Most old polar bear enclosures had basically been lots of concrete, lots of steel. I think the a ZA recommendations for polar bears is still a 16 foot high fence. And I went, I was asked to rehouse the single, so the, the last zoo polar bear in the uk… Read More
I was curator of mammals at London Zoo. What do you mean?… Read More
I don’t have an interview and a curator position at Singapore came up. I applied, they got straight back in touch with me, flew myself, my wife out to have a lookie and an interview, obviously very interesting place, fantastic zoo, amazing animal collection. And so it was like, okay,… Read More
What was the revolutionary?… Read More
And then I’d, I’d applied for various positions in the states without success, not even getting interviews, which I thought was strange. Read More
So there was only a handful of experienced keepers. Then they hired all these university graduates who didn’t know the first thing about working in zoos, but all had very firm opinions of how it should be done. And it was, it was an incredibly frustrating experience. But, well, I… Read More
And I, I gave the, okay, I, I gave what I thought was a ridiculously large amount of money that they would have to pay me. And then they called me the next day and said, right, we’ll pay you that. And it was like, oh, Douglas, you pr So… Read More
And I eventually when asked, okay, what will it take?… Read More
Why did you leave London to go to Rome, but such a short time and then leave Rome?… Read More
They, an ex-girlfriend was involved with, she was managing the Genoa Aquarium, which was, it was the same organization that had now had the contract to manage Rome Zoo. And they were basically looking to, they, nothing new had been built since the 1950s. And so basically they were looking… Read More
Basically a little bit of making an argument for it. The, one of the other collection managers wanting to step away from that side of things with the, with exotic animal sections. And it, it was my aspiration curator of mammals at London Zoo. Certainly in the UK scenario, and… Read More
And, but for a short period of time, how did that come about and why did you leave The where did I leave London or why did I leave Rome?… Read More
So I actually applied for the assistant curator, ’cause I thought that sounded better, but they wanted me for a collection manager position. So that was, I suppose the, my first foray into a curatorial position. But though I got promotion, a lot of my colleagues lost their job. So… Read More
Yeah. How did that come about?… Read More
I said, I said, where’s the underwear?… Read More
You need two pairs of them and three pairs of those. And tr I even got socks. Read More
He said, that might come next year. So it was, it was a, I thought at that point that’s in my zoo career. I thought that I’d, I made it, this, this was, you know, no one had done this before and, and you’re at London’s, the Zoological Society of… Read More
London was Unionized Zoo. And you know, here’s me taking one of the few options for promotion and some outsider, some young outsider, I mean, I was 29 at the time, and most head keepers when they finally, you know, walked into the dead men’s shoes, that was their, their… Read More
And for, if we added all the uniform I’d ever received from every zoo I’d ever worked at, it wouldn’t have amounted to the double arm full of stuff that I was barely able to see over the top of being Charlie Kitchen side, a former o overseer taking me… Read More
And anyway, couple weeks I’d gone on holiday, I’d come back and the chap who’s just recently retired as director, him and I were sharing a flat and Dudley and, and Derek said, oh, Brian Bertram, who was curator of mammals at London at the time, said, he’s Doug, Brian… Read More