And I think we did it at Sedgwick County Zoo. I know that bad press cells and stuff like that and it’s an unfortunate situation, but if you can present it, and that’s what we did on this, and we always use that phrase your zoo. It wasn’t our zoo,… Read More
What can you help us do to make it better?… Read More
And that was always a tough question. But you felt good about those long range ones. We were one of the very first to contribute to the Tree Kangaroo SSP, simply because I believe that they had done such a great job and created a whole national park that it… Read More
Sadly, we even have people in top positions in our field who seem in line with what these non biologists have to say. Read More
Can you give me your thoughts on how best to deal with these groups?… Read More
We had some highly involved work with the rock iguanas in the Caribbean with San Diego and Fort Worth. You know, when the curator makes eight trips a year to the Caribbean with a permanent suntan, you know something is going right. We were involved with the Marianna Islands. My… Read More
I made sure everybody realized it was expected that they become involved in the organization and in outside work for the benefit of conservation and different things. We had picked up on that Quarters for Conservation. I did some math real quick on that. And you know, there are some… Read More
It starts manning up quickly. We went from donating our $20,000 a year to over a hundred thousand dollars a year real quickly into various programs. You know, you have that question. Read More
Do you dilute it by small contributions to a lot of ones, or do you concentrate on so many and do more money?… Read More
So what can a smaller, medium size municipal zoo or county zoo do today to be involved in a wildlife conservation nationally or internationally?… Read More
You know, there’s some medium size zoos, even small zoos out there that are doing some pretty incredible things. And you know, a small market. 3000 animals, 400 species. We had as big a collection as just about anybody but San Diego and Omaha. I mean, overall it was 17th… Read More
You know, the biggest thing that changed for me, and I think you’ve probably heard this from a lot of people, is that the amount of time that I spent out in the community dialoguing about development fundraising. Because even if you were at whatever phase you were in, you… Read More
And what can you do to help us make this succeed for the community?… Read More
You were always on. And I had to balance that with making sure that I had a good staff that was out there. I had to give up all the animal stuff I was doing. The last one was the bear TAG and the last animal, you know, I was… Read More
I had preconceived ideas and rough form and some of the staff polished ’em up even further. And the architects could then interpret all that and come up with wonderful things. Now, Wichita was not necessarily in the major market or a giant zoo. Read More
My passion. My board brought it up all the time. I lived and breathed the zoo. I was lucky I had a wife that liked it as much as I did and supported me. I got kidded at times ‘cos I just, you know, I believe in zoos to start… Read More
And I found that originally, I didn’t think I’d be attending these zoo meetings after I retired, but you know, part of it it’s because of the people we worked with. The greatest people in the world and you know, friends and colleagues and they’re passionate. It’s people like you… Read More
What skillset does a zoo director need today as compared to when you started?… Read More
Plus there’s the small parts, you know, how many people are ever gonna get a chance to go to Africa so see elephants?… Read More
But I have always felt that, and I’ve tried to have field conservation support for just about every major endangered species that we had at the zoo. I got over 50% that we were involved with some programs. This elephant exhibit is being used and all the money generated that’s… Read More