She says, “I’ve got this big, beautiful white bird in my backyard “and what is it?” So she described the trumpeter swan perfectly. So we said, don’t do anything, just leave him there. She boarded on a canal. So we could land in the canal and walked up into her… Read More
We put them in a pen that was a chain link pen, went out to the water and back along the backside of the water. But we didn’t feather clip them ’cause we knew he couldn’t take off from that pen. But trumpeter swan being a big, powerful bird, he… Read More
No, we had one head keep and that was it. We had a bird man who was very good, an older fellow. He had a green thumb when it came to raising waterfowl. And for that reason, the feds sent us a pair of trumpeter swans to set up in… Read More
Well, the keeper crew was interesting. Of course, back in those days, they were not professional by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of them were farmers and they just simply did their job, and came in at eight o’clock in the morning did their job and left at… Read More
Were there curators at the time running the collection when you started this veterinarian?… Read More
How did they receive this new person and what was your relationship with them?… Read More
When you were veterinarian, how did the keepers receive you your full time now?… Read More
Was it the bureaucracy that was your biggest surprise, or other things when you first got into the job. The biggest surprise, well, the biggest frustration, I guess, was the bureaucracy. I had never been thrust into a political situation like that before, and it was political for sure. But… Read More
Anything for capital improvements, they’re almost nonexistent. And that was difficult. We had to fight for everything we got (chuckles). Let me ask a question about your time as a veterinarian, the short time. Read More
And what was your biggest surprise?… Read More
How did that- Okay, they automatically said… They came along and said, you’re the man. We had a head keeper at the time Wayne Homan. Wayne eventually went out to Phoenix too with Bob Matlin. And he was good about… I mean, he was really in line to become the… Read More
Yeah, no. I said, yeah, I’ll do it. I wasn’t really prepared to do it emotionally I guess, at the time. But yeah, I’ll do it. I didn’t jump up and down and yell and scream or anything. But yeah, it was an interesting challenge and I like challenges. Read More
Was this something you aspired to?… Read More
Did you apply for it?… Read More
I really didn’t have too much say over the keepers that we hired, as they were sent to us by the parks department, were a division of the parks department. And that was frustrating too. So it took a while for me to adjust to the whole operation out there. Read More
Did they automatically say, you’re our guy?… Read More
So at the ripe age of 26, I was appointed zoo director. And this was a different ball game. I’d been in private practice. And the method of operation is all together different when you’re in private practice. If you want something, need a instrument or something, you go out… Read More
And that was the way Crandon Park Zoo started. And it kind of grew like topsy, it just once they got a little money, they’d add another exhibit. There was no rhyme, no reason the way that it was laid out. But then Julie Allen Field left, I guess under… Read More
Some general impressions. Okay, well, the Crandon Park Zoo is located on Key Biscayne, in the Southern end of Grandon Park. 25 acres of zoo. It started back in 1947 when a traveling road show, animal show, disbanded and they sold their animals to Dade County. Metro-Dade County. There were… Read More
And then in 1948, they built a causeway across to Key Biscayne. Up until then, the only way you could get over there was by boat. I don’t think they had a ferry even. And they opened a zoo there. Now the first zoo director that they hired, her name… Read More