And as a result, the US Department of Agriculture became the lead agency. They’re now 22 employees on Guam, deal entirely with the brown tree snake. A varying amount of sniffer dogs, three or four teams operate to inspect the planes before they leave. It’s always the trouble. It’s always… Read More
That is what the people on Guam are far more concerned about than they are about the loss of their native birds, is the fact that their freezers don’t work, their TV doesn’t work night after night, after night. More than half the nights they were without electricity. We’ve done… Read More
And he had retired and he agreed to serve, and he was close friends. He’d served in the 442nd infantry division, for which Dan, Senator Dan in Norway had also served and lost use of his arm. And this chap, Bill Thompson was hugely instrumental in helping us obtain money… Read More
And finally, it was determined that the brown tree snake, which had been introduced from, probably Manus, which was native to New Guinea and Northern Australia had become established by, as well as they could determine, by a Navy surplus equipment, shipped into Guam, was causing a great deal of… Read More
And there was almost no inspection at both Guam, before the snakes left, and here when the planes arrived. So the snakes were getting aboard. I think we documented nine brown tree snakes that arrived in Hawaii. Half of those, well five, as I recall, were alive when they arrived,… Read More
The brown tree snake. The brown tree snake is an easy and relatively uncomplex story, that in the mid ’80s, native birds were being greatly reduced in population on the island of Guam, primarily in one part of Guam. So there was a lady named Judy Salvage. And Judy was… Read More
Why would birds be disappearing on one part of the island and not on the rest of it?… Read More
Well, can you tell me then how you got involved in the brown snake?… Read More
So then what factors brought you back to be chief of the wildlife branch?… Read More
Well, there was a series of family complications, primarily of a divorce. So that kind of broke up the family venture of raising the, taking care of our two avocado groves. And our kids were scattering, one got married. The oldest daughter moved out here to work at sea life. Read More
I did but I didn’t want to. I wanted to use… I definitely, it’s one of those things of knowing what I didn’t want more clearly than what I did want. And what I didn’t want, to work in another zoo. I would be happy to work as a zoo… Read More
So I did a bit of consulting with the people that they employed for that. But mostly, I just immersed myself in the avocado rearing and marketing field. Read More
Had you thought about working at another zoo after you left Hawaii?… Read More
Jack listened. He paid attention and he was easy to advise because my advice almost was precisely what his standards. Again, he was great with the newspaper reporters. He was great with his PR. He kind of ruffled feathers with the keepers by changing anything, which he had to do,… Read More
And Vic then recommended Jack Throp who was a, had never been a zoo director, but he had been at one time an employee of the San Diego Zoo as a keeper, and had worked his way up by being a bird curator at the new zoo in Phoenix, which… Read More
Were you able to give Jack any advice?… Read More
Were you involved in hiring or assisting to hire the new director?… Read More
To a degree, yes. The mayor, Neal Blaidsell, was so anxious to do a good job of keeping up the zoos management, that he sent his assistant managing director down to the West Coast and he saw me, we arranged to meet and he said, “Will you set me up?… Read More
That’s always a tricky one. Part of the, in ’65, I left in ’65, I began in ’47. The reason is always difficult to know precisely, like almost everything in life, it’s a bunch of reasons. One reason was the, you asked about frustration of… And one of the frustrations… Read More
That was part of it. Also, I was in my mid 40s, it’s the critical midlife crisis time, where it’s the established time for people to change careers, to get a divorce, to just change lifestyles. And I just felt that I’d accomplished pretty much. The zoo was a going… Read More