, I mean his ashes illegally. Ah Meng was…… Read More
Well, up until that Dr. Ong incident with the tourists, very good, she was fine. But after that, God, she hated me because she said, “Well, it must have been your fault. It must have your fault that I didn’t go out on rounds of the tram.” And so after… Read More
She would do. And so she was built up, not purposely built up into a sort of a star, but she became a star. And she’d met Michael Jackson, Björn Borg. Bo Derek used to come and drop off in Singapore, take a taxi up to the zoo, see Ah… Read More
And basically, she was just a mega star. Read More
I mean, okay, to get the things in the context, Singapore decreed in the late sixties that nobody is allowed to own an orangutan as a pet. Now, there were a lot of orangutans coming in as pets on ships from Borneo and Sumatra and being sold in the pet… Read More
And then when Susie got pregnant, when she was about nine or something, we took her down to the gynecologist because she was suffering from what we suspected was some kind of pregnancy toxemia. We took her down to a gynecologist and actually just hilarious, just sitting in the waiting… Read More
And so we actually had like, I don’t know, I can’t remember now, but I mean at least 15 young orangutans all at once. So they were handled, they were managed, they were kept as a social group. And that’s why we were able to keep a quite a big… Read More
I mean, you could see. Look at her. Look at her in the enclosures, her hair standing up.” Was just looking at her. Ah, it’s okay. And then one day, she was out on a mountain taking photographs. I mean, let’s go and say hello to her. I said, “I… Read More
We will go over and say hello to her.” And he goes up to her and she’s just all her hair standing up, and she’s like looking at him. And I said, “I don’t think you should go and touch her ’cause she’s gonna bite you.” And he said, “Really?”… Read More
Okay, this is a story. Every Tuesday and every Thursday of the week, he would come and visit the zoo and we’d sit on a tram and we’d go around the zoo. And he would ask for Ah Meng to be with us. And we would sit on both sides. Read More