If you are a zoo director, you’re in a very special profession and you quickly find yourself with a made to order group of friends and colleagues. The Europeans, I found particularly interesting, Heini Hediger, the great director of the Zurich Zoo. Special in my life was Benhard Grzimek. Grzimek… Read More
And it was an astonishing thing. You would go to one of these places and it was like going to a shop and here were all these animals and I’m afraid I was not very much in favor of that, but there they were. And you would try to pick… Read More
As you were working as director, what personalities, what other directors affected you that you admire that you learned from?… Read More
of course, there’s also William Beebe, I mean, William Bridges, the famous editor of zoo’s magazine, Animal Kingdom, who wrote the story of the Bronx Zoo and many other books as well, and was a tremendous asset and there was nobody like him and isn’t to this day in the… Read More
They did work for the society during a period of the Second World War. Both were Swiss, had wonderful language skills and the ability to virtually charm birds out of a tree. They brought in long-wattled umbrellabirds, some of the most beautiful races of the cock-of-the-rocks, (indistinct) Congo peacocks, wonderful,… Read More
His knowledge of zoo history, when I say zoo history, I mean the history of animals in zoos, was absolutely outstanding and probably unmatched. Of course, Will Beebe was a remarkable character. He started out as a bird curator, appointed by Hornaday, the first zoo director and gradually developed into… Read More
Grace Duvall. was a remarkable woman who started counting coins in the visitor services department. And she gradually evolved to become secretary to various of the animal curators. And then the record keeper and eventually assistant curator of mammals and birds. And she did everything from call sleepy curators who… Read More
That didn’t happen to be within her configuration of behaviors. I forgave her for I’ve seen exactly the same thing with Patagonian sea lions and in nature, a female sitting there shouted, “Pull him out,” and the poor little guy nearly dying. In the event, this pup, she did grab… Read More
You should be grateful for that and put up with the frustration. You’ve been involved with many personalities that are well-known within the zoo field, at the Bronx Zoo and New York Zoo Society, can you give me maybe just a capsule, couple of sentences. I know you can’t cover… Read More
As director, what were some of your most frustrating or challenging times?… Read More
I would guess that almost every zoo director, aquarium director will find dealing with the local polity quite frustrating from time to time. But in all fairness, I’ve found some animal behavior pretty doggone frustrating. I shall not forget a sea lion whose pup fell in the water at the… Read More
Well, I think most people, most scientists, most biologists keep a link in their minds with Charles Darwin. Dr. Darwin’s been gone a long time. What he had to teach us does not go out of style. What Heini Hediger had to teach us as a zoo ethologist, a new… Read More
I am impressed that many of our young curators working for the wildlife conservation society have a wonderful grasp of what I would call the zoo basics, the animal care basics. I went around taking some Argentine acquaintances through the zoo two weeks ago and one of our new young… Read More
So it’s a long collaborative, interactive, and wonderfully exciting process. And most of the curators and yours truly as a director curator, as I guess to some extent what I am, it’s very, very interesting and educational. It’s been said that many younger professionals certainly have knowledge of the computer… Read More
How important for the future zoos is to keep this link with the past, or is it not important at all?… Read More
For example, the Congo Gorilla Exhibit was put together by a team. Many of the original concepts are mine, things I wanted to do for years like the movie screen and so on. But there were major contributions from the curator of exhibits. We had a marvelous man named John… Read More
We need to do this, we need to revise this part of the buildings to provide better for these animals. These took weeks and weeks and weeks. And of course our construction people looking at this and the architects sitting there somewhat fuddled by all this was going on ’cause… Read More
Can you describe your management style, and how do you think your staff would describe your management style?… Read More
I’ve often heard the term management style, I’m not sure I know what it means. When I hear it. I think of an old time, 1950 Chevy with tail fins. I’ve never been able to grow tail fins, it’d probably would be hard to sit with. I suppose my management… Read More
One of the first things I did was started curatorial training program. I found it difficult to get trained curators. So we brought in a number of young zoologists, those that we could find that had zoo training. For example, James Dougherty came in as a trainee, but he’d worked… Read More