And as it turns out, 12 feet is the, not air military. I’m talking about regular transport planes to get through the door. You have to be 12 feet. That’s the size of the door. So we knew that and we knew we had to build a special crate because… Read More
So we put this wonderful crate together. And then I get a call from the airlines. “Oh, we may have made a mistake on the dimensions of the skid that it’ll go on to be moved around in the freight hanger. You may have to do the crate an inch… Read More
That’s encouraging. So Mark, you’ve been involved with some pretty interesting transports in your career. Read More
Can you give me some elaboration on the, with the one about the giraffe moves to New Zealand?… Read More
I mean, that’s quite a distance. Well, I think, we’ve, again, international shipments and being able to do them successfully and it takes a lot of coordination and a lot of work. We had a call from zoo in Christchurch who was looking for a unrelated giraffe to their stock… Read More
And she called for help. And they were able, and luckily, she wasn’t seriously injured. She was injured, but not seriously where her life ended or she lost a limb or whatever. And this happened literally month or two after I had retired. And I have to tell you, I… Read More
And that’s what I learned from any of these emergencies of animal escapes is you’ve gotta have your ducks in order, so to speak. Read More
So what do you think about today?… Read More
Are zoos better prepared? (faint speaking) Yeah. I think they are much better prepared because they’re thinking about it. There’s more written about it. They have shooting teams, God forbid, you actually have to shoot in a certain situation, that’s happened, an animal. You better know what your people, better… Read More
And I don’t wanna hit the bear in the face. And I’m kinda looking, I’m waiting for my shot. I already knew I hit it once. So it was going down. I went, I didn’t know. And Dr. Fisher, maybe this is the third time he micromanaged, I don’t know. Read More
I said, “I’m waiting for a good shot.” He goes, “Shoot the bear. Shoot the bear anywhere.” I said, “Yes, sir.” Got him where I wanted, it wasn’t a big deal. And the bear went down and we put her on a tarp and we had 12 keepers bring her… Read More
And again, in those situation, you’re not saying to a keeper, “Listen, let’s get this.” And they go, “Well, why?” “It’s an emergency. Just do what I tell you to do. ’cause we gotta handle this emergency.” And some of the very worst emergencies, when I retired from the zoo,… Read More
Well, I think the lessons learned is in, animals will escape. You have to have a protocol. You have to know what you will do, where equipment is. For example, at Lincoln Park Zoo, we had what we call red boxes. They were big crates that could be wheeled and… Read More
We had a big old fire hose that hit a pool to agitate the water and not have it freeze over for the polar bears in the winter in this old exhibit. And as it turns out, it was a very cold winter, an ice form. So there was just… Read More
And there’s police cars all over the place because that’s their protocol. And we get in. And again, thankfully, our protocol, an animal keeper knew ’cause everybody knew there was a problem, take the tranquilizer and put it in a certain pace, the gun, the rifle with the drugs. And… Read More
And we tranquilize the polar bear. Now, we’re waiting for the polar bear to go to sleep and all these people all around. And she’s not going to sleep instantaneously. It never happens that way. And Dr. Fisher says, “Let’s give her another.” “Yeah, no problem.” ’cause we knew the… Read More
Yeah, oh yeah. Well, I think it’s all part of being a curator. I mean, it’s all the good information that you should be on top of. And it’s again, relationships with people that you can reach out to people and talk to them. Right. I wanna drop back a… Read More
But the question’s more of was the zoo prepared to handle this type of emergency?… Read More
This is a dangerous animal. And what lessons were learned?… Read More
It’s just a process. So from that standpoint, I think that you, it’s all part of the job that you have to be able to do. You find the animals, you talk to the people, you have to negotiate, sometimes, it’s alone, sometimes it might be a price. I had… Read More