We had one exhibit, we had a bull corral, and that’s all we had to manage all these elephants, with babies, which make it even more crazy, ’cause they’d go where no elephant should ever go. And so we had to make a decision. So we decided then to look… Read More
Ironically, that grew out of an accident we had with a keeper, where we lost one of our keepers at the zoo to an elephant accident. And we decided after that accident, I had a meeting with the whole team and I said, okay, we’re at a crossroads. We have… Read More
We’re done, we’re over, we’re not gonna do elephants anymore. Or, if we’re gonna do elephants, the only way we’re gonna do elephants is we’re gonna do ’em big. If we’re gonna be in elephants, we’re gonna do ’em big. We’re not gonna be willy-nilly about it, we’ll make a… Read More
Do we get outta elephants?… Read More
How did it come about?… Read More
How difficult was it to accomplish?… Read More
What was your purpose?… Read More
They scoot away, they take off. ‘Cause they’re like, uh oh, something’s up. Read More
What’s going on?… Read More
And so, that goes on TV, and now we’re terrible people because the dog barked at the elephants. So the dogs are a terrible thing, and they have to go, blah, blah, blah. And so it took me about a week to put that firestorm down and explain to people… Read More
And so our elephant manager said, I’ll show you. And so he turned one of the dogs on, he told the dog to bark and he pointed towards the elephants. And so the dog darted out barking. It wasn’t actually near the elephants. He went barking. Keeper shut him down. Read More
Elephants, of course, here it is, they’re gone, right?… Read More
Never near him. Read More
Very well trained on their commands. And the elephants were out in their yard and the dogs were in the space. And at this point, there’s an electric wire across, which the elephants very much respect as well. Never had ’em go through it. Electric wire across separating the part… Read More
Like a protection dog, these dogs had an on command. Read More
They had a command to bark, right?… Read More
This is my space, keeper space, right?… Read More
Respect my space. Read More
And so it helped keep the keepers safer, because the dogs were there, the elephants wouldn’t reach out and try to grab a keeper who, for whatever reason, is too close, where they shouldn’t be, ’cause they’re talking to so and so and not paying attention. So it was another… Read More
And so there were only maybe one or two times that the elephants, amazingly, these are little Australian Shepherd dogs, right?… Read More