I want them in a nice, this nice exhibit.” She says, “Oh, we own a hospital.” So the city was, there’s all kinds of weird things. They owned a hospital, not in the city of San Francisco, but somewhere down in the peninsula, down south. “We own that hospital. We… Read More
That’s what we’ve gotta have.” Well, the only place I could get those, because you know the Australian zoos do not value them very highly, ’cause they’re their own animals, I guess like us exhibiting a raccoon, and they don’t care about them, so they never had them. They never… Read More
But at any rate they did, they supplied us with six koalas, and well the Australian government was going crazy about making these, you know, sure that everything was right. We had to send our bamboo to see they would eat it, which of course they would, because you know,… Read More
He was doing something for the feds, to pass on, on the exhibit. Well, he came and said, “They’ll never survive. They’re all gonna die here.” He said, “The public is gonna make sure that they die here. You know it is,” and he just really, really, you know, wanted… Read More
And was it all worked off the master plan?… Read More
Basically, yes. I think that when we built the koala exhibit, there was another one that, that was very amusing in a way, exhibit or doing it. Feinstein, Mayor Feinstein got involved with Australia somehow. (laughing) I don’t remember how, and she got nutty about getting koalas. And I said,… Read More
I had Craig, the veterinarian, do a survey, research the basic cause of death of koalas in captivity. I said, “You find out,” because the veterinarians have their own database. I said, “What is the reason that these guys, you know, die in captivity?” And of course, I think I… Read More
I said, “We can leave the pool the way it is, but we wanna do other things to make it right for the penguins.” ‘Cause you know, these penguins, they we gonna come from South Africa. You know, the Jackass penguins, of course. Which, a penguin’s, you know, a penguin. Read More
Take it and run. These are for the penguins, this is what we want. We’re getting a whole bunch of these.” And I had Craig, the veterinarian, doing research on the proper food, the best food we can get them, and we did the whole four yards on it, whole… Read More
Some we had to take care of, and we had a whole bunch of people hand-raising them, that they wouldn’t take care of, and we did. I can’t tell you how many, I don’t know where they stand now, but it has to be that, one of the most successful… Read More
So I want a lot of pelicans, of pelicans. Of penguins, I don’t want a lot of pelicans actually, as a matter of fact but, “I want a lot. I mean, as many as you can get for that money that you owe us from the okapi deal, which was… Read More
‘Cause you got that whole long swim, you know?… Read More
And that was before my time, you know. But when I got here, I learned about it and I said, Well one of the things that I wanted to do was get animals, bring animals to the zoo that were animals that people wanted to see, and let them help… Read More
It’s gotta go for something worthwhile.” So I told them, I told Hunts, “I want a flock of penguins, many as I can get.” ‘Cause you know, what’s the point?… Read More
Penguins need a lot, need a big group to breed, and to bring in five or six, what’s the point of that?… Read More
Were you side dealing with animal dealers?… Read More
No, no I- How were you trying to acquire, or move animals?… Read More
Well, we dealt with, well one thing of course that we did, and that was a really fabulous move was the, prior to my time, the same guy who, the same director who had let this girl take the gorilla out of the zoo, wanted to get an okapi for… Read More
During your time, was it difficult to replace animals?… Read More
Were you dealing mostly with zoos at the time?… Read More