And as an animal comes out, they’d net it, spray paint it and release it. And then we just keep it out until we had, we needed all the animals painted except for the male and the last female. So then they’d be able to identify all the animals, makes… Read More
And I remember another year, another time rather, new kid, wanna do anything I could with the animals. We had an old sea lion pool, and in it they had one male sea lion, California sea lions. And they were probably six, seven females. And they all looked the same,… Read More
And it was just, it was a donut, it was a giant pool, inside, in the center, there was this rock island. And underneath the island, there was this tunnel that measured, I don’t know, three and a half feet by three and a half or four by four, that… Read More
And I remember he went in, and I don’t know why he went in with the bull or wouldn’t go out. He was trying to shift it. And then while he was in there, the gate closed and he was trapped in the yard. And he just, he panicked. I… Read More
That being said, in my early years experiences that I had working with animals, or that became chancey. The first one was my first summer actually at the farm. And there was one very tough animal there. And they always kept a bull at the farm in the dairy barn,… Read More
In terms of specific examples, there was a couple times, there were things that we wound up having to do because you you’d be grabbing animals. I mean, just to relate an early story that I always liked to tell when I was working at the zoo, very early on… Read More
And there was also, as I remember one towards the back end of the building. And you went to the zoo to see animals. Education wasn’t, as I knew it, as I thought about, if I even thought about it then, it was to go see animals, experience animals, see… Read More
Did you ever have any concerns for your safety when you were working in this area?… Read More
They didn’t have the luxury of real estate, like Brookfield, which was about 200 acres. So it was, the primate house, monkey house. I mean, there was monkey house, lion house, reptile house. They had the basic names as they were for 100 years. The primates were in cages behind,… Read More
I mean, certainly when I was there as a student, a kid, just fascinated by animals and also being in the sixties. I mean Lincoln Park was a menagerie of exhibiting animals, showing animals, most of them were in cages. They had a few, the bear exhibits, they were caged… Read More
What was the zoo like when you were there?… Read More
What kind of place did you see?… Read More
I remember them trying one year they had, oh, nevermind. I can’t remember, a turtle pool, just in the area to get out where kids could get close, there wasn’t that much contact with them though. The animals were these concrete pits kind of like, almost like the old bears… Read More
It was a bunch, the children’s zoo had a building, which had small animals in small, strange little cages that were very difficult to clean. They weren’t designed to be cleaned. They had primates perched on poles. They had a big pen in the center where they put anything from,… Read More
What were your responsibilities at the children’s zoo?… Read More
What were you, talk about your responsibilities?… Read More
Did you ever get to the children’s work or you always stayed at the farm and the zoo. No, that was my first year, when I was an animal keeper. Then the following year, the following couple years when I got the job for the summer, I was a laborer… Read More
Did I answer the second question?… Read More
We used to go ride in regularly and I never ever thought of me working at the zoo as a job. I mean, it was fun. It was a hobby. I couldn’t get enough of the zoo. Read More
I mean, it was at a low time for other horses. You know, the barns had closed down. There was no run, but they allowed, I was allowed to take the horses and exercise them and I would wind up going in the afternoons. I’d a two hour ride along… Read More