Well, first of all, we always had a dog. So that I kind of, I guess, related to an animal. My dad had a Meat Market in the Bridgeport area of Chicago, and somehow I got into the animal bit, I guess. I just not being a farm kid, and… Read More
My earliest experience started when I was a kid. I’m a Chicago person born in the city, spent my life in Chicago, in Chicago area. And dad told me that when we were little kids, four of us, two sisters and a brother, I’m the baby of the family. And… Read More
Les Fisher, what was your earliest experience with zoos?… Read More
It’s like running down a long field, filled with hurdles, but we’ve got some pretty good jumpers. Read More
The mega zoo concept includes the, the globalization of the zoo field. Globalization has become a bad word, it’s causing so much trouble in terms of habitat destruction and loss of natural resources, loss of political responsibility as communities lose their opportunities to use the areas in which they live. Read More
Working out the best way to do that, the surest way, the most economical way. The ways that will give people a chance to understand them and enjoy them. I say, enjoy them, I don’t say much about sustaining their ecological contribution to the world we live in for a… Read More
What does the concept of the mega zoo and are zoos moving in that direction?… Read More
But at the present time, the aquarium has a very good chance of rebuilding and enlarging its facility down on Coney Island. We looked at the Catskill Game Farm as a possible facility and did an economic study to see if it would make sense for us. And we concluded… Read More
The New York City zoos, They represent a successful expansion of the society’s facilities, could you talk about other potential expansion that did not happen?… Read More
Was there more than just talk about opening a facility in Westchester County and perhaps acquiring the Catskill Game Reserve. Over the years the society considered a great many possibilities as I suppose any alive institution filled with ideas and hopes would do. We thought about finding a farm up… Read More
Did the criticism of the Central Park Zoo and the other zoos by these organizations prompt this changeover or had those talks already been going on prior to this?… Read More
The criticisms of the, parks department around zoos in those days certainly played a large role in, urging the city to move more rapidly to affect a takeover. Although a takeover had been under discussion for some time. Nevertheless, the details were so complex, it took three years to complete… Read More
And I could not take them over and rebuild them in good conscience with elephants, rhinos and hippos, and proposed a number of options. And that required an awful lot of negotiation. Eventually we came to an agreement and this city agreed to pay for the renovation of the Queens… Read More
We managed to do it by changing the collection, refocusing it, focusing on a series of geo-ecological areas like the Antarctic penguin exhibit and the tropical exhibit and so on and so on. It was a complex difficult project. On August the eighth, 1988, we reopened the Central Park Zoo… Read More
Oh yes. Give me one. You don’t have to name. I had a hope of getting five million dollars and got a lot more than that in one particular case. At one point in time, all the zoos merged. Can you tell us about the series of events and years… Read More
There were complaints, there were humane organizations, (indistinct) against them. And everybody was saying that the New York Zoological Society should take them over. And we explored various prospects. We said, look, we’ll take over the Central Park Zoo because its position assures its attendance. The other two zoos do… Read More
(William chuckles) So there have been a few wonderful surprises of that kind. Generosity of people like Laila Wallace, Brooke Astor, and Robert Goulet, Howard Phipps, it’s just been outstanding. Read More
Did you ever walk into a meeting with one number in your mind with large donors and be surprised to come out with more?… Read More
Were there any surprise donations that just wowed you?… Read More
All of a sudden I got a letter from a man in San Diego named Elmer Otto. Mr. Otto lived in Bronxville, just north of the zoo in Westchester. And he was leaving us well over a million dollars. He’d retired, he died there, he’d maintained his membership. He was… Read More