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
Where do you find an aardvark?… Read More
They’re not, you can’t go to the grocery store and, “Give me two aardvarks here.” So you have to find them. And they were hard animals to locate. And I remember talking to one animal dealer at the time who was importing animals from Africa. And he gave me a… Read More
And then I went to some other zoos and, “You got?” “Oh yeah, we have a surplus male, Mark. Would you take our male?” It’s just a process. “Yes, of course we will. How much?” “Oh, it’s a loan. There’s no money.” “Thank you very much.” Better steal. Better steal. Read More
Well, I think again, because of the building and the things we were doing, we were charged, we weren’t a giant staff at the time. We were charged with a lot of responsibility of putting things together, trying to figure out new exhibits, what animals, where to get them. And… Read More
I mean, sometimes you could do it on your own. You could get the materials and you could work with the keeper staff and get that done. Other times, when it became a much bigger project, you had to have more of the expertise of people. But we did that… Read More
You’ve already spoken about making connections, international connections as well as national, any challenge that way with getting animals?… Read More
Well, I think that the challenge always was finding where the animals were, whether they were national or international, knowing how to transport, again, soapbox, knowing how to part of a curator’s responsibility, at least, the way I grew up, was learning to write permits, and learning to deal with… Read More
Somebody’s gotta be in charge here. You know?… Read More
Yeah. And so I think I tried to make my management style in such a way that, as I say, do unto others, that I always got that and I wanted them to have the same kind of atmosphere that they could enjoy their job have, fun with it. That… Read More
Could you talk a little bit about your involvement with long term planning at the zoo?… Read More
I mean, everybody’s not gonna look at you in the same vein, but I’ve had certain animal keepers who have gone on to hire positions, say to me, “Oh, Mark, when I talk to my keepers that I have to talk to, I hear your words that you said about,”… Read More
And we had a trainer who would train us and was very, Don Meyer, a wonderful man who knew his profession and was very insightful and philosophical. And one of the lessons I learned from him was never defend what you say. Never defend, explain. You should never be in… Read More