The Wildlife Conservation and Management Committee. That name has since changed. I’m not even sure what it’s called to this day, but it was the first effort on- It was a recognition and effort by the AZA that if we did not manage the animals scientifically within our collections, we… Read More
Zoo ARKS, I’m not sure what the name is. Clearly it could no longer be called ISIS after what happened in the Middle East. That was not in AZA. That was a totally independent international nonprofit. That was a very real learning experience for all of us because of the… Read More
And what revelations opened your eyes when you were now the president of the association?… Read More
There was a lot going on that first time, and not just the year that I served as president, but the terms that I served on the board. I remember taking a vote, raising my hand to form the WCMC. Read More
Which is?… Read More
I like to think I was a big proponent always of animal welfare. I always tried to put the welfare of the animals first. You had a… As your tenure at the zoo, you had a profession, you had a professional staff. Yes, yes. Read More
And how important was professional growth for your staff to you?… Read More
I actively encouraged our animal staff, from curators down to keepers, to become involved in the AZA, studbook keepers, TAG chairs, TAG committees. I just felt it was very important for them, for the zoo, for our place within this profession, the professional association. And they all prospered from that. Read More
They looked at states that had no marine mammal exhibits, aquariums, whatever and that had weak, dare I say easily influenced state legislatures, and they picked South Carolina. So they got a bill introduced into the state legislature that to ban the exhibition of marine mammals in South Carolina. When… Read More
HSUS brought in their experts, and lo and behold, it passed. So to this day, (laughs) you can’t exhibit marine mammals in South Carolina, which was kind of interesting when the last thing I built was a $17 million sea lion exhibit. And I had to go back and work… Read More
So let’s say the mayor said, “I want to paint the elephants purple.” He only had two votes on the Zoo Commission, so that would never happen. So when they, it took them a while to realize. It took, when I say they, when somebody got elected to one of… Read More
Now during your time, your extended time of 43 years at the zoo at the helm, what was your relationship to animal rights groups and humane society groups over the years, and develop a philosophy about dealing with them and… I can summarize that in two words. The South. (laughs)… Read More
You know, I don’t think there was ever. Never say never. I’m not aware of a PETA chapter in South Carolina. We had a very weak HSUS. I thought we had a very weak HSUS presence, but I learned the hard way that we didn’t. I don’t know what year… Read More
We had a huge anti-property tax movement. I think it swept the whole country, started in California. And those people who were elected, they had a group called We the People. They ran a lot of people for local office, and a lot of them got elected on the platform… Read More
There were other, you know, nonprofits and other agencies within the Midlands, we call the middle of South Carolina the Midlands, who were having to teach these people that, you know, when you call 911 and you need an ambulance, it’s gotta show up, you know. And so they were… Read More
They were more in line of the true public servant than some of these yahoos that didn’t want to raise taxes, and I dealt with that until the day I retired. Thankfully, I had no involvement. I say no, virtually no involvement in state government. State legislature had nothing to… Read More
From?… Read More
Oh boy, I learned a lot. Mainly not to trust a politician. I think I learned what everybody’s learned who’s lobbied any elected official, either from the president of the United States down to a local city council. They’re a different breed of people. When I became director and even… Read More
And I was, I just loved it. I loved the construction. I loved the meetings with the architects. I loved the design process. And they were all huge hits. So in 1986, we had 460,000 visitors. In calendar year 1990, we had 1,012,000 visitors. So we almost tripled attendance. Read More
All right, you indicated, you said, I learned things from lobbying. Read More