When I was offered the directorship, I was not entirely surprised although John Tee-Vans illness which led to my Ascension was quite unexpected. But I had certainly seen the opportunity to do things and to realize a developing vision, which were impossible as a curator. But I also had a… Read More
If you are in a conservation organization, studying wildlife, not related to a zoo, and an animal that you are studying dies, of course you’re saddened. It’s not your fault it died in nature. If you were studying an animal in the zoo and it dies it’s your fault, whether… Read More
You said that you were, I’ll use my words, reluctantly recruited to become director, but had you considered that position before you were approached?… Read More
And when you were approached, as you thought about it, did it interest you because now you would be able to make change or help affect change and did you want the zoo to be different?… Read More
And Laurence had been such a wonderful chairman of the board. And Laurence agreed to take it for a while. He’d been associated with the society for 40 years and it was a part of his life and his world. And he cares very deeply and was very, here’s a… Read More
to become our precedent. Marvelous president. He was president here for almost 22 years and we worked together on everything from conservation in Spain, Argentina to creating the Congo Gorilla Exhibit, changing the society’s name. And without Howard Phipps’ help, we would not have been able to affect it. Read More
Who proposed this change and how much arm twisting or convincing or intellectual understanding had to occur in this room or outside of this room for that to become memorialized in your bylaws?… Read More
I proposed the name, Wildlife Conservation Society after a lot of discussion with the societies staff, especially the staff of field biologist who were directly concerned. None of us were completely happy with the name and we experimented with many others over a period of months, but we finally settled… Read More
If you are applying for a grant from a Chicago Foundation, the California Foundation as the New York Zoological Society, we were told, “You know, we’re more interested in an international approach.” And we thought we could better portray what we were doing by becoming the Wildlife Conservation Society. Because… Read More
You say, we decided to change the name, was that we decided or was this your vision?… Read More
That is a conservation product. You can’t always do it and sometimes it takes many years. That is the proper criteria in my opinion, and it’s one I’ve applied for a long time to the distress of some who’ve found it did not support grant requests. So these two groups… Read More
Why did the society decide to change its name?… Read More
Did you increase the number of animals?… Read More
Did you increase the size of their habitat?… Read More
I don’t know whether you want to hear that story. I’d love to. Absolutely. In the early 1960s, there was an enormous amount of interest in animal behavior in many universities, overseas, especially in Germany and in England. Detlev Bronk, who was the president of the Rockefeller University here in… Read More
Well, this went along for a while, but eventually a divide appeared, our concern, my concern by that time becoming general director of the society, was with wildlife conservation and I was interested in a muddy boots approach in the field. The kind of work that George Schaller was doing… Read More
I don’t, their focus was different. So the quick answer is no, I can expand if you wish. I would like you to, please. The conservation foundations increasingly focused on programs of less interest to the zoological society and its staff. The society became increasingly concerned with the loss of… Read More
And this was one of the first indications that we were going to have about the effects of DDT on bald eagles, on pelicans and other species of birds. And the conservation foundation did start some of that early work. Eventually the conservation foundation separated from the New York Zoological… Read More
What was involved in the split?… Read More
And do you think that the zoo society lost an opportunity for growth by spinning off this conservation unit?… Read More