(George chuckles) You’re asking about the balance of allocations in terms of energy and funding and facilities, et cetera, in respect to conservation, especially on an international scale, versus visitor services, versus maintenance of an animal collection. And that is, should we say an eternal challenge in terms of the… Read More
Today in today’s zoos, we see zoos spending 10, 20, $30 million on exhibits for elephants or great apes. Read More
Are there priorities? And then why?… Read More
But the whole notion of how to get people to care and express that caring in their behaviors, it seems to me that it would be beneficial if curators came with some familiarity with both for, shall we say, management purposes in terms of human relations with their keepers and… Read More
With the responsibility that directors have for a living collection, related facilities, guests, how does one balance these concerns with those related to international conservation and research?… Read More
Yes. But certainly training in their special interest fields, whether they’re mammal experts or birds or invertebrates, insects, or fish, or whatever. You would expect them to have experience in training in terms of the elements that would be important in the management of captive individuals. So you would expect… Read More
But I would also hope that they would come with some familiarity with some human behavior. And as you may know, we got started at Brookfield in connection with the Hamill Family Play Zoo. We got the field of conservation psychology started with Carol Saunders at the lead. Carol is… Read More
(George chuckles) What should be expected of curatorial staff these days?… Read More
How should curators be trained today?… Read More
And what do you think is expected or what should be expected of them?… Read More
Sometimes there’s been a complaint about where are the good curators, the curatorial professional staff coming from?… Read More
(chuckles) Not enough. Okay, zoos, in many cases, are afraid to confront animal welfare or animal rights groups that are anti-zoo or anti-aquarium. Sadly we even have people in top positions in our field who seem in line with that. In many cases, these non-biologists have to say, please give… Read More
There was one unfortunate incident where one of the group, when they were leaving, came back into a building where a live mouse was being fed to a certain reptile. And she was visibly upset by this notion that we would feed a live animal to another creature. And so… Read More
Anybody stepped forward with things that you just didn’t expect?… Read More
I don’t know, but he came through for us. (George chuckles) So some of my experiences in this regard were quite quite fortunate, but others, you were disappointed in terms of the, not just the depth of support, but the continuance of support, because then you have to keep doing… Read More
Were there any surprise donations in your career?… Read More
Well, (George chuckling) let’s say it didn’t preoccupy me. (George chuckles) But with some substantial continuing support from people who’d been, whose families had been associated with the zoo from the very start, like the Hamills. And Corwith Hamill was chair when I became director. But with ongoing contributions from… Read More
How did I adjust to fundraising?… Read More
Well, as I indicated earlier, in terms of funding for the zoo, the basic operational funding came through the Forest Preserve District of Cook County that is from the county taxpayers. And the rest was raised through admissions at the time that I came aboard and it was later that… Read More
How did you adjust to fundraising?… Read More