And I’m like, well, don’t give up yet. let me work on it, let me work on it. I’m like, how am I gonna, A, I gotta sell the board we ought to do this. B, I’ve gotta sell somebody to fund it, ’cause we don’t have the money for… Read More
Most of the time I worked on figuring out how to fund a zoo, but I had to figure out how to make this happen. And so it took me almost a year, but I figured it out, and in the meantime, the property’s on the market, and they have… Read More
So I spent nights and nights and nights on the computer, Googling any kind of foundation, anything I could think of that could possibly fund this, that wouldn’t normally fund the zoo, right?… Read More
We are not gonna find a place that has that many. But okay, we got the list. So we went out and looked at the facility, and we drove in the driveway, and there’s this big lake on the left hand side and this big long driveway. And here’s this… Read More
Place was drop dead gorgeous. It’s located in the Highlands area of Pennsylvania, and the mountainous area, just absolutely gorgeous. So we get back in the car, and we’re all laughing. We took a picture of all of us together and we’re all laughing because we’re like, yeah, like hell… Read More
So the hunting was actually out there in blinds. You had a blind, and you sat in there and you did hunting. But they made it as natural as they could with what would be considered, quote unquote, “a canned hunt.” Because they let the animals go, and the animals… Read More
And so they get out a notepad and I said, okay, we need to make a needs assessment list. We’re gonna make a needs assessment list of everything we need in a conservation offsite breeding center. That’s what we’re gonna make. Conservation, research, education. We need to write that down. Read More
I’m like, hell, nothing’s gonna match that, right?… Read More
We need this, we need that. I mean, and pie in the sky kind of, we need this, we need that. We came up with a list of 48 things. 48 things. Read More
And so I said, all right, I said, get a notepad. Read More
So they get out a notepad and they’re like, oh, great, she’s gonna give us homework?… Read More
Who’s got a notepad?… Read More
She’s sitting on the console. I’ve got the research director, I’ve got the mammal curator, who was Amos Morris at the time. I’ve got the mammal curator, I’ve got a guy from Wuppertal, elephant manager. I’ve got our elephant manager, I’ve got the marketing and PR people, we’re all going… Read More
I’m paying their salaries, right?… Read More
But we’re going anyway. So I pile ’em all in there, we take off. I’ve got nine people in the car. Read More
So there’s an inch of snow that’s starting to fall on the ground, right?… Read More
One person, our little development director, ’cause if we buy this, she got to raise the money to buy it, to fund it, right?… Read More
Which actually was the thing I thought was the most interesting, ‘Cause who does that, right?… Read More
It’s miles of fencing. Anyway, and so I said, I’m gonna load up my Yukon this afternoon, anybody who wants to go can go. Pile in. I said, I’m gonna go look at this hunting ranch. Now mind, this is Pittsburgh in March. Read More
And the way I do things at the zoo is like, I like to have everybody’s opinion, right?… Read More