23 Days at sea. And I imagine your days were pretty filled. Pretty filled from daylight to dark we were busy. It was hard. So now you get these animals to Brownsville, you’re in good shape, you’re still the associate director. Read More
And then once he was to the point where it was safe, why four of us put him back into a crate and then repaired the crate?… Read More
So that was a little different experience. But surprisingly enough, giraffe are some of the most resilient animals around. They were in large crates with canvas tops over ’em and they would brace their feet one way and then the other as the ship rolled, and they didn’t have any… Read More
So I had to sedate him. And fortunately I had some drugs on board that I could do that, but I couldn’t have any capture pistols or anything because of customs and all. So I just had the hand syringe. So as zebra went by, I had to get a… Read More
And then when the ship would go back the other way, it’d roll all the way across to the other way. Fortunately, there was about a four foot handrail all the way around, two or three rails, and that kept him from going overboard. Read More
And so we had to figure out, oh my gosh, how are we gonna get that animal back and get him into a crate and get him done?… Read More
Oh yeah. We went through one near hurricane going around the Southern tip of Africa. And then again, coming across the Atlantic, before we got into New York, we had swells waves like 38 feet high, and this was a 500 foot long German built, wonderful freighter. It was only… Read More
And there was so much bumping back and forth that one zebra kicked the end out of its crate. And so they gave me the ship’s medical quarters to live in while we’re on ship. So I’m in my bunk in the seas are rolling. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick. Read More
Any memorable stories from that?… Read More
All of which Gladys Porter Zoo became noted for. We had the only gentlins duiker in the world in captivity from that point in 1970, until we finally the last one died early in the 2008, I believe. So we kept a group going that started from three different founders… Read More
Because after that time, we had big enough planes with 747 and all that they could bring elephants and giraffe and things by air. But at that time we brought in 11 giraffes as debt cargo on a ship. We brought back about five rhinos. We brought back ostrich’s the… Read More
So it was a process to get them over. On that shipload of animals, which left from Mombasa East Africa, went around the Southern tip of Africa up to New York, where they had to go into quarantine at Clifton, New Jersey for 30 days. And so I rode with… Read More
Interestingly, she was actively involved in the capture of our giraffes. She and her one of her closest friends in Brownsville, Mrs. Duffy, went to Africa on safari, and there was a animal dealership that was active then and still is International Animal Exchange. And they had a base camp… Read More
How did that work?… Read More
You dealt with animal dealers exclusively. You did most of it. You did a little of it. Read More
Was she involved in that process?… Read More
I always involved her from day one with planning. And what do you think about this and that and we got along, I think so well, because she felt part of the process instead of the one that was just expected to write the check. So you had indicated the… Read More
How did you acquire those?… Read More
As far as was she meddlesome, no, she was not meddlesome, but after the zoo was built, she loved to watch a Soap Opera that was on at lunchtime. And so she would have her lunch at home, watch her Soap Opera, and then she’d normally come to the zoo… Read More
And did she just step back after that or was she actively involved in going to find the animals or was she just writing checks?… Read More