But he still, so when they did that, I said, I, that’s it. I’m, I’m, you know, there’s not much more for me to do here. So then I, I left on my own. But at that time, I, I consulted for about eight months and I, I I, I… Read More
A place you built to go to Houston?… Read More
I was done at Disney the last year. It was apparent that they did not really need me and they kind of made a different position for me. Same. They wanted me to run Safari, do Disney safaris to Africa, which I, which I wanted to do. I suggested it. Read More
Said, let, let’s, we’re too busy this year. Read More
You could take any species and make it, you know, very interesting. And without having to, to go with the typical stereotype opinion that giant pandas and koalas are. If you don’t have those, you don’t, you know, you’re not a really big zoo. We want, we did not want… Read More
So my first question is, what prompts you to leave Disney?… Read More
Well, Joe Rodie, who was really the lead on the whole project, the head of Matir, he had the final say. He realized that pandas were a big draw for zoos. But whether we had pandas at Disney’s Animal Kingdom or not, the people are still coming. It would not… Read More
So that was part of it. The money wasn’t really an object. Disney could have gotten pandas. I’m sure Koalas were, I would argue that, you know, they don’t do much. It’s just the name and they look cute. I said, you know, I, I don’t think I, I don’t… Read More
Why did you not consider, or did you giant pandas or koalas that might have been very popular with the public?… Read More
They, they originally hired me, said, Rick, you’re gonna help build it and then you’re gonna run it. And and Dieter was right that, that German guys, I was not prepared to run the operation side of a zoo. I could do it, but I I, there were better people… Read More
Well, that was because I was better as a builder than an operator. I think for me, the, the excitement is hiring the people, finding the right animals, providing the right facilities, moving them in that you’re just, so this, that, that was what my experience was. I had moved… Read More
You know, or something else. Everybody wanted to do it. But we were the exception to the rule because they were very sensitive that, hey, you know, these are live animals. We gotta tread carefully here. We can’t make mistakes because there’s a lot of people watching. And, you know,… Read More
You have said it was better building than running it. Why?… Read More
But, but again, like I said before, they, they just thought all animals should be left in the wild and not knowing what was going on in the wild. Because, you know, they just thought, they just thought everything was the wild was a picnic. And, and zoos were a… Read More
If it’s just gonna become a cash cow and make money for Disney, it’s not gonna fly. People are questioning the motives too much. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be something that is, has an impact that’s really beneficial to, to endangered species. So, so, so that was our first… Read More
And, and, and then that was, that was the foundation of the Disney Conservation Fund, which was very unusual because it was the only park where we were allowed to solicit donations for something other than Disney. And that was Judson Green. The head of the parks made that exception. Read More
We weren’t allowed to do, ’cause the other parks said, why, why can’t we do that for our charities?… Read More
Well, how, how, but how hard was it to sell your concept of a conservation fund to Disney?… Read More
They, they didn’t look at it like it was a good thing to do. It was just a net to them. It was a net to them. It was like, well, you know, I guess we gotta pay ’em in some way. I said, no, you’re not buying the gorillas. Read More
Although at the time, there was a family of gorillas, I think it was the Tarago Zoo in Sydney that they were selling and remember that. And, and they wanted a, a lot of money. But that was a backup. We could have taken them out of Australia, but we… Read More