And I was with the one of our animal keeper foreman, Gary (indistinct), he accompanied on that trip to help, and the truck driver of our truck and Gabe Davis. And we all had, I said, “Hey, folks, let’s have a quick celebration here, a pre-Thanksgiving celebration. And I want… Read More
And simultaneously was up, going up from San Diego to Los Angeles Harbor. Louis was coming down with his trucks, Louis Goebel from Goebel Land Farm up in Thousand Oaks with our elephant. And this is where the term that you hear now is networking. Animal dealers had sent, Warren… Read More
And we’d gone previously to arrange all the military experience that I’d acquired on ships in the Navy and unloading troops. Came to good stead in this because we’d gone ahead, I’d gone ahead, talked to the Matson people. We negotiated a big shed that had a high enough roof… Read More
So Gabe was at the top of the crate, hanging onto the ladder. I was handing Gabe, I was doing, I had two functions. To hand Gabe more onions, they were chopped. And to relay, I was below Gabe on the tray, relay the instructions from Gabe to the truck… Read More
Gabe continued, just as he had trained him, “Steady, Rusty, steady, head down, head down,” and we got under that bridge successfully. And that was the biggest breakthrough in that whole trip. Because from then on, we got on the ship. It was in the winter, it was November. The… Read More
And we would very slowly drive beneath them. And they were far enough above so the giraffe couldn’t lick them, which they seem to be enormously attractive to giraffes, to lick electric wires or anything above their head. That fortunately, that part went well. The difficult part was the Santa… Read More
So we had taken the precaution to contact the Santa Fe railway, arranged with their train master to have no trains to be under going under the bridge. There wasn’t much traffic on that route, and what traffic there was the railway company agreed not to run the trains over… Read More
So we went on the trailer, and Gabe Davis rode on the ladder that was attached to the outside of the trailer. We had the two police cars, one police car from the San Diego Zoo accompanied us. It was the San Diego head of security. He was our message… Read More
And the man that did that training was a old circus hand named Gabe Davis. Gabe Davis had been with the Ring Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Circus with their elephants and their livestock, including giraffes for many years, and then he’d settled and was a head keeper at the… Read More
And he’d use, “Rusty, lower your head. Steady, Rusty.” He’d use those terms over and over and he’d keep feeding rusty these half of onions. And then we’d put Rusty into the crate. He moved back the trailer up to the barn. It was easy to get rusty to go… Read More
And that was a critical thing because the bridge was just slightly would clear the crate of the animal on the trailer, but the animal’s head came about a foot and a half above the crate. And that was as close to a military operation as we ever achieved for… Read More
He had trucks, he had a knowledgeable staff, and so we ordered an elephant from Louis. The elephant, as I recall, was $4,000, the same price as the giraffe from San Diego Zoo. And we came over, and I was still only 25, just 26, I guess. And it was… Read More
That they were determined to show their strength and establish their power in the islands. And the shipping strike, 90 days is what I recall. Maybe it was longer, but it delayed construction. It backed up, our giraffe pen was delayed way more than the length of the strike. So… Read More
Well, Louis Goebel and his wife, Kathy, at Thousand Oaks, California, which is 50 miles north of LA, now huge booming suburb of LA. At that time, it was a tiny rural area that was essentially among other things, a movie set for westerns. And with the rolling hills covered… Read More
There’s gonna be a big demand for giraffes, it’s going to be slow to be met, because remember, giraffes usually only have one child, one baby at a time, and they have a long gestation. So it’s a slow process of creating a herd of giraffes. So I recommend you… Read More
So where’d we get the elephants?… Read More
And that was a goal that Mrs. Benchley particularly emphasized, get reading family groups. So early on after, the first requirement was to get the additional, an elephant as a companion to the one that we just acquired by gift. We didn’t need more chimpanzees, we needed another camel, a… Read More
And you’ve asked what I recommend, and I can recommend that really strongly for several reasons. One is they’re going to have to be imported from Africa, and they’re going to have to come through our quarantine stations here on the East Coast, it’s up in New Jersey, And they’re… Read More
Does that mean you went to the mainland?… Read More
Yes, and the way that worked, primarily the San Diego Zoo was essential. 80% of everything I did with mainland zoos was the San Diego Zoo. They were my friends, I was low on funds among other things, so I stayed as a house guest at Chuck Shaw’s, the reptile… Read More