I came home in middle of supper, six o’clock or so he called and he said, “She’s down, she won’t get up.” Said, oh god, we gotta do a cesarean section now. So everybody had gone home. We had the night keeper and we had a friend of ours, a… Read More
And I had all the instruments there, and we tied her front legs to one palm tree back legs to another palm tree and shaved her side, left side and got ready. In fact, I started the incision and it started to pour down rain. So we covered up the… Read More
600 pounds, 700 maybe for the male. Cape buffalo weighs 1200 pounds. So they’re half the size. But we did not cut down on the amount of food. So they got really fat and we just didn’t keep on top of the whole thing. Well, one day the keeper came… Read More
Oh, forest buffalo weighs what?… Read More
We put all the lions in the night house, and drug these things into the outside exhibit. But they had gotten out of a giraffe exhibit that had rock base to it. I mean, they were big boulders in there, and how they dug out, I don’t know. But they… Read More
I got in the pickup truck and I drove around the zoo and there was no lights in the zoo. It was perfectly dark. Couldn’t find the hyenas. So I figured, okay, I’m gonna have to walk around. So I got outta the truck, and I started walking around the… Read More
He ran back there with that dart and the other two were sniffing around what’s going on, what’s going on. So I went up while they were there, walked right up to them and shot the other two. Had all three of them knocked out within well, 45 minutes after… Read More
So I figured the only thing I could do would be to try and shoot them with a capture gun, and tranquilize them. So I drove up to the hospital, I (indistinct) up six darts, figuring I could miss each animal one time. But I had three of them. I… Read More
How am I gonna catch three hyenas in the middle of the night?… Read More
And he did this for a couple years, and they started to break. He’d just wore them out (chuckles). But one night he called me, it was 11 o’clock at night and I’d just gone to bed. And he says, “Doc.” He says, “The hyenas got out and they chased… Read More
I kept thinking all the time, what am I gonna do?… Read More
Yeah and a little bit of courage too I guess. One night of that, we had a night watchman who was in his early seventies and essentially deaf. I mean, you’d have to yell at him to make him hear you. And I used to go out at night at… Read More
Well, let me think on that a second. We had some interesting things come up, fortunately that we could resolve. Read More
Where your sense of humor came in handy?… Read More
Funny situations?… Read More
Absolutely nothing. And after he became zoo director, he used to go to the zoo conferences, and instead of going to the scientific meetings, he’d go off and play golf, or go out and party. And was several years after that, my colleagues in the zoo profession thought I was… Read More
You’re no longer zoo director?… Read More
Right. I was assigned to be the education director. And I worked with Bob. You know, he’d get a call on the phone about an animal, and I could tell he was talking about an animal and my desk was right next to his. So I’d write out something for… Read More
And couldn’t get an answer. Well, couple months later I was removed as zoo director. And that guy was put in as a zoo director, Bob Yokel. Who knew nothing about zoos, had no experience with zoos, and had reputation for being a horrible person to get along with. Well,… Read More
Nobody had bothered to look into his credentials and it rearranged the staff a little bit. But I went in and talked to our parks department director and I said, look, this guy is really responsible for the whole screw up. Read More