And I, you know, it was a two-way street. It may have been your idea, but now, now I’m trying to remember, you know, that we would do something significant for you that would help gorillas in the wild. And because we all, in the end, we wanted to help… Read More
Well, it was the only species that we did this with. I mean, the others, a lot, most of the animals were free people just, you know, they, they, they, they were what we called surplus animals back then. So, but, but with we, I mean, we had to pay… Read More
When was it implemented before there were animals?… Read More
When the zoo opened, when Animal Kingdom opened?… Read More
He just passed away a few months ago. So as part of all of this, you had recommended this conservation fund that you wanted to do, although you had worked with Lincoln Park on this specific fund, but you wanted to have Disney have a conservation fund. Read More
Was this well received by your bosses?… Read More
If, if what what would incentivize Lincoln Park to, you know, consider doing something like this?… Read More
Because they could use the room too. But they, they didn’t need to do it. So then we just developed a conservation fund. And so we put this amount of money into a conservation fund, a significant amount of money. And, and in return, we got Gino and two females,… Read More
And he was such an amazing animal. And, you know, we talked about his history. He was born at the Rotterdam Zoo, and his mother didn’t take care of him, so they had to bottle raise him. And, and the director there, Dick Van Dam, I think it was, he… Read More
He said yes. You know, if you, if if, because because they weren’t designated to go any place else at that point, because you hadn’t told, you hadn’t let the SSP know, I think that you had available. ’cause you, you could have kept, you know, you know, both, both… Read More
There’s Gorilla capital. And if I can make, if they, if they think it’s the best place to go, would you be okay with that?… Read More
Right. And, and then I think you, you know, you had to, you had to recommend it. And then we had to go, then we said, well, we can’t buy ’em. And, but we gotta do something here. Read More
So, so then I, then I went to you guys in Lincoln Park, and I don’t know if you wanna, if, if you, you wanna tell that story?… Read More
I have to tell that story. So you, you remember it, I think better than I do. But I remember we came to visit and, well, first of all, I thought to myself the, the, the, the gorilla coordinator was a guy named Dan Wharton who worked at the Central… Read More
Some of the hippos came from overseas. I remember that. You know, we, we got young hippos. ’cause young hippos got along. If you put an older cranky female that, that didn’t work. So, so, so, but all but they’re social animals and they wanna be together. And then, and… Read More
I don’t mean to be arrogant, but it’s not the Disney way. And we’ll, you know, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s the best exhibit. It’s, it’s better than a lot of the zoos that are waiting in line. But you can’t, you know, you can’t tell a zoo,… Read More
We were gonna get them, we’re gonna rescue ’em outta Kruger. ’cause they were due to be cold. But then that year they put a moratorium on culling. So, okay, we’re not gonna do that. We’re getting lu anyway, protesting that were getting animals from Africa and that, that, that… Read More
You can’t say, well come back in five years and it’ll look really impressive. That’s not Disney. Opening day looks like, you know, it’s a finished product. So the crocodiles couldn’t be, oh, well they’re, they’re gonna get bigger. No, we had to have, you know, three meter, nine foot,… Read More
I said, Andrew, how do we do this?… Read More
He says, I said, we both said, we get all males and I’ll put ’em in a small area because they, they don’t fight when they’re all together. When you give ’em too much room, they get territorial. He says, I’ll put ’em all together, only males. And we, and,… Read More