Yeah. I mean, the zoo did a lot of things that were international in scope. We were never afraid to bring or send animals internationally as part of a whole scope of things. And the zoo in England, Howletts Zoo Park, run by John Aspinall, needed a male gorilla. And… Read More
And he was escorted by one of our keepers to England and the interesting, and where he fathered many, many, many, many babies. Oh, well done. And it was very positive relationship between the two organizations. And we had to have a special box built. We probably overbuilt it, but… Read More
Live animal in the plane. And so they told the pilot, “Shut your engines down ’cause nothing’s happening.” And to retain heat, he had to keep his engines on for the gorilla. He said, “I can’t do that ’cause I have a live gorilla on this flight and I’m not… Read More
And we brought him to Indian Boundary Zoo, which I’ll go into that in a second to live his life. Now, the Park District, there was one zoo in Chicago, Lincoln Park Zoo. Then there was Brookfield Zoo. That was it. But the Park District at one time was different… Read More
It’s on the north side of the city of Chicago and there was this little zoo and they had grizzly bears. I mean, it’s a little place. We had spectacle bears up there, born up there. We had mountain lions at various times. So we brought this, it was Park… Read More
Cool story. Geez. So something else that I found interesting. In 73, the zoo was involved with a major conservation about a gorilla, Kisoro, to England. Read More
So we called the fire department and they came and they said, “Well, we’ll loan you our snorkel, but if there’s a fire, we have to leave.” And this is middle of the night. It’s like at midnight. So they get the snorkel in position and the cat’s just frozen. Read More
Now, ideally when you noose an animal, you don’t just want it, again, trick of the trade. I guess a lot of stuff is common sense. You don’t want around the neck, you want it around the neck and the shoulder so you’re not strangling the animals. Sure. That makes… Read More
So, and then there were ropes, (clears throat) that you could automatically let them loose. I mean, we did all that. So Eddie gets up there, he grabs it and he could only get around the cat’s neck. And as he pulls, now, remember it’s midnight, we’ve got all this… Read More
It was so surreal and they’re all looking. It’s just like, one guy in the middle and all these guys. And all of a sudden, the cat starts to go, (imitates coughing) and he starts to breathe. And to a person, to a man, all these firemen, ’cause they’re watching… Read More
And we’d like to, ‘what’s going on?’ And we saw a large cat, looks like a bobcat or a lynx or something.” I went, “Well, what’s the chances on LaSalle Street?… Read More
Not much.” But we went out there and indeed, I went with the vet and the curator of reptiles, Eddie Almandarz, and indeed, who was a mentor of mine, indeed, we looked up in this big old oak tree and there was a bobcat. Wow. Read More
I mean, there was no mistake in it, but how do you get up there?… Read More
You’ve spoken of the secret zoo. What does that mean?… Read More
And can you talk about maybe this bobcat on LaSalle Street or the cobra in the house?… Read More
Well, the secret zoo is essentially when you were holding animals privately that you shouldn’t be holding, the alligator in the bathtub in the basement, and you don’t want anybody to know about it. So if your son is playing with your next door neighbor and you have five rattlesnakes… Read More
I think it was Pat Sammarco then, Pat Sass, all took the exam. And I mean, there weren’t a lot of other women who were taking them from outside, but they did pretty instantaneously and they did well. And all of a sudden, they were now being paid had a… Read More
I mean, someone might say, “Well, they can’t lift or whatever.” You get people to help you. I mean, it’s always a team effort to do whatever you wanna do, but it was a positive thing when women came into the workforce. Well, and I’m thinking, this is kind of… Read More
But how did women coming in as keepers affect the zoo?… Read More
Well, I think it affected the zoo, women keepers affected zoo in a very positive way. They brought with different job skills or ways of looking at it. There were no differences and I think, again, if you get 10 women, some are gonna be excellent, some are not gonna… Read More