I think that kind of the lesson is that to me, is that you always have to be aware of the security of your exhibits and you can never assume that everything is gonna be okay. And some kids came to the zoo. They saw, we had snow leopards that… Read More
We didn’t have a lock on the cage and they opened it up and they put a baby snow leopard in a bag, pillowcase, and they took it out and then they went home and they said, “Wait, we wanna get that gorilla baby. That seems cute.” And they came… Read More
All the police, everybody was there, “Who did it?” Whatever. And like most cases, it’s broken by an informant, not that we were that smart to do detective work. Read More
Where did we go?… Read More
Well, she was okay with it because she kind of abandoned the kid. All of a sudden, she stopped nursing it. So we had to take over and that’s when we leaned on our medical committee with the pediatricians and so forth. And before the birth, Dr. Bailey was able… Read More
Well, it’s not that perhaps more dramatic. Read More
1973, there was a major theft of snow leopards and a baby gorilla?… Read More
Well, the first birth, Lester Fisher loved gorillas and we loved them. And Kisoro was the father and Mumbi was the mother, and this was the first birth and we had a medical committee. And we had an obstetrician on there, Dr. Mel Bailey. And he consulted with us ’cause… Read More
We all sat in front of the exhibit. We had people behind the scenes, Saul Kitchener, myself. I took pictures again to document the thing, took pictures of the very, I wish I’d had a video camera, but I didn’t, I would’ve gotten just wonderful things. But as it turns… Read More
This was a very first baby. So there was no learning from other gorillas and so forth. So it was her very first baby, but in the begin, worked out very well. Read More
How did she deal with this operation?… Read More
And we brought gorillas back from Howletts years later. So it was a very positive kind of thing, but it was one of our first big interna. We did others, but we, one of our first big international shipments and what my lesson there always was, you gotta get the… Read More
Can you talk about that?… Read More
Were you involved? Can you talk about this?… Read More
Yeah. I mean, the zoo did a lot of things that were international in scope. We were never afraid to bring or send animals internationally as part of a whole scope of things. And the zoo in England, Howletts Zoo Park, run by John Aspinall, needed a male gorilla. And… Read More
And he was escorted by one of our keepers to England and the interesting, and where he fathered many, many, many, many babies. Oh, well done. And it was very positive relationship between the two organizations. And we had to have a special box built. We probably overbuilt it, but… Read More
Live animal in the plane. And so they told the pilot, “Shut your engines down ’cause nothing’s happening.” And to retain heat, he had to keep his engines on for the gorilla. He said, “I can’t do that ’cause I have a live gorilla on this flight and I’m not… Read More
And we brought him to Indian Boundary Zoo, which I’ll go into that in a second to live his life. Now, the Park District, there was one zoo in Chicago, Lincoln Park Zoo. Then there was Brookfield Zoo. That was it. But the Park District at one time was different… Read More
It’s on the north side of the city of Chicago and there was this little zoo and they had grizzly bears. I mean, it’s a little place. We had spectacle bears up there, born up there. We had mountain lions at various times. So we brought this, it was Park… Read More
Cool story. Geez. So something else that I found interesting. In 73, the zoo was involved with a major conservation about a gorilla, Kisoro, to England. Read More