Your responsibility goes beyond the population at the zoo, because it is part of what we now in fancy terms, call a meta population, a population that extends throughout it’s kind every place. So there’s a population of a creature in Chicago, in New York, in the Congo, in Rwanda. Read More
You must be sufficiently sensitive expert and experienced to have a pretty good idea of where it hurts. And you must understand that the hurt of cock-of-the-rock from Ecuador is quite different from the hurt of a magellanic penguin from Patagonia. It is a wonderfully rich and complicated field that… Read More
One of the remarkable things about zoos is that change is a part of their fundamental nature. That’s not surprising after all, they deal with life, in contrast to an art museum where the purpose is to exhibit the work of an artist in a rather static fashion. It’s not… Read More
So you can create life in a zoo, although you normally do not create art in an art museum. I think these fundamental differences make the zoo ever so much more interesting. But if I were the city council of a municipality, thinking about creating a zoo, I would think… Read More
Everybody knew he was Jimmy and with his vocabulary, certainly couldn’t call him Janet. So despite the fact that he laid an egg, we still called him Jimmy. And then there was a wattled crane, wonderful bird, the Hugenbeck, Lorenz hugenbeck back brought that wattled crane, one that was an… Read More
You have likened zoos and wildlife to a library whose books are decaying and authors dying, do you still feel this way or have you seen enough changes in zoos?… Read More
We talked, and this is kind of an aside question, we talked about trying to promote groups of animals as opposed to individual animals, but in your career, have there been individual animals that you have felt close to?… Read More
Inevitably, a zoo biologists gets to know a few animals too well and I have. Jimmy, was an African gray parrot who moved from the zoo because he had a bump wing and was unsuitable for exhibition, and live with me and my wife for a little over 25 years. Read More
You said much heartbreak, you fear, would that be?… Read More
As zoo people look to the future, and we watch the animals whose histories we know and whose relatives we may have become very close to, diminish and their possibility of survival decline, I’m afraid that zoo biologists are going to be in for a great deal of heartbreak. Read More
I wanted teenagers who came to the zoo to take wildlife seriously, that’s not a small desire, after all it’s tough for teenagers to take anything seriously, I think. I guess, I would like to see zoos provide more opportunities for youngsters to become involved. I would like to see… Read More
And an the answer by the way, to prompt you of that question, what do you know about the profession that you devoted so many years of your life to?… Read More
You’ve mentioned that people have a great deal of hard work ahead of them. Read More
I think in a world of seven billion people, very few are likely to be remembered. But in my case, if I am remembered, I’d like to be remembered as someone who attempted to buy time for wildlife. We had talked about a little about teenagers and people that come… Read More
Have you thought about when you were director of the zoo, what’d you want the kids who came to the zoo to feel about their experience or was it the same as you wanted the adults to feel?… Read More
How would you like to be remembered?… Read More
What would you like your legacy to be?… Read More
What in the world? I can’t think of an answer to that. Read More
Where do I start?… Read More
What do you know about the profession that you’ve been so devoted to, sort of many years of your life?… Read More