And she called for help. And they were able, and luckily, she wasn’t seriously injured. She was injured, but not seriously where her life ended or she lost a limb or whatever. And this happened literally month or two after I had retired. And I have to tell you, I… Read More
And that’s what I learned from any of these emergencies of animal escapes is you’ve gotta have your ducks in order, so to speak. Read More
So what do you think about today?… Read More
Are zoos better prepared? (faint speaking) Yeah. I think they are much better prepared because they’re thinking about it. There’s more written about it. They have shooting teams, God forbid, you actually have to shoot in a certain situation, that’s happened, an animal. You better know what your people, better… Read More
And I don’t wanna hit the bear in the face. And I’m kinda looking, I’m waiting for my shot. I already knew I hit it once. So it was going down. I went, I didn’t know. And Dr. Fisher, maybe this is the third time he micromanaged, I don’t know. Read More
I said, “I’m waiting for a good shot.” He goes, “Shoot the bear. Shoot the bear anywhere.” I said, “Yes, sir.” Got him where I wanted, it wasn’t a big deal. And the bear went down and we put her on a tarp and we had 12 keepers bring her… Read More
And again, in those situation, you’re not saying to a keeper, “Listen, let’s get this.” And they go, “Well, why?” “It’s an emergency. Just do what I tell you to do. ’cause we gotta handle this emergency.” And some of the very worst emergencies, when I retired from the zoo,… Read More
Well, I think the lessons learned is in, animals will escape. You have to have a protocol. You have to know what you will do, where equipment is. For example, at Lincoln Park Zoo, we had what we call red boxes. They were big crates that could be wheeled and… Read More
We had a big old fire hose that hit a pool to agitate the water and not have it freeze over for the polar bears in the winter in this old exhibit. And as it turns out, it was a very cold winter, an ice form. So there was just… Read More
And there’s police cars all over the place because that’s their protocol. And we get in. And again, thankfully, our protocol, an animal keeper knew ’cause everybody knew there was a problem, take the tranquilizer and put it in a certain pace, the gun, the rifle with the drugs. And… Read More
And we tranquilize the polar bear. Now, we’re waiting for the polar bear to go to sleep and all these people all around. And she’s not going to sleep instantaneously. It never happens that way. And Dr. Fisher says, “Let’s give her another.” “Yeah, no problem.” ’cause we knew the… Read More
Yeah, oh yeah. Well, I think it’s all part of being a curator. I mean, it’s all the good information that you should be on top of. And it’s again, relationships with people that you can reach out to people and talk to them. Right. I wanna drop back a… Read More
But the question’s more of was the zoo prepared to handle this type of emergency?… Read More
This is a dangerous animal. And what lessons were learned?… Read More
It’s just a process. So from that standpoint, I think that you, it’s all part of the job that you have to be able to do. You find the animals, you talk to the people, you have to negotiate, sometimes, it’s alone, sometimes it might be a price. I had… Read More
Where do you find an aardvark?… Read More
They’re not, you can’t go to the grocery store and, “Give me two aardvarks here.” So you have to find them. And they were hard animals to locate. And I remember talking to one animal dealer at the time who was importing animals from Africa. And he gave me a… Read More
And then I went to some other zoos and, “You got?” “Oh yeah, we have a surplus male, Mark. Would you take our male?” It’s just a process. “Yes, of course we will. How much?” “Oh, it’s a loan. There’s no money.” “Thank you very much.” Better steal. Better steal. Read More
Well, I think again, because of the building and the things we were doing, we were charged, we weren’t a giant staff at the time. We were charged with a lot of responsibility of putting things together, trying to figure out new exhibits, what animals, where to get them. And… Read More
I mean, sometimes you could do it on your own. You could get the materials and you could work with the keeper staff and get that done. Other times, when it became a much bigger project, you had to have more of the expertise of people. But we did that… Read More