The main contribution I make now and what I spend my most time on besides being on the endowment board at the zoo and helping manage those funds, is with the International Rhino Foundation. I was one of the founding directors of what first was the International Black Rhino Foundation. Read More
I think that concept has excellent potential and it should be done. We tried to sort of pin a 10% number on and it wasn’t cast in stone, but our animal committee decided that would be a reasonable number to consider when we build an exhibit to try and allocate… Read More
So there are some targeted expenditures that could be made on the behalf of elephants or rhinos, but you can’t do it with just habitat only for them. Read More
Do you feel that zoo should, when they build these multimillion dollar exhibits, should actually allocate, would it be a positive thing to allocate a percentage of that to help animals in the wild and would it do any good?… Read More
I think you almost have to take that on a species by species situation. I don’t think you can buy enough land or provide enough habitat for a tiger with 10 or 20 million to be a significant contributor. As far as some of the frogs or lizards, things that… Read More
We started to have one. We had a couple of meetings, maybe 15 years ago, but never formalized it, never incorporated. And after first couple of meetings, I don’t think they still get together anymore. I don’t know. I’ve been retired seven years and they may have started again, but… Read More
What’s your opinion about the spending of large amounts of money on exhibitry as opposed to helping animals “in the wild” or are they two different animals?… Read More
Is there a Texas Zoo Association or not, or informal?… Read More
By all means. We’re a fairly close knit group. And I knew many of the current directors, I told you earlier, I have one, a gift tie from Clayton Fly Height from Denver. Clayton was a mentor. Lee Simmons and I had a different relationship. I was a keeper working… Read More
Bill Breaker, Shed Aquarium here in Chicago, Louis Desabato, who was my first director in Columbus and then in San Antonio, he was my closest neighbor. So Louie and I would talk. And too many people to mention. But the zoo directors are giving people as a general rule and… Read More
When you did become zoo director, were there mentors or people that you were looking up to and talking to that we’re helping you, not veterinarians, but other zoo directors?… Read More
I don’t think it hindered it in any way other than most veterinarians like to see things kept in fairly sanitary conditions. And that doesn’t necessarily mean having access to mud holes where bacteria and algae can breed, doesn’t mean necessarily having them graze on ground that is naturally drained… Read More
The zoologists that we’re talking about coming straight out of college, isn’t gonna know that you don’t look a gorilla directly in the eye or that you’re insulting him or that you don’t smile at a chimpanzee because they think you’re grimacing because you’re nervous. So things like this are… Read More
With the move to naturalistic exhibits, which the Gladys Porters Zoo did and keeping animals in more natural groups, where possible did veterinary care help or hinder these changes?… Read More
A lot of my contributions would have to be in the form of working with people to have ’em get along. I was on the first diversity committee we ever had for the Zoo and Aquarium Association. And that’s basically because I learned to operate in a part of the… Read More
I think a lot of our problem now is that we’re assigning the curatorial status to some people who have just book knowledge. They’ve studied it in college, they have a degree that says they’re a zoologist or they’re a mammalogist, but the many of them couldn’t tell you anything… Read More
What would you say are some of your most important contributions to the zoo world?… Read More
I think we pretty much talked about that earlier with use the example of how our zoo got involved with the Kemps Ridley and with me with rhinos and with Colette Adams with iguanas, and you find what you can afford. You find what people on your staff have the… Read More
And I think if we lived in a society where it was dog eat dog, literally, and survival of the fittest, that it would apply more than it does now, where we have put everything pretty much under our control. And we’re taking habitat from wild animals. Therefore we couldn’t… Read More
What’s your take on, can a small or a medium sized zoo today be involved in wildlife conservation nationally or internationally, or does it just take big bucks?… Read More