And that’s how the sea otters actually came to us. We were on a huge aircraft. It was just our staff and four sea otters, which was, to this day, I think, kind of funny. But it was very good for us because I don’t know that that one even… Read More
Or are they also interested in the fishes?… Read More
Would you say animal rights activists are more interested in marine mammals or, and the otters and the whales and so forth?… Read More
It was that level of paranoia because of these guys’ presence. So they did a good job as far as voicing their opinion, if you will, but they didn’t stop our activities. And ultimately when you got the animals back, also you had to do it under high security in… Read More
So it was, it was heavily guarded. There was times, I remember we would move an animal during the evening hours when people might not be expecting it. And often it was more a matter of logistics, it was better. Number one, it’s cooler, which the marine mammals needed cooler… Read More
I was looking out the back, are we being trailed?… Read More
Well, he was waiting for backup. And when they arrived he said, okay, separate. Give ’em room, let ’em drive out. And as we slowly crept through the crowd, them still banging on the windows. I remember one individual leaping on the hood and flipping us off right through the… Read More
I remember when I got out, I’m looking around, there’s anybody with, I’m walking through the terminal, I’m like, is there anybody still following me?… Read More
And I thought, what’s going on?… Read More
You know where we need some help here. Finally one police officer shows up. And I thought, okay. And he really didn’t do anything. Read More
And I’m saying to my assistant, the driver, I said, where are the cops?… Read More
Well, we had taken an alternate route, come in at another city further north and had rented a truck and we had transport containers and we drove the animals down to San Diego and got ’em in their tanks without the activists even knowing this is a kind of machinations… Read More
The another sidelight of this is that when it was, I think we’d had the animals two weeks. I’m not a marine mammal trainer, so I, I said to the assistant curator, I said, you know, I’m gonna head back to Chicago. You’ve got a staff here that can care… Read More
So we get in the car and we start driving. The activists run around our facility, it’s a city block, and they get to the east side and we just were able to pull out before they surrounded the car and made us stop. We had, we couldn’t drive other… Read More
And we show it on a map, this is what we think it is. And they said, no, no, no, no, that’s not the Southern California, but it’s a much smaller area. So that we were more concentrated and would probably not realize success. This actually became contentious. We hired… Read More
And just like the ancient Mariners, when you get to an area and you see a huge flock of birds just over the water, probably feeding, that’s where you’re gonna find fish that they’re feeding on. And also dolphins, hopefully, that are feeding on the fish. And that’s, that was… Read More
It’s already been issued by the government, it’s legit. And this is where we’re collecting the, the big deal was the Richard Donner Flotilla that was gonna try and thwart our efforts. They were gonna try find us number one out on the ocean and then get between us and… Read More
Sure, sure. The collection, when I became Marine Mammal curator, the collection was pretty well set. Bill Breaker, the director, had basically overseen that prior to my coming on board and said, Pacific White sided dolphins, beluga whales, sea otters, harbor Seals, California sea lions. We also were head put… Read More
So had to go to the research and there’s actually surveys that are done by the federal government that identify approximate numbers of animals in a given population. So we said, okay, we’re going to collect off the Southern California bite, B-I-G-H-T, and it’s a huge area off the coast… Read More
One of the first pushbacks was by activists saying, well, what does that mean?… Read More