I think there’s always competing with Disney in some form or fashion, especially here in the Orlando market because of, you know, Disney World’s here and now Wild Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios with Harry Potter. There’s a lot of competition here in Orlando. I think even in San Diego… Read More
And somebody would say, “What are we gonna do with these elephants in Tampa?” And I’d go, “Well, what do you wanna do?… Read More
And why do you ask? What’s going on?” “Well, we don’t know how to do protected contact.” And I go, Well, I think we should talk about that then and talk about positive reinforcement and talk about the things that make sense, what’s evolving.” And so the evolution worked out… Read More
So it’s San Diego, Orlando, and the third is?… Read More
Well, actually, there were four for a while. San Antonio was being built in ’88, and SeaWorld of Ohio existed. So, at one time, there was four. Then the SeaWorld park sold the SeaWorld of Ohio park to a theme park that was across the lake, at Geauga Lake. So… Read More
What do you do? How can I help you?” Did you have new responsibility?… Read More
Well, basically, the new responsibilities was encompassing the whole animal collection at that point for all the three SeaWorld parks. And we were in charge of all the, you know, veterinary, education, conservation, animal transport, aviculture, aquarium, so all the different disciplines that were under that, those buckets were under… Read More
Was it that you, as you said, raised your hand, or was this a natural transition?… Read More
It was an interesting transition because I had only been working, after SeaWorld had bought the parks from HBJ, or HBJ bought the parks, or the Marineland park, excuse me, HBJ owned SeaWorld. They bought the Marineland park and then closed it, as I said earlier. And I was there… Read More
So I had to double my effort (chuckles) to try and get good relationships built with everybody that had been there for a long, long time. And I was sort of the new kid on the block. So it was fun, but I did the same thing I did in… Read More
I just asked, “Why? What’s your job?… Read More
And all we would do is sit down with the directors and producers and say, “What do you want?… Read More
We can’t do that. We can do this, we can do this.” And we’d modify the script accordingly. And so it worked out very well. It was always fun to meet people like that, though, ’cause Hollywood was Hollywood. It’s 1988, you’re the assistant zoological director of SeaWorld, you’re moving… Read More
How did this position, this assistant zoological director of SeaWorld come about?… Read More
And how did that work then?… Read More
Are you, or the animals were bothered?… Read More
Well, filming at Marineland, sure, there was a lot of different filming that went on. I mean, “Sea Hunt” was filmed there, a lot of the different Hollywood shows because of the location and the uniqueness of the animals. Read More
Who’s doing this part of the job?… Read More
Actually, part of the keeping department actually was assigned to do that. So we had rescue trucks that would go out and pick up the animals. And we had a network with a coordination of lifeguards and a stranding network with National Marine Fishery Service. So there was a good… Read More
And then they’d come to Marineland to see their animals, if they lived. Of course, if they didn’t live, we would call them up and tell them, “This animal didn’t live, and here’s why.” What we found, and I’ve had the experience, the necropsy, or autopsy, hundreds of marine animals… Read More