Well, what happened again, the zoo was evolving and the zoo decided that they would have some division of the mammal section and that primates would kind of be a separate discipline, a curator of primates, as opposed to a curator of mammals that everything would be under. And when… Read More
And other times, you were called the chairman of the depart, they had different iterations, but essentially, your job responsibilities were the same. The titles changed, but it had not as much scope of all the mammals in the zoo. I gotcha. Read More
I did have that rope handling experience. (interviewer laughs) I was interested too. You mentioned the ambassador to Venezuela. In 1982, you had the opportunity to meet with His Royal Highness, Prince Phillip. Read More
How did that happen?… Read More
Well, the zoo sometimes, in any zoo, sometimes attracts personalities and people who are famous for one reason or another. And Lincoln Park had its share of people who visited the zoo. But the one that stands out, which was just interesting was through a large donor. His Royal Highness… Read More
And I thought, “How wonderful, I wanna be able to tell my relatives I met royalty,” just for the fun of it. And when he was going to be in the building, doing the tour and everything was pretty much scheduled, all his time. I said to Dr. Fisher, the… Read More
You have people who may not have only in their career had one or two births that they’re been involved with, not 12 or 14. So that institutional memory is not necessarily there on what to do. So certain times, if you don’t have to use a skill for good… Read More
Well, I think sometimes you use the things you learn and you put it in your back pocket, like old keeper skills that might work. I was watching Marlin Perkins show, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” and he was out in the outback, and they roped a camel, a wild… Read More
And I thought about it and I said, “I know how we can move this animal.” And I said, “We’re gonna rope him and we’re gonna do this.” And they looked at me like, “Are you nuts?” I said, “I’ve seen it done.” All be it from Marlin, but I… Read More
Yeah. You don’t have to. It’s through training that you’re able to elicit these behaviors now, which is less stressful on the keepers, less stressful on the animals and as very much more positive. Good all the way around. So speaking of trainers or keepers, certain keeper skills are eroding… Read More
What do you think the consequences of that are?… Read More
Well, I think when, if you don’t use a skill, it tends to get lost. When you don’t have historical institutional memory, and a good example is right now, I think for the better, but there’s consequences of every decision for the, breeding recommendations are made for certain species. Maybe… Read More
Well then, the skill of knowing what is good maternal behavior, what should you do if an animal is acting a certain way, how do you respond to that?… Read More
Well, I think the skills that are being lost because you’re using tranquilizer and I’d say even more importantly, ’cause of the training aspects that are now happening, not only that marine mammal people were using for a very long time, but that now zoo people are using. The training… Read More
They put so many buildings together and they’ve been very generous support. Well, when this was occurring, we wanted to make sure that all of the things that we were doing were correct. And when it came time to move, we had to move rhinoceros. Well, they, the keepers would… Read More
That’s great.” I said, “You don’t understand. It took four months of work to get to 15 minutes.” Yeah. Right, right. That’s the key that it’s gone from the old fashioned way of using a lot of restraints to, I think, training now, whether it’s for blood draws, to have… Read More
So you’re referring to some of the more potentially dangerous handling?… Read More
The bear is here. This is wonderful.” And they said, “This is such a big conservation effort that the zoo is name for the chief financial officer of the Marvin oil company, Gustavo Rivera, it’s named after him. And he doesn’t come out to see these things, but he has… Read More
And it was a lot of work, but because it was so important, the ambassador being there was in the side, of course. But it was, we made sure that the animal was out first, in last, all the things that we had to do. And those were two big… Read More
Are some of these skills being lost?… Read More