I think the most frustrating time occurred in 1959 when the jurisdiction of the zoo changed. At that, previous to ’59, the zoo was operated by semi autonomous park board, a board of public-spirited citizens appointed by the mayor with the approval of the board of supervisors of the city. Read More
Now during your time as the director of the Honolulu Zoo, what would you consider to be the one of the major events that affected zoos in general, in Honolulu Zoo, during your time, and how did you deal with the issue or the event?… Read More
I think the simplest, nothing strikes me really quickly as to an event that occurred during my almost 20 years in the Honolulu Zoo, as probably the event that had the most far-reaching effects was the Endangered Species Act that began in ’69 and took effect with most of its… Read More
Oh, Sir Edward, of course. Sir Edward, meeting that man, he was so, made such a, just as Emily Hahn said in her book, he had the finest, most original mind. Spending the days, I spent several weeks with Sir Edward in Sydney, several months actually, before going up to… Read More
So the kerosene refrigerator enables a housewife to have a functional refrigerator 24 hours a day, that operated on a easily contained product, just kerosene. So he named the refrigerator Silent Night, but the main thing is that he got the nickname down under as the Savior of the Outback… Read More
Who made the biggest impression on you, most memorable?… Read More
And then they, more and more ate grown up gorilla food, more fruits and cereals rather than just milk. So then we moved them to the zoo and where they thrived. And then in ’65, I left the zoo. They were then would be six years old and they did… Read More
His potential female mating companion there finally died of a cancer. So he went to live in the zoo in Seattle on breeding loan. And at the age of, well, the 30-something, he mated with two of the Seattle Zoo’s gorillas, and had a success. Each of them had a… Read More
So Congo got older, he lived in our house for a year. We were unable to get another male from Ditts. For some reason, they got harder to get. And so Ditts did bring in a few more. He brought in, I think, 18 altogether. Marvin Jones, the zoo historian… Read More
Congo was giving and forgiving, and would reach out toward us with his arms up and cuddle us in his arms or we would cuddle him in our arms. Cameroon was very different. He coward when we’d approach him, he’d shield his face as though he expected to be slapped. Read More
Cameroon was the second gorilla. Well, the zoos were keen on getting gorillas and they were available at the time, in the ’50s and the ’60s, before the Endangered Species Act made acquiring them more so complicated that they virtually stopped the inboard of them. So we acquired, he was… Read More
And the rest of my family was in the back seat, my wife, Mary Lou, and two of my young children. And then we got to, so Bill was the first zoo person to be involved with Congo except us. And then we got to San Diego, we stayed there… Read More
And they came out and taught the people at Sea Life Park how to catch the dolphins. But at any rate, he was an important person in the saga of working there at the zoo. He didn’t actually do any real work at the zoo. Now you’d mentioned the gorilla,… Read More
Can you tell us the story about how you decided to get gorillas, and the story of Congo and Cameroon?… Read More
But the tie in with Ken Norris and sea life is that as the oceanarium sea life park was built by Karen and Tap Pryor, part of their objective was to have a scientific attached biological institute, which they named the Oceanic Institute, and they used the same salt water… Read More
Ken Norris helped mostly by being a good friend. But in 1960, we went to the zoo conference, the AZA Conference, it was held in Long Beach, California, that year. And Sir Edward came up to that and that was a delight ’cause I’d just been down with him earlier… Read More
It was this young gorilla that weighed about 15 pounds, was delivered to us at the conference, but we had no place to put him. He was delivered by a veterinarian named Deeks Picket that brought in, from time to time, had arrangement with the Cameroon government to bring an… Read More
And we found the first tortoise that had ever been raised in any zoo, we found in the early ’50s, ’53 as I recall. And a few days later we dug down, found another live one and a number of eggs that had been fertile but the eggs didn’t hatch. Read More
How did you get Kenneth Norris to come to Honolulu Zoo, and how did he impact the zoo?… Read More
And those eggs, both there and with us had not hatched adequately or none had hatched successfully. So my old friend, Chuck Shaw from early days at San Diego, and I compared notes over and over. And we came to the conclusion as they were having trouble mating, that his… Read More