Interview 13894 – Caption Index: 85
Speaking of relationships, what was the relationship between Lincoln Park Zoo, the other zoo in Chicago and Brookfield Zoo?… Read More
Speaking of relationships, what was the relationship between Lincoln Park Zoo, the other zoo in Chicago and Brookfield Zoo?… Read More
(George chuckles) As you were moving through the process- Well, the relationship when I first came was really, between Lincoln Park Zoo and Brookfield Zoo, was really a strained one. The board of governors that elects the trustees had an annual meeting at Brookfield in which others were invited, including… Read More
And it just, as I say, the trustees determined that this was unworkable. Read More
What were the goods and bads of that?… Read More
(George chuckling) Well, the person on the, Blakely was on the animal side, responsible for the collections, et cetera. And the other gentleman who occupied that post was responsible for for the public accommodations and the restaurants and so on, and so forth. And there was sort of constant tension… Read More
And he did to a remarkable effect in terms of studying, again, the Peromyscus, the wood and beach mice from mainly the Southeastern United States. And as a result of Bruce’s work, doctoral work, we also acquired Robert Lacy and this led, shortly, to then the first population viability analysis… Read More
Well, one thing of course that Peter brought was interest in the, shall we say, technical scientific sides of the business. And so we, for instance, hired a man with a master’s in nutrition Bruce Brewer to head our commissary, our animal supply division, animal food supply division. And it… Read More
And this… (George chuckles) This relates back to one of the first things that I’d gotten a geneticist out at Argonne to look at, got shortly after I arrived at Brookfield back in the 50s, this man who had been studying twining in humans wondered if there were any records… Read More
What were some of the strengths or weaknesses you learned from people, especially your predecessor, Peter Crowcroft?… Read More
So he had established a little foundation and he became associated with the, he was on the board of trustees of Chicago Zoological Society. So Peter Crowcroft approached Bill Rutherford in terms of perhaps acquiring a bit of territory in Australia for the hairy-nosed wombat. And so that led to… Read More
But in terms of the previous circumstances, as they say, we went from an almost undocumented collection to one that had science as the basic in terms of the records, in terms of the maintenance of the collection and reasonable terms for the future that, and certainly the development of… Read More
Peter Crowcroft, Australian, tap dancing champion of Tasmania, but he done his degree work in England under Elton. And he also was associated for a brief time, British Museum. He went back to Australia, was director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, but he continued his studies. He’d done… Read More
Well, with Robert Bean, we had, after I came, the society officially formed a science committee of the board of trustees. And it was usually headed by someone down at the University of Chicago. Emerson first and then some of the chairs of zoology, but also in the biomedical arena. Read More
Even while I was there, Robert was frequently on the road to Europe and visiting the institutions there. So it was a curious, curious circumstance, a sort of paradox in terms of his non-interest in keeping adequate records, et cetera, that one could then analyze. I mean, when the animals… Read More
What was your relationship with Robert Bean?… Read More
And so we got some things started there that, I mean, they were small inclusions, but we did experiment in terms of furnishings, et cetera, that brought out different behaviors in the creatures. You talked about when you first came there, Robert Bean was director. Right. And you’ve worked for… Read More
What was your relationship with these various individuals?… Read More
And then there were traditional setups in terms of the barred cages for the primates, glass cages for the great apes. But for the most part, it was rather primitive in my view and animals like the small mammals were simply not accommodated in any substantial fashion in respect to… Read More
State of the art, needed help. You were the new guy, so you looked at it with fresh eyes. Well, (George chuckling) with fresh eyes, you saw a pretty traditional setup, except for a couple of instances. For instance, the Australia House, which was novel in the American zoo scene… Read More
And that’s what got Hy and I on that track to begin with. So the creatures that came into the zoo and unfortunately perished not too long after, and we didn’t have the protocols in terms of screening for infections and diseases, et cetera that’s commonplace now, although we had… Read More