Interview 5420 – Caption Index: 495
Did you just wanna follow?… Read More
Did you just wanna follow?… Read More
Were you just following species survival guidelines?… Read More
It wouldn’t have been very much. I was pretty well underpaid. I said, “Okay, I’ll stay three more years.” We stayed three more years. We did raise the money. Then they came to me and they’d say, “We’d like you to stay just three more years and then you can… Read More
We raised all the money to pay for the River’s Edge. Read More
Can you tell us about your concept of developing exhibits and acquiring animals?… Read More
Well the River’s Edge was the western end of the zoo and we wanted to have… Raja now has been born. We wanted to have a larger outdoor environment for Raja, so we wanted to have elephant area. We always wanted some underwater viewing of animals and we saw Toledo’s… Read More
We had other dreams too, but we ran outta money. But we did do the River’s Edge. We had underwater viewing of hippos, outdoor cheetahs, outdoor hyenas. We also had a exhibit for the mongoose, dwarf mongoose outdoor exhibit and then a great big yard for the elephants and a… Read More
It’s also gonna cost more. We originally had a $55 million goal. We have to raise it to 70 million. We know we can do it, but it’s gonna take us three more years. We’re asking you to stay three more years. We’ll give you an option for three more. Read More
I also remembered in Europe where they have very limited space. They have outdoor yards for primates and cats up on an upper level and the winter housing and night housing is down underneath because they don’t have space behind it. So we picked the space that the lion house… Read More
And the architect took that tablecloth, went back and made Big Cat Country. That’s what Big Cat Country is. Came from a drawing on a tablecloth, paper tablecloth. Now the River’s Edge required a lot of land. Read More
How did this unique idea come about?… Read More
Was that it, when you were building Big Cat Country?… Read More
Were you trying to answer critics or did you already have this in the mind of what you wanted to do?… Read More
When we went on a Zoo Museum District campaign going from a city zoo to a zoo district, we said that the lion house was falling apart. The concrete was cracked. The iron bars, we had a picture of iron bar rusting out at the bottom where there’s a space. Read More
But when he’s sittin’ there layin’ back, every scale mark was around his neck that he died from asphyxiation by the snake. The snake was it.” He asked me, “How big was that snake?” I said, “Well we haven’t measured it yet.” They brought the snake to the zoo, police… Read More
He wrote that when he visited the St. Louis Zoo as kid, he remembers and you probably do too that the big cats would pace back and forth. When you visit the big cats now at St. Louis, you’re not seeing them as easily because of the exhibitry, no pacing… Read More
What was your intent?… Read More
Was that the grizzly bear part saying that?… Read More
No, that was the teddy bear. You had a snake called the Big Sucker. Okay. We had an occasion in St. Louis where a man had a python. It was a Burmese python and it was about 12-feet long and he would take it out and handle it. (coughs) It… Read More
And the proof of it, I found out from the coroner. The coroner called me the next day and said, “We just want you to know that that man did die from asphyxiation by the snake. How common is that?” I said, “Well really unusual. The snake must’ve panicked or… Read More