And we suddenly realized that some of the birds we were collecting were disappearing. Now, predation is not an uncommon thing but you usually know the signs of predation. There was no signs of predation. Then we found out the gauchos were eating them. So, we say, “Hey guys, don’t… Read More
Mike Lee. Mike… Boy, I’m having a senior moment. I’ll think about it. Anyway, he’s with Wildfowl Trust, we went to Argentina to collect waterfowl and we went to Argentina and we went to the Falklands to collect steamer ducks and things like that. And that was a pretty successful… Read More
Yes, we did the expedition in 1971 to Ecuador. We were there for a couple of months collecting. In 1973, we participated with the Wildfowl Trust and Gus didn’t go on this trip but I went on with Mike… Lee. Read More
Huh?… Read More
Did you have other opportunities at Philadelphia to get field experience?… Read More
Any good bird stories?… Read More
Well, probably just some of the successes we had that were really… Were there any successes where you were notable in putting it together and it was like, that was a great idea. Not at the Philadelphia Zoo. At the St. Louis Zoo we were the first to breed bateleur… Read More
What is there to gain from this?… Read More
He was a good collection planner, very good collection planner. We just didn’t throw things in for the sake of throwing things in. Read More
I think the basic philosophy and this came largely from Gus, the basic philosophy is if we’re going to do it, we do it right and that very little was knee jerk. And although I had a lean toward impetuosity, he was always the calming factor. I could always tell… Read More
All of the things that you think about before you’re doing a bird exhibit. I’m trying to remember. I know that I probably looked at the surplus lists that we used to get in those days, which were many, probably a little more closely than he did because that was… Read More
And in managing this collection and working on these exhibits, were there philosophies that you were learning that would help you later on in your career?… Read More
Do we have the right space?… Read More
Are we able to provide the proper food sources?… Read More
Gus was very open to ideas in terms of what we needed to have in the collection but the caveat was, can we provide the proper care?… Read More
Did you have any input?… Read More
I think my involvement with collection planning at Philadelphia in that bird collection. Yeah, yeah. Read More
He was the expert about the plants in there. And to me, it was really something fascinating because you can go into all these topical exhibits you see in zoos, now they’re better today but in that time they say oh, it’s a tropical exhibit. You go in there and… Read More
Now as assistant, were you able to give Gus information or talk to him about expanding the collection?… Read More
One of the unique things about the Hummingbird Exhibit at Philadelphia Zoo was that the way the exhibit was planted. It had a wonderful collection of plants and they were plants that were obviously all tropical but the selection of plants seemed to fit the ambience much better than at… Read More