Well, once again, the business has evolved over thousands of years. But in my tenure it certainly has evolved, the things that were available or known in the seventies to me were still many of the old school ways. I mean, we didn’t have the darts that are available today. Read More
You talked about your relationship with the elephant and handling the elephant. You talked about netting, some of the skills like netting skills, some people would say are eroding because fewer animals have to be handled in that way. And there’s more training techniques and so forth, positive, negative. Read More
Probably about it’s eight inch tusks. And when she got the electric shock, she backed off and she broke off part one tusk. it was just split. And we knew we had to do something about it and we didn’t know how well she would do it. But once again,… Read More
And so we had enough sense on, okay, we’ll put a plate over this light switch and not use this. But we used to call bunny the educated elephant, this door, she would open this keep door, which wasn’t locked with her trunk. And there was another light switch and… Read More
That was a routine, which was common in zoos at the time. And we also, she was scared of thunder. And when there was a thunderstorm, which was pretty regular in event, we would chain her up. The chains, I mean, we used to say was a security product. I… Read More
There was a light, there was a door in front of the exhibit and this was the keeper area. It was about eight foot. And then about six foot wide. And then there’s little safety barrier to keep the public out. Or it was just open space. And there was… Read More
And she was trained. She would respond to verbal commands easily. She was very docile. I mean, I worked with her. I became like the elephant hoof trimmer by default. Maybe, I don’t know. It wasn’t something that I relished doing, I would working with the elephant she responded to… Read More
Well the elephants was elephant. They had one elephant that they acquired as a young Asian elephant. When the building opened in 1955, she lived in a stall, I’m guessing was probably 30 by 25 in the building. And then there was this large, I mean, large by standards in… Read More
Well, I mean you to hear John, John thought of himself as a teddy bear and Frank Thompson was the director. So I knew Frank in terms of talking to him, I started talking to him more for advice after John left, less than a year after I arrived. And… Read More
You didn’t have any real elephant experience when you came to Mesker Park Zoo, but how did that evolve with the elephant or elephants that were there and what kind of exhibit was it?… Read More
Did you feel from either what you heard or knew that there was a different type of style?… Read More
I mean, you could see the facility, but the diet or whatnot, how they were maintaining what they were giving the animal that they were successful with, and I say successful is, I want to say in the beginning, in the sixties, I would think that you were successful with… Read More
You mentioned the director, John Zara, when you were there, had more of a directorial management style, did you know Frank Thompson or did you hear things?… Read More
I thought it was tremendously tremendous. So important, one of the most important things you could do. A, networking, though we didn’t call it networking in the seventies, meeting people, learning who they are, learning who you are, what kind of person you are, the papers that were given, learning… Read More
Just a quickie on conferences, did you find conferences beneficial to your professional growth?… Read More
Well, I mean, John would, you have different relationships with different people, but different directors, with different curators and you John how he became the zoo director. I mean, he was the general curator and was promoted when Frank Thompson was the director of the zoo left. And it was,… Read More
I went to as many regional conferences as he had allowed me to go. I wasn’t allowed to go to national conferences when John was there initially because he went to national conferences and we were too small. I mean too small to have two people going at the same… Read More
Were you able as a zoologist or a curator to make recommendations, you’re in the collection now, to the director to say, we should do this, we should change this, and how did he take it?… Read More
I guess it was kind of still the old school training of zoo back in the 70s, where I didn’t have formal training in terms of management. Certainly way in the future, I mean there were classes, the city of San Francisco offered stuff in terms of taking classes. I… Read More
And how did you have any idea, you’re still young, do you have any management style?… Read More