And the rest of my family was in the back seat, my wife, Mary Lou, and two of my young children. And then we got to, so Bill was the first zoo person to be involved with Congo except us. And then we got to San Diego, we stayed there… Read More
And they came out and taught the people at Sea Life Park how to catch the dolphins. But at any rate, he was an important person in the saga of working there at the zoo. He didn’t actually do any real work at the zoo. Now you’d mentioned the gorilla,… Read More
Can you tell us the story about how you decided to get gorillas, and the story of Congo and Cameroon?… Read More
But the tie in with Ken Norris and sea life is that as the oceanarium sea life park was built by Karen and Tap Pryor, part of their objective was to have a scientific attached biological institute, which they named the Oceanic Institute, and they used the same salt water… Read More
Ken Norris helped mostly by being a good friend. But in 1960, we went to the zoo conference, the AZA Conference, it was held in Long Beach, California, that year. And Sir Edward came up to that and that was a delight ’cause I’d just been down with him earlier… Read More
It was this young gorilla that weighed about 15 pounds, was delivered to us at the conference, but we had no place to put him. He was delivered by a veterinarian named Deeks Picket that brought in, from time to time, had arrangement with the Cameroon government to bring an… Read More
And we found the first tortoise that had ever been raised in any zoo, we found in the early ’50s, ’53 as I recall. And a few days later we dug down, found another live one and a number of eggs that had been fertile but the eggs didn’t hatch. Read More
How did you get Kenneth Norris to come to Honolulu Zoo, and how did he impact the zoo?… Read More
And those eggs, both there and with us had not hatched adequately or none had hatched successfully. So my old friend, Chuck Shaw from early days at San Diego, and I compared notes over and over. And we came to the conclusion as they were having trouble mating, that his… Read More
Were you successful?… Read More
We realized right away that in terms of Galapagos tortoises, no zoo would ever raise them. And at San Diego Zoo, they had over 30 for many years, and at Honolulu Zoo, they had a dozen. And part of our group and part of the San Diego Zoo’s group were… Read More
Can you tell us about the details of their development and breeding?… Read More
Did you implement a plan for them in breeding?… Read More
George Gilbert, actually was Georges Gilbert, was a Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian guy that was, worked for the territorial division of fish and game, ran their research vessel, whose name was Imua, which in Hawaiian means forward, move forward, go forward. Georges was employed as a poppies and whale catcher by sea… Read More
Did that have anything to do with sea life park?… Read More
How did the discovery, if at all, helped the zoo, and what role did George Gilbert play?… Read More
The oceanarium site was so steep for the school, but perfect for the oceanarium because they overlooked beautiful point of land. So in 1964, the oceanarium finally was open, and my daughter, Marley, worked there from the second year, right up for more than 30 years. And the oceanarium has… Read More
What dolphin was discovered?… Read More
Where are you gonna get the money?… Read More
And, well, turned out the father’s PanAm connection was beneficial in terms of having friends that, one of Tap’s sisters was married to Lil Thomas Jr., and there were a number of tie-ins with, again, the people that could help finance the oceanarium. So that hurdle was not as difficult… Read More