There was a publication called “International Zoo News” that covered all kinds of news all over the zoo world, everywhere in the world. And I saw he had advertised that he wanted an adult. He wanted a male gorilla, an adult male gorilla. And I thought, “You know, here’s a… Read More
And so I said, “Do you want me to follow through on it?” He said yes, and so I did. I contacted John Aspinall and I said, you know, I told him what we had, who we had, an adult male gorilla. He wasn’t totally and absolutely a giant full… Read More
(laughing) Well, the keeper, head keeper in the monkey house or the ape house actually went with, accompanied him to England. And he knew his animals, so that was okay. And it was a deal putting him in, getting him in a crate and sending him over there. It was… Read More
Now you indicated that a lot of things happened in the gorilla collection. You were there at a time when many babies were born, you were an acknowledged expert in the field. What was the relationship of Lincoln Park to probably the next person who had a major gorilla collection,… Read More
How did that come to be?… Read More
Oh no, no he did not micromanage the job at all. No, he let me essentially develop what I wanted to the job myself, and do the things that I could do best. And yeah, he was not a micromanager at all. Read More
Did- Did you have to receive permission if you wanted to buy or sell or trade an animal, or did you have carte blanche to do these things?… Read More
I’m not sure I would say that I had carte blanche to do it, and I certainly wanted to keep him informed anyway. I mean to me, that was obviously the smart thing to do, regardless, was keep him informed. I don’t wanna, you know you don’t wanna, that would… Read More
You could go back years later and read things that went on in the zoo on a specific day or a specific time, and it was just very important. You know, things don’t happen, just happen. They happen on, in a historical sequence, and the history tells that’s what’s gonna… Read More
That’s one of the things that was fun, fun to do it because it brought in new animals to the zoo and sent out other animals maybe, which was surplus to the zoo at that time. And I dealt with other zoos all over the world. And of course, obviously… Read More
Did Lester Fisher micromanage this job for you or not?… Read More
So then he came to you and said, “You got it.” Yeah, yes. Read More
What was a typical day like in the life of an assistant director at Lincoln Park Zoo?… Read More
Well, one of the things of course that I tried to do all the time was to go check on the zoo. Look at the animals in the zoo, checking what’s going on, talking to the keepers and the staff. And that’s probably what I did at first, if I’m… Read More
I did after- How did that happen?… Read More
That after a few years that I was there, the assistant director left and Gean Hartz, and I felt that I should get that job. And with my experience that I had had there and other zoos, and that I got along at that zoo. Everybody knew me, I knew… Read More
And, but I was very forceful in my desires to have it, to get it. And eventually, you know, he came around to that, came around to that conclusion also. And so he did, but I think really, I think that Les, well to start with, Les I think was… Read More
It’s not just taking them from the wild and say, here’s something for the public to look at and whatever. This is, that’s the objective of it. I mean, whether it’s conservation or not, I mean, maybe it’s a pipe dream to think that the zoos were gonna be able… Read More
What was a typical day like for you at Lincoln Park Zoo?… Read More
Now of course you were, let me preface it by saying you were general curator, but then let’s talk about you got a- Yeah, well. Read More