Mm, definitely if I think I’m right, especially if it’s an ethical issue, like bad zoos, for instance. I think you would have to really convince me that a bad zoo should not be shut. When I was president of SEAZA, I kind of took the stand and that’s like… Read More
Can you talk about your philosophy regarding giant pandas?… Read More
I mean, it’s really… Okay, you’re looking at recreation and education as a social entity, but you are also trying to get a message across to people. You’re presuming you’re talking about conservation and you’re trying to get those animals to be in somebody’s vocabulary. I mean, otherwise, unfortunately, animals… Read More
There’s this wild animals, but who cares?… Read More
So it’s really trying to get them to say, “Okay, I understand this animal. I respect it. I have a certain place for it.” So in Singapore, like for instance, people leave the zoo and they may see a presentation of orangutans, but it’s certainly not a degrading presentation. And… Read More
Can you talk to me about why you feel respect is so important?… Read More
Yeah, I think… And it is like people ask me and they say, “Well, you say you are pro-animal show. You say you have no problem with having breakfast with an orangutan. Isn’t that disrespectful to the animal?” And I said, “No, I don’t think so.” As long as long… Read More
Because what’s the purpose of a zoo?… Read More
I think the biggest problem with shutting zoos is that if you’re shut down a zoo, unless the legislation in the country is so strong, another one just as bad will open up tomorrow because it’s just how do you commercialize a set of animals?… Read More
Until the legislation is such that you have to go into a… If you’re gonna run a zoo, then you have to adhere to certain ethical and moral standards. Otherwise you shouldn’t be operating, very difficult though. Read More
What did you mean when you said zoos have a huge ethical and moral cross to bear?… Read More
Well, I think it stems from that really, from what I was just saying about the shutting down zoos. I mean, ethics is like what they should be doing. So zoos have ethical standards or at least associations have ethical standards. AZA have ethical standards, WAZA have ethical standards, which… Read More
So they should be shut down. Read More
But I think that some zoos are great. I would say zoos like Zurich, the Bronx, many American zoos, many European zoos, many Australian zoos, some zoos in Asia, Singapore definitely are great zoos. And they should be lauded for their achievements. But for most of them, I think they… Read More
But I think slowly, we should work at the… The zoo world should work at shutting down bad zoos, but it’ll never happen. Read More
You said, “I am becoming one of the zoo’s world’s greatest critics. Read More
I sincerely believe that 90% of all zoos in the world should be shut down.” You meant?… Read More
Yeah. Well, I think probably I took a little bit of… I’ve had a little bit of David Hancock’s rub off on me, and he’s sort of like a… I would say he’s a mentor and David is a very, very abrasive critic of zoos. But as over the years,… Read More
And how are you getting on?… Read More
How is it doing?… Read More