Interview 11040 – Caption Index: 236
This works, and they’re happy.” I said, “Good, thanks.” At what time did the company decide that killer whales would be the highlighted species of the park?… Read More
This works, and they’re happy.” I said, “Good, thanks.” At what time did the company decide that killer whales would be the highlighted species of the park?… Read More
Was it already decided, or was it during your time as the zoological director?… Read More
I think the killer whales were always the highlight and the spotlight of the SeaWorld parks, way before I even got to SeaWorld. So I didn’t really have anything to do with using them as our icon species or part of our logo. It was already part of the marketing… Read More
And I just said, “Well, what’s with this bear deal?… Read More
Why do we have little bears here?” And he says, “Well, they come from Bear World in Montana,” or something like that. And I go, “What? Bear World?” And I didn’t even know it existed. And I said, “Well, what are we doing after the summer?” And he said, “Well,… Read More
And I often thought, “This doesn’t make a lot of sense, because hardly anybody goes into it and people don’t really like bats,” even though they should, ’cause bats are important. But it wasn’t really the type of facility I liked. And so there was many, many times where I… Read More
I’m sure that team was a little more, “Oh, okay boss.” No, the team, they did not wanna make the change. And some of them we found other jobs in the park because they said, “Well, we don’t wanna do that.” And I said, “I respect that. That’s fine with… Read More
Were there any animals, terrestrial animals, at the time that you said, “Oh my gosh, we got these?… Read More
What am I gonna do?” There was, in Williamsburg, we had a somewhat of a children’s petting zoo, very old-fashioned. And I was talking to the curator there. And we were there during the middle of the summer. And there was a little bit of an ugly, old exhibit. And… Read More
And I didn’t know much about them and where they came from. Read More
Can you make big decisions?… Read More
The activity level changed dramatically, but any time we decided to get involved with an acquisition of an animal, or a disposition of an animal, I would just simply take it to my boss, John, and others who succeeded him, and just said, “Here’s what I’m doing, here’s why. I… Read More
Now, this new position, it’s, again, all over the United States?… Read More
It is, the animals were at Busch Gardens Tampa and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, the three SeaWorld parks, ’cause Ohio now had closed. We built Discovery Cove in the early ’90s. Aquatica has animals, now across the street here in Orlando. So there are animals at all those locations. Read More
I mean, you’re the top guy now. Well, the responsibilities just got more intense. I mean, there was more meetings and more contacts and more responsibility, obviously, ’cause you’re now the one being called at four in the morning and seven at night and ten at night and things like… Read More
And as the new zoological director, do you have a voice in animal acquisitions now?… Read More
I don’t remember a notebook. I don’t know. I know he said good luck a lot of times, but I can’t remember or recall that he gave me a notebook. Okay, well, I just wanted to jump ahead ’cause you mentioned his name. But just to back up, you become… Read More
And was this, again, Ed Asper leaves?… Read More
You raised your hand, or?… Read More
No, John Roberts just called me and said, “You’re it.” And I said, “Okay.” “You’re gonna be zoological director of operations,” and I said, “Okay.” And did your responsibilities change?… Read More