I will tell you that they’ve had a contractual bird show in Milwaukee for years and when Kim Smith was the curator, Walter Crawford provided the bird show. And it was very popular, but it was very rollerskating parrots and very showbiz type. And Kim contracted with Steve Martin. No… Read More
The curators decide what the play is going to be about. And they write songs, create puppets, and the the actors go around with the puppets and the kids interact with the puppets. It’s great, yeah, that’s worked. I think Central Park Zoo started that. They started a theater program… Read More
And I think that’s been much more effective than the animal shows themselves. Read More
If the animal activists want a dialogue, yes, they can achieve it, but I’m not sure, many animal activists don’t. I mean, I can tell you, talking to Pat Derby and others, it was, I mean, had no interest in what I had to say. Dialogue means two people have… Read More
We had talked about the animal rides, but animal shows like birds in flight, do you think they helped to get the message across to visitors about a group of animals or about conservation?… Read More
What do you think their value is?… Read More
I don’t know what training you could have. I mean, when I ran into my animal rights problems, I had people that I knew in animal rights groups that I could call and say, okay, this is what’s going on, you know, from your perspective. But if you get someone… Read More
If you don’t have a nasty controversy that you can raise money on, you’re not gonna point out what’s good about a zoo. So I don’t know who would provide the training and whether it would be helpful or not. Read More
Do you think then zoos can or can’t achieve a dialogue with animal activists?… Read More
I think the, and again, I mean, I’ve been retired since 2007. So, I mean, I go to the Milwaukee Zoo and I’ve been there several times. I think the emphasis on animals in the wild tends to detract from the mission of the zoo and what zoos do. I… Read More
We collected fecal samples for a year during, well, during Eve’s pregnancy and the vets took blood samples who could send ’em to Front Royal and they could create charts. So Patricia could just get a fecal sample from a female she suspected of being pregnant and could run the,… Read More
Would you say that curators and professional staff, based on your experience, need training on how to interact with animal rights groups?… Read More
Do you feel it’s important for curators to publish?… Read More
I don’t know how many, what I’ve… I think that it’s important for curators to share animal information. I don’t really know whether there’s the emphasis on scientific journals. I mean, I found the American Keeper Forum much more interesting in terms of day-to-day keeper work than any of the… Read More
Who do I talk to?” In talking about, what would you say or think is the largest professional problem facing US zoos today and identify what can we do about correcting the problem?… Read More
They may have heard of Conway as the director of the zoo. They’d have no idea who Hediger and Crandall are. I mean, I made sure all the keeper areas had a copy of Crandall’s book and Hediger’s books were, and nobody I worked with had heard of them before,… Read More
How important is it for them to know?… Read More
I think it gives them, now I haven’t read the books in years, so I’m not sure how they stand, you see, Walker, I used Walker all the time when I started at the National Zoo. So Ernest Walker, I thought was great in terms of just mammals and just… Read More
They need to, well, even even keepers, you do not have a job in a zoo where you’re not working with people. You’re always going to be working with people. You need to know how to work with people, how to, you know, whether as a collaborative or manage people. Read More
The other thing is is I think they need to look back and tend to think historically, ’cause I remember hearing, oh, well we do it so much better than they used to do it. You know, this is what they used to do and we do this. There’s no… Read More