I’m Don Farst, I was born in Wandsworth, Ohio, and grew up in Ohio except for a brief stint during World War II when I lived in West Virginia, when my father was down there building a defense project, but basically I’m a Ohio farm boy product. All of my… Read More
I think as a guy who cared about his profession, who understood it, who cared about the animals, both in the wild and outside the wild, and who tried as much as he could to make a difference when he was around to be able to do it. I think… Read More
Yes. Correct. Quite, quite the, yeah. Yeah, no, I was very happy. I was very happy to be part of a team that told that story and that would be a high point certainly of my career at Lincoln Park, was being able to do that. Yeah. So you retired… Read More
How would you like to be remembered?… Read More
Well, I think I’ll tell you two things. One is, what I know about my profession is that there are a lot of wonderful people. I have met some still friends today internationally, and that has been, it’s a very warm profession. There may be some bums or here or… Read More
How would I like to be remembered?… Read More
I loved all the archival things. The history of Lincoln Park itself was fascinating stuff. Read More
And I believe the zoo just celebrated its 150th?… Read More
It did. Read More
Anniversary last year, right?… Read More
“The Ark in the Park” was labor of love because I’d been with the organization such a long time and cared about it, knowing that no one had ever produced a history of the zoo. There’d been a mini one done many years ago, but it was like in a… Read More
I had done oral interviews with animal keepers. So all this history was there and I felt it should be told because it had such a rich history. It was an old zoo. And I wanted to tell this story. And I had two collaborators, Ed Uhlir and Carol Tauber. Read More
It was such great detective work to find these things. A lot of work though, a lot of time involved in it. It was a lot of time, but it was a labor of love. It needed to be done. And again, as we talked about your job, you’re gonna… Read More
And they said, “This is great. We’ll buy, we’ll do it.” Yeah. It was a Chicago story. So I get, you know, but the credentials were there of the people who could tell the story. And they had stuff in their hands say, “We weren’t just flash in the pans. Read More
I’m just curious, how and why did you decide to take on such a challenge?… Read More
Oh, I think the ideal approach has to be collaborative. You’ve got to not have an architect who wants to build a monument to him or herself. You have to include your animal keepers. They’re the ones who are gonna be dealing with this exhibit or exhibits the rest of… Read More
And they came to us, we built the Great Ape House and the old one. And they said, “Oh, we wanna build one like yours.” And I said, “No, you wanna build it better. You don’t wanna build the same one. We’re gonna tell you where we made our mistakes. Read More
Don’t make our mistakes.” So I think that collaborative approach both nationally, internationally and within your team is where you get the best success. So in speaking of successes, I like to think of the publication of your book. “The Ark in the Park” is quite an accomplishment. I mean,… Read More
So how can I learn about a species if I can’t do something with it in a professional manner?… Read More
Maybe I get two or three people together. But that create, being creative a bit, I think has been a bit lost. I would also say that the accreditation program of zoos from AZA has been wonderful to keep the zoos in a high standard. And also, the classes, again,… Read More