I don’t think anybody else’s mistakes ever affected me except my main concern was giving the animals the most humane care we possibly could, most natural environment and make sure that we had cooperative breeding programs. And I think the zoos that I admired most were those that were ahead… Read More
Some of them famous. Read More
And they tore the hospital down and they’re putting deck parking and ultimately they hope to move maintenance department, some of the research facilities, maybe the hospital. Other areas of facilities that are using up space on the 90 acres now could be vacated and moved over to the hospital… Read More
When you were director, what mistakes?… Read More
You were looking and you were at these conferences and talkin’ to people. Read More
It was 350 acres in an adjoining county. And there was no natural water there. We brought in some fence builders outta Texas that were accustomed to putting up game fences around Texas ranches. They put a game fence around the entire 350 acres. There was only intermittent streams. And… Read More
So we had a 12-acre lake. We also cleared a lotta the cedar trees. We cleared an area that would be good enough for our barns and paddock areas. The finances weren’t available to take it beyond that, but we did harvest some of the cedar and use it for… Read More
The zoo is maintaining at this time just as a wilderness track. The possibility of it as a breeding farm was my dream. If ever anything happens with that track in the future at this point in time, it’s not in the master plan. So we’ll see. So there’s 350… Read More
The technology advanced so fast that within a couple years, schools had their own computers in the classroom. They didn’t have to come to the zoo to use ours. Read More
Did space constraints within either inside or the physical plant of St. Louis Zoo, did it ever hinder your ability to plan exhibits or did you have enough room?… Read More
Well we had 91 acres at the zoo grounds including the parking lots. I had always wanted a breeding farm. In an interview with a newspaper one time, they asked me what my dreams was. And I said, “Well someday I hope we would have a breeding farm, an outlying… Read More
But she called me up and said, “I’ve got 350 acres. It’s a wildlife sanctuary. Would you be interested in that?” So I went out and looked at it. It was 350 acres of wilderness. Her husband had bought two or three farms, combined it and was gonna build a… Read More
Am I correct?… Read More
No, we didn’t have Marlin Perkins. That was Darwin. Darwin. But we did have a computer station with about 20 or 30 Apple computers where you could learn all you wanted to learn about tigers or lions or zebras or any kind of animal. But that was in the early… Read More
Did it work the way you thought it would?… Read More
It was well-received. We only had a few people who complained because they felt that we should have a creation exhibit as well. But it wasn’t a big enough objection that ever took place. The display has since been taken down and replaced because everything really wore out and they’ve… Read More
And then you also had I believe a Marlin Perkins animatronic that welcomed you. Read More
I had hoped to have quite honestly an education center which we were able to build, a living world and go deeper into public education. So we developed exhibits. One was the diversity of life showing the great diversity from the animal kingdom from the invertebrates to the fish, reptiles,… Read More
All the different minnows that are found in Missouri as an educational ecological exhibit from Missouri. And that was part of public education with the graphics and audios, videos. We also got a grant from Apple and had about 30 computers so that for the first time people could use… Read More
How did Darwin play in St. Louis, Missouri?… Read More