And I’m sitting there with her, and I’ve got my PR person with her. And she’s got this list of questions, which clearly she didn’t write. Somebody else wrote. It came from up above, from the PETA organization. And she’s like, “How often do you chain your elephants?” And I… Read More
And they have developed very, very good strategic plans. I mean, I give ’em kudos. They are 25, 30 years ahead of us in their strategic plannings. They very carefully have looked at, here’s the way we’re gonna close all zoos, and they have put together a plan to do… Read More
We haven’t done anything you are accusing us of doing. Let me take you to the barn. Let me take you to the exhibit. Let me take you to meet the keepers. So a lot of times it’s, they’ve simply been misinformed, and drank the Kool-Aid, and a hundred percent… Read More
And so we ended up, I literally rented a trailer, a little trailer, and parked it behind the little chalet in the Children’s Zoo, and wired it all up, and brought the Zoo Society on the grounds so that they were no longer sequestered miles away, but they now were… Read More
What was your relationship, as Zoo Director, to animal rights groups and Humane Society groups over the years?… Read More
Oh, number one threat to zoos today, absolutely. Number one threat to zoos today. And it’s sad because the animal rights groups’ sole purpose is to put us outta business. The animal rights groups’ sole purpose is to put us outta business. And the extreme animal rights groups’ sole purpose… Read More
Why can’t we play nice?… Read More
“Well, blah, blah, blah.” “Well, blah, blah.” I’m like, yeah, but that was in 1975, for God’s sakes. It’s been too long. Let’s play nice, let’s play together, for the good of the zoo. Read More
What’s gonna be good for the zoo?… Read More
And they all looked at me. I mean, they didn’t know what the meeting was about. Read More
They had no idea what the meeting was about, except that I wanted to talk to ’em about the zoo, right?… Read More
And so I said, why can’t we play together?… Read More
And I said, so, we’re done with this, “We ain’t talking to each other.” We’re done with, the Zoo Society’s gonna talk to the city, the city’s gonna talk to the Zoo Society, I’m gonna talk to both of you guys. We’re all gonna talk to each other. We’re gonna… Read More
Can we play nice?… Read More
They help raise money for the zoo, which the city supports from the bottom, right?… Read More
And then all I am is the spark on the top of the candles. Read More
I’m the spark that gets all this stuff together, right?… Read More
And I demanded one, and they gave it to me. Shock. They gave it to me. So the Zoo Society was so alienated that I said, well, that’s not gonna work. We can’t do that. And so I made a pledge that every time I got in the car to… Read More
And I had this silly thing I called “the cake model.” Stupid, I know, but it worked. So I had this cake model. And so they had a big old chalkboard up there. And so I drew on the chalkboard, I drew a cake, and I said, now here’s the… Read More
There’s the cake, and the zoo society is the icing and the candles. So they let us do all the little fun stuff, like build new exhibits, and they help raise money for that. And they help us with our education programs. They help us with this, and that, and… Read More