We just followed the reasons given in the permits, why we wanted them, they were for public education. We didn’t use the word research ’cause you have to have a separate permit for getting an animal survey, but these were for public display, public education. And we just reiterated what… Read More
And, of course, the activists were really angry with us that we managed to end-run them on that. Bringing in the white-sided dolphins, the first group we got in without too much trouble, we held them at the University of California. And I’m sorry, my memory is slipping, but right… Read More
That was a big steel haul boat. And our collecting permit was to collect them in the Santa Barbara channel between those islands, they call the Santa Barbara Islands, and the mainland, that’s where Catalina is. So we managed at the last minute to get the permit modified so we… Read More
They unloaded them. They put them on a Hertz rental truck, and drove him down to San Diego and went in the back way where we were keeping the animals, and they’re still out there, at the mouth of San Diego Harbor, waiting for us to come in, when animals… Read More
We didn’t have an foam rubber mats. And John, sorry his last name has left me right now. He owned the motel where we were staying, and he said, “You’ve got foam rubber.” He says, “Go in the motel. “There’s foam rubber mattresses in there. “Take what you need.” So… Read More
So we had a wait for a new crew to be flown to him, to take the animals out. We’re up at Churchill. So they finally got there. Three o’clock in the morning, the plane took off. Put down in Calgary to get more ice and freshwater for the belugas… Read More
And the other thing that helped us so much was that we had a fellow, up from the department of fisheries and oceans of Canada. They’re watching us collect, making sure we did everything right. And he was on our side, quite frankly. And I said, “You know, we’ve got… Read More
I said, “You find a plane “that we get these guys out of here tonight.” And gave up some of the others duties. They were to round up every single ice cube in town that we could find. And unfortunately, when we went up there, they were having terrible forest… Read More
But what do we do?… Read More
Well, fortunately, Tom Hutton from the Tacoma Aquarium, we asked him to go along to help us out with this ’cause he’d been there before collecting belugas and he says, “You know, Bill, “you ought to have some waterproof containers.” And he says, “I know just what you want. “I’ll… Read More
It’s through roadblocks in the way. They protested every step of the way, they tried to block our permit. They tried to block our collecting activities, but they’re dealing with the wrong guy ’cause I wasn’t gonna cave to them. I like a good fight. And they even got the… Read More
They rented a boat to go out in the water. Somebody, I don’t know who shot the transom of their boat full of 22 holes. Nobody would sell them gasoline for the outboard motor. They got some somehow. So that sort of thing. When we were up there to get… Read More
And we heard that this potential court order was in the works. And so I called our lawyer down in Washington. He’s on vacation in Germany, finally got a hold of him. He’s on a train in German talking to me on a phone up in Canada. And then he… Read More
And that’s why we lost them. I think this is probably one reason why we’re not getting successful breeding with white-sided dolphins, because out in the ocean, they’ll see them in pods of 2, 3, 400. And I think you’ve got to have that critical mass or close to it… Read More
What effect did that have on acquiring those specimens and how you had to acquire them?… Read More
Well, you’re talking about the animal activists, the animal writers now. Read More
How that affected our collecting?… Read More
And of course, killer whales were the big, big thing and then dolphins. And I’d always liked the Pacific white-sided dolphins, Lagenorhynchus. And so it was designed for that, and also for beluga whales because this was to be a saltwater, cold water exhibit, and belugas were such great animals. Read More
The belugas have been just such a great attraction. They’re easy to maintain. They’re funny, laughable animals. And they take to being in an aquarium very well. Public loves them, and the white-sideds are so athletic and give people a very, very good idea what these animals are physically capable… Read More
And thinking back on it, now we’ve not had good luck in a breeding program. And you want me to get a little more technical on this WCLE, who was another one of the authors of animal ecology, along with Orlando Park, Tom Park, K.P. Schmidt, L. Emerson, WCLE wrote… Read More