You’re not going to breed everything. In the Bronx we didn’t attempt to breed everything. It was something, we were just a holding institute. We didn’t have a lot of space for Cheetahs for example. But we got to hold cheetahs, there were more in other zoos. We exhibited the… Read More
But where is the breeding program?… Read More
I believe so. Read More
Should every zoo strive to have a breeding program?… Read More
Do what you do and do it really well and get into it. Get into it with SSP programs, that’s the Species Survival Programs and get involved, really get into very special efforts and work that way. Then if you want to have a sister park in Africa work on… Read More
Find a focus. Find something that, when you have some interest, some ability, you can afford to do it, and focus on it. Maybe it’s education, and you get a sister zoo in India or Africa, and you supply them with educational material. Write up material using their language, their… Read More
Now you’ve worked for a very large institution, the Bronx Zoo but in your opinion, what can a small or medium zoo, municipal-size zoo, do today to be involved in wildlife conservation nationally, or internationally, or locally?… Read More
At least in probably the first summer, I got the crummy jobs, the junk jobs. If a house had a cellar, then it had cellar door and cellar windows. I painted the windows and I painted the door, and it didn’t matter too much if some of the paint got… Read More
This goes back to my father. During the summer, in high school, couple of summers, I painted houses with him. I was the only one with six kids that did it, they never worked with him, but we would go and paint houses from like eight in the morning, ’till… Read More
What was the most important piece of advice you received that stayed with you throughout your career?… Read More
Was shocked when he read all that Crandall had to say about tigers. And unfortunately, that’s too much of the attitude today. That people want the information but they don’t wanna run around too much to find it. Read More
They had so much information that they put out there for young people now, if they take advantage of it And I just don’t think they do. I remember when we put some black-backed tigers down on St. Catherine’s Island, and one the people that we had working down there… Read More
Do you believe that animal keepers younger curators, are aware of and understand the knowledge of a Heini Hediger, a Lee Crandall, a Bill Conway, and why is this important that they understand those things?… Read More
I think first, to show what they have found. Presumably, what they publish is something worth being published. Yeah, I think, make what you know available to anybody in the field. Let people know that you are there, and you’re doing work with this, that, or the other thing. Just… Read More
Why?… Read More
Absolutely!… Read More
Do you feel it’s important for curators to publish?… Read More
Oh absolutely. Absolutely; there’s still so much we don’t know about the animals in our care. One of the things I really liked about my work was, it wasn’t work but what I did was, there was always something new that you could learn from them. They always had something… Read More
Knowing what you know today, would you have still have entered the field as you did, and why?… Read More
No, after I left they had the foundation, I don’t know what the relationship was, but it wasn’t a good one, they eventually closed it down. Which never would have happened, if I’d been there but people have different ideas on things. Now, today, the zoo profession has changed greatly… Read More