Interview 13445 – Caption Index: 290
Do you feel that because many people of influence and money knew that Gladys Porter and the Sams Foundation were subsidizing the zoo, that they didn’t feel they needed to give money?… Read More
Do you feel that because many people of influence and money knew that Gladys Porter and the Sams Foundation were subsidizing the zoo, that they didn’t feel they needed to give money?… Read More
In the beginning, that was true through the ’80s, up until ’80, I would say that was true. After 1982, ’83, they started to realize that the foundations were not going to be able to provide the support we needed in order to grow. And so that’s when we started… Read More
Yeah, one couple gave us a half a million dollars that we had no idea was hanging out there. And came about because the lady’s father had died and had left them a very large estate and they were gonna have a state tax issues. And they felt they’d rather… Read More
Were there any surprise donations?… Read More
I mean, we know Gladys Porter and the Sams would give you money, but outside of them, were there any surprise donations?… Read More
But the shrimp industry then said, what can we do to help balance this out?… Read More
And some of their members have put in not only just money to support the Kemps Ridley program to protect the beaches in Mexico, when the animals come in and lay their eggs, the local people don’t come and dig them all up to eat ’em. And this has worked… Read More
I think a lot of this would come through the education programs, seeing the children in particular, as they first become aware of the importance of wildlife conservation or of even things like recycling, saving our water resources, basic things like this, making the public aware and usually you have… Read More
There have been instances where this is. I’m most particularly aware of the ones with rhinoceros because I’ve had to deal with them in helping ride a lot of the permits and working with the rhinos. But no, it goes from reptiles to fish. Read More
And on the other end of the coin, during your 10 years as director of the zoo, what would you say were some of your happier moments that you really were got excited about because something occurred or your program had made it happen something like that?… Read More
Oh no. Read More
That’s in any taxon that you want to pick?… Read More
Does that occur specifically with the Rhinoceros Group?… Read More
Gladys Porter supported in-situ conservation primarily through supporting our zoo, which allowed us to make grants to the International Rhino Foundation, to the International Iguana Foundation to Galapagos for turtle conservation, to the Kemps Ridley program for sea turtle conservation. So she made money available so that the zoo could… Read More
And yet they wouldn’t let a representative group come out. They wouldn’t give permits for them to come into a better situation. And so there have been a lot of people. The US is not by far the only place that has people in authority that block good projects. And… Read More
Did you want to get into the in-situ portion?… Read More
They’re animal rights groups and they’re animal rights groups. Some of them are well intentioned, but create problems. Some of ’em are well intentioned and help with animal welfare. I’ve always tried to work first with the groups and if they took what I thought were unreasonable or made, what… Read More
They help with fundraising for conservation projects. They help educate our, not only our children, but our taxpayers and our adults who have funds available to donate to these various conservation projects. So I don’t lump all humane or all animal rights organizations together. There are some that I think… Read More
And if you did, how did you deal with potentially negative issues?… Read More
For instance, I mentioned the southern black rhino originally would probably not be in existence now were it not for the International Rhino Foundation. This is one program that the Zoo and Aquarium Association decided they didn’t want to have as a species survival plan any longer. And so they… Read More