The only thing that I wanted to do at Lincoln Park Zoo and I never had the opportunity and I tried was to build an insect pavilion, to build a butterfly aviary, ’cause I knew it was dramatic. I’d seen them around the world, again, visiting. And I knew that… Read More
And literally at the end, we had all kinds of video cameras to record the birth. We, not knowing when it would occur. And we had volunteers every night watching the monitor, every night. And of course, after X number of months, they’re coming in and going, “Mark, what’s the… Read More
As it turns out, I happen to be at one of those teaching assignments for this Smithsonian, I was out of the country and I missed the birth. Oh geez. But the important thing there, I think is that people said to me, “Mark, you must feel bad that you… Read More
What could happen in this instance?… Read More
What would happen if this happened?… Read More
And we were able to tell the story to people about the hunt and what was going on. So I was brought on as expedition photographer, not for my skills in snake handling, absolutely not. Well, you were still there. (laughs) Another significant birth that we really haven’t touched on… Read More
Can you talk about that?… Read More
The, one of the big deals was the elephant birth and we didn’t have a male, but we, again, this is long term planning. You’d never know what’ll happen. We brought a female elephant to the Springfield Missouri Zoo to meet a male, Onyx, who was a breeding male. We… Read More
Then we could, everything was contained. So the idea’s I think lessons learned is again, same thing. When there’s an emergency, you gotta have protocols, you gotta know what you’re doing, you have to make sure that you can contain the situation, get good as much good communication as you… Read More
“Here’s what we do,” so. Yeah. But that’s not to say that your adrenaline is not going sky high because this is a stress situation, but you have to be the cool person or at least the person that’s kind of keeping, calming things ’cause people are gonna be a… Read More
How does this happen from a mammal guy?… Read More
Well, I think that it’s relationships. I was on the, Marlin Perkins, when he was director of Lincoln Park Zoo, used to go on snake hunts. Now, probably taking animals out of the wild like that would not be the correct thing to do. But at the time, that’s what… Read More
And so we walked behind the scenes and there were the lions out and, (imitates fire extinguisher hissing) oh, they went, stood back. So I knew what was going on. Went back. I called some keepers ’cause I needed assistance. I couldn’t do it on my own. Read More
And Dr. Fisher comes into the building ’cause he lived across the street and he wanna know what’s going on, why wasn’t he called?… Read More
I said, “Well, I tried to call you, but your line was busy. So here’s the situation as I’ve now got it under control. But here’s where we are.” He said, “Okay, fine.” And what had happened was when the lions got out and the police called, it was on… Read More
And I said, “What does that mean?… Read More
Out in the building or out on the grounds?” “No, out in the building.” I said, “Okay, then I think we can have time to contain.” And that’s the other thing in an escape situation is can you contain the situation?… Read More
If you can contain the situation, you have time to work on things and understand and move resources where you need to move them. When a situation is very fluid, it’s a lot more difficult. So they were in the building, they were contained. So I got there real quick. Read More
And again, I would have calls from other zoos, “Oh, you got animals from Kapama. How are they?… Read More
Good guys? Is it right?” “Yes. I’ve been there. I’ve talked to the people. I think it’s worthwhile.” Obviously, you’re not gonna get every lion from there, but that was very rewarding, having found the place, having worked for that and then being able to bring them back to the… Read More