Saturday, September 6, 2008
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A Blog designed for discussion of topics related to, but not limited to, Circus, Zoos, Animal Training, and Animal Welfare/Husbandry. Sometimes opening up the dialog is the best starting point of all. And if for nothing else when people who agree and don't agree, get together and start discussing it, it will open up a lot of peoples minds. Debate and discussion even amongst themselves opens a window where there wasn't one before.
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4 comments:
My guess is that Jules his seen working his two lions probably about 1962. He also worked a lion and tiger group that Dick McGraw trained. Jules added four more lions to his group and had a nice act with some unique behaviors.
In 1968 Jules trained an act with four leopards, three pumas, and a young lion. At age 78 his show had three acts with twenty cats.
The facility wasn't great. Jules said it took longer to teach the cats to shift through the building than it did to train the act. The original concept was to present the act in a "natural" setting behind a moat but the money ran out.
Jim,
The conceiver's of the shows must have been in an ethical bind, How to present "unatural" shows in a "natural" setting. The painted walls weren't even close. I always assumed the moat was put in for the sea lion show.
Wade
You are correct about the moat. By stage was the same size. They took out two rows of seats and added a water moat in front, roughly based on the San Diego Zoo show. The bar sections were used in several areas of the Zoo including a giraffe stall. In the original drawing for the Arena the building was covered in the same "red granite" boulders used for the hoofed stock areas on the east end. Boulders replicate the large boulders found about 100 miles south of STL. The painting on the back wall was the work of Mike Kostial, the chimp trainer. Mike's father, Mike Sr., was the Zoo's first cat trainer. He didn't want his son to get into the animal business and sent him to commercial art school. Mike Jr. did go back to animal work but used his other talent on show sets and signs around the Zoo.
Jim,
I have often wondered how many people who were mesmerized by the natural rock work enclosing African and Asian actually came from cast's 100 miles away. LOL
The "solid wall" at the back of the cat arena was also a poor design flaw that was utilized at Thousand Oaks, and Jungle Larry's in Naples and I am sure others of the time.
Wade
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