One, it’s true what I said and it’s not taken out of context, but it is taken out of a longer thing that I said. And yeah, that’s the worst thing I ever said that I kicked myself for, so be it. But I am a believer that animals in… Read More
If I can’t hook somebody and get the story across with a live animal, how are people gonna care about what’s going on with elephants in the wild?… Read More
That was one of the requirements. And we paid for him to go over and spend some time. And he knew that Reillys personally from earlier and a management plan. The hardest thing to do is to kill something you love. That’s what they were faced with. Read More
Did the protest end after the elephants came?… Read More
One, we never had protest at our zoo. We had cheering crowds camped out at the parking lot for five hours before they showed up. It literally ceased after they arrived. We got a few more cards and stuff. We never had, and neither did Omaha or Dallas, have protestors… Read More
Now you had a quote that was kind of used against you. “It is not a question of if, but a question of when we will have young elephant calves born here. Read More
There were some places in Swaziland… There was no place in Swaziland that could have done this. And I don’t think there are some people that believed that the Reillys would cull ’em. That was the bottom line for some people, there was a threat. It wasn’t a threat, it… Read More
And this wasn’t in any deal, we just said we’ll do it. They have their successful program and the thing they’re concentrating mostly is black and white rhinos. They wouldn’t even tell us how many they have. It’s a state secret because they’re 20 miles from the Mozambique border where… Read More
It’s this high now and lush and thick after four years of drought when it finally came back. They couldn’t put those elephants back out, not when they had rhinos. Reproduction ceased, no baby rhinos. I just came back from seeing the first baby rhino who was six weeks old… Read More
Douglas Hamilton was one of our biggest supporters. The ones that came out against us doing this and at the level what they said, I’m just gonna flat out say that we believe that like in a lot of things, money is talk and they get a lot of their… Read More
And the bottom line for those purists that believe that this was not the right thing to do because there was some other place for ’em, I don’t think they understood there was no other place for them to go. All the parks were full. Read More
The cost of doing it, who’s gonna pay for it?… Read More
Same thing with the elephant staff. It was a hopping place there when they found out. Now lots of big name scientists and conservationists lined up against this importation. Read More
What do you think they didn’t understand, and did you reach out to any of them?… Read More
Going from the other perspective first, we had support internally from the AZA, the elephant TAG people, the AZA board. We had supporting letters and documentation from the WAZA board. We had and got support from major international zoo directors, personally, Zurich, Switzerland and Leipzig and other zoos, (indistinct) and… Read More
What was your board saying at this time during this up and down kind of thing?… Read More
And what outside support were you getting, if any?… Read More
Personally, I can honestly say that I had 20 minutes the night before where I thought it had collapsed. And that was when we first heard that there might be an injunction where we couldn’t bring the elephants out on the second at the attempt to shut us down. And… Read More
I mean, I’d always had fulfilled on all my promises and dreams. They were entrusted with the secret. I mean, we waited up the last minute to tell the board, the full board and everything. And as far as the arrival date, somebody called and said they’re leaving Dallas. And… Read More
Was the low point the lawsuits?… Read More