The magic kingdom. And I’m walking this individual down the north stairs of the Oceanarium. And at the bottom there was a tide pool exhibit, and above it was a tree with an eagle and a nest. And the wings were spread like this. And before we got to the… Read More
We’d blown the treasury on the oceanarium and we never did get animatronics. Read More
Were there any experiences then when you started that changed your notion of what an aquaquarium should be?… Read More
I was like, whoa. That’s what I learned about care and taking care of that animal and how to feed it and everything beyond that. Way back before my time, we actually had a tursi ops, a bottle mills dolphin at the end of gallery one, which in retrospect was… Read More
The animal weight, as I recall, 230 pounds, it was the shell was like this, just huge. The head was about basketball size and we took four of us and carefully got em outta the exhibit. ’cause they can extend their neck pretty far and easily snap off a finger… Read More
Chico? The River Dolphin was very unique. He was at the end of Gallery five, and it would’ve been probably about 20,000 gallons of water. We also had a, my gallery, this large alligator snapping turtle, which they’re not found as far north as Chicago, but they, they’re found in… Read More
He’s not eating. And I’m like, how do we do that?… Read More
When we started building special exhibits with live animals, we had a, a team of aqua that had to facilitate the care and the setting up of the fishes environments. So that was probably, I’d say probably six people and special exhibits alone. So. Read More
And was there any exper, well the other question, were there any special animals at that time that were unique?… Read More
Yeah. Pretty much only men in the fish’s department. And I would guess, I don’t know, 10 people, something like that. There were six galleries and there were six people responsible for the galleries, and then two guys responsible for the tributaries. Former balanced from the small Asian motif area. Read More
And this, the workforce when you started was five people, 25 people, only men?… Read More
But it wasn’t until I became curator of marine mammals that I got to sit at the big table. Read More
And he enjoyed sitting at our company and he knew the scientific names as well as we did. He was very proud of that. And so I kind of got to know him first at that level where we could just sit and chat. But it was always like, oh,… Read More
It’s like, only when you’re in trouble. Read More
I’ve been looking all around behind the scenes, I can’t find one Aquarius. I’m like, I’m not sure. I mean, they must be behind the scenes. They’re working somewhere. Maybe they’re in a meeting, goes, geez, you know, make sure those people do their jobs. So as an Aquarius, as… Read More
I remember if Bill Breaker ran into me one time, and I think it was assistant curator, he’s like, where’s everybody?… Read More
Aquarius, did you have contact with the director and at that senior level or not?… Read More
And he come down to Jim Robinette, oh, he’s not here. Ha ha ha. I’m like, funny guy. He was a nice guy. Not overly knowledgeable. I mean, I, I think he may have come in through our janitorial staff. So, you know, as far as knowledge about keeping animals… Read More
It’s like, we never even did that when I started. And now it’s an actual full-time job with a staff of, I bet probably half dozen people. It’s a big part of their operations. So it was, it’s much simpler back then. I also remember on the mezzanine level, we… Read More
Yeah. Of the whole aquarium. And then the director of the aquarium now referred to as a president slash ceo Who was the assistant director when you started Lou Reimers. Lou Reimers often seen with a cigar in his mouth in his office. He was there forever. I’m not sure… Read More