I think reluctantly, everybody took it away. We took it away and took it down to our nursery, which Was, you know, really the only thing you could do. I mean, honestly it was, she was handling it very badly. Like she was holding it casually by one hand, which… Read More
And it’s actually a fairly, a real good picture, actually. It’s famous, kind of a famous picture of him leaning down and listening, you know, checking her out. And he didn’t think anything of it. ‘Cause he figured, “Well, they’re not gonna send me into a place with a dangerous… Read More
It happened at 5:00. Okay, well I’m glad if it did- It was a staff meeting, they had all these people watching and she had a long labor. Yeah, she did. Yeah, Mumbi had a long labor and there were a bunch of people there, and there were staff people,… Read More
I was taking pictures. Oh, (laughing) so was I. I was taking pictures too, but she started- It was kind of a culmination- Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh God. It was a, it’s something that I know that Fisher wanted, Les Fisher wanted very much. And he had been… Read More
Happened at 5:00, they had a giant group of people there. You know, I don’t remember that. But we knew she was pregnant obviously, and we had, Mumbi was the female’s name. And we had a pediatrician, I guess. That’s the, that we, they were, I guess a pediatrician. Read More
Obstetrician?… Read More
No, he’s a pediatrician I think, come in, and we just told him to go, and he just walked in the cage. We didn’t even tell him to do it. We opened the door, we wouldn’t go in with him. He just walked in the cage. Mel Bailey. Okay, yeah. Read More
The first gorilla birth Was a very, very emotional experience. And I still think about it today. You were privileged to see it. Yep, I’m sorry. It’s pretty silly. No, no, I can’t wait for you to describe it. Read More
Weren’t you in a staff meeting?… Read More
Now, you hadn’t been involved with a gorilla, correct me, with a gorilla birth until you came to Lincoln Park Zoo?… Read More
Or had- That’s correct, ’cause most of the gorillas that we had these other places were young anyway. No we didn’t, I wasn’t involved with a gorilla birth. But we had them, you know. Read More
Can you talk about the first gorilla birth you were involved with?… Read More
And he was living alone and it was always a, you know, a problem having a lone animal like that. And We had, there was a lot of things going on with that collection. And especially since you were bringing in animals from the wild, when it was still legal… Read More
I remember that, it was all over, you know?… Read More
And it was really, and of course yaws, it was a scourge of Africa, but of course it was so easily cured by just penicillin. And we gave her some penicillin shots and we cured her of having yaws, which is a, what it was at that time, I know… Read More
And there was a keeper, and he was working in the Children’s Zoo at that time. Boy, I know I could see him right in front of me. And I can’t remember his name now, but he was like a, he claimed to be a psychiatrist, or he was a… Read More
Can you tell us about your thoughts about the great ape collection, and maybe go into the birth of the, your experiences with the birth of the very first gorilla?… Read More
Well yeah, okay. We had some tremendous experiences with the apes there, there was a lot of different kinds, because we were getting, we would, I believe that the zoo was doing the correct thing by bringing in young gorillas, a number of them, to build a family group of… Read More
And it was really, it was a genius remark, I mean truly. It was a little thing, but man, (laughing) it was a genius remark and it worked. So it was really, I just think it was a great, his great way of doing it. Now you had many hopefully… Read More
Not really. Yeah, not really. But I remember one of the things that during our interview, during the interview that I had before being hired, Les took me, they had to do, get some medication to a llama in the Children’s Zoo. And he took me and he wanted me… Read More