And so we developed a formal partnership with them, one of the very first to work with them. So we did several projects with them. We went to Africa and collected African elephant semen from wild elephants. That’s a hoot. That’s a lot of fun. That’s one of the most… Read More
What did it bring to Pittsburgh?… Read More
What was your relationship with the Institute for Zoological and Wildlife Research and why did you have the partnership with them?… Read More
We had, oh my gosh, the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research is incredible. Dr. Thomas Hildebrand and his team out of Berlin are phenomenal. They’re the world’s leaders in reproductive biology and physiology in wild animals and exotic animals. The world’s leaders. And they go all over the world… Read More
Why do you say that land conservation is something zoos should be involved with?… Read More
And I read every one of ’em cover to cover many, many times, because they had so much information in ’em. So whether you take that book and it ends up on your iPad and you read it that way, or whether you listen to these wonderful video archive sessions,… Read More
Well, I think that land preservation is a natural extension of conservation efforts. It’s land conservation, basically. We have conservation easement on the ICC, so it can’t be developed and turned into anything except for what it is, a natural environment. So I think it’s so important that it’s a… Read More
That’s annoying. And they’re like, oh, that’s a new app, we gotta work on that part. But yeah, we need to include conservation any way we can. It’s been said that many newer, younger zoo and aquarium professionals are computer curators, with little knowledge of the precepts of Heini Hediger,… Read More
How important for the future of zoos is it to keep this link with the past?… Read More
Extremely important. Extremely important. In this day and age, right now, sadly, we’re into the cancel culture in some respects. And I think that what I know, what others know in our industry, is that we need to learn from our mistakes, especially when we’re working with wild animals. Because… Read More
And so it would ding and you had no choice, everybody looks at the phone when it dings, right?… Read More
And so it would ding, and everybody’s like, so it was pretty funny because, I went by, when we first put it in, the little sound box dings too, where it comes off of. And we had to fix that. And so I was walking around the zoo and everything… Read More
And I’m like, what the heck is that?… Read More
Absolutely. I mean, every single education program at our zoo ended with some kind of conservation thing you could do at home. So here’s something you can do. So every single person that walked out of one of our education programs had something they could do, whether it was recycling,… Read More
And so incorporating conservation messages into that is key. However, they have to be short, concise, in this day and age, and impactful. You can’t write a paragraph about something on a graphic these days, because people don’t read it anymore. They don’t spend that much time at a graphic. Read More
And every time you pass by an exhibit, it would ding and give you a fun fact about that exhibit, and that animal, or whatever. This tiger’s pregnant, or did you know that rhinos, or whatever. Read More
They’re about building relationships and building trust for the people that you’re working with. Because, as you’ve said, people give to people. And that’s absolutely true. People give to the zoo because they trust, and respect, and have worked with, and have met and know the leadership there. And so… Read More
And then the board assisted whenever they could to open a door into a foundation, to go with us for a foundation ask, and things like that. Or a corporate ask. Read More
Would you say all newly constructed exhibits should incorporate a conservation conclusion, or any exhibit?… Read More
How active was your board of directors in getting money?… Read More