Ear on Chicago; Children's Zoo

Well, you may not recognize that sound, but that's the sound of a baby elephant at the children's zoo and farm located at the Brookfield Zoo. This is one of the most famous zoos in the world as you probably know. This is a two and a half acre area, which is located right in Brookfield Zoo, contains farm animals, and of course some of the wild animals that the children who are out here are unfamiliar with, but become rather familiar with when they're out here visiting the zoo. We're going to talk to Mr. Ralph Graham, who is the assistant director of the Brookfield Zoo, and also to Kay Shriver, and Kay is what they call a super intended at the children's zoo. Clifford Jones is the zookeeper who was with the baby elephant a moment ago, and he still is, and he was the one that was getting the elephant a little bit riled up, so he'd do some talking for us if talking is the proper word. Mr. Graham, what do you call this elephant here? It's an awful small elephant, is it an elephant? Yes, that's an African male elephant. Comes from Tanganyika. What is it? A pigme? No, no, it's just

baby. It's about six months old, probably about seven now. Was he born out here? No, it was born in Africa. We brought him over in a plane before the opening of the children's zoo. Can Clifford talk to him? He's he's learning to respond to Cliff, yes. You've got a good audience today. There's a terrific crowd out here. There must be 500 children standing around this area alone where the baby elephant is. Yes, this time of year we get many of the school groups from Chicago and vicinity. Sunday, for instance, we had a very good day. There were 9 ,000 people in the children's zoo. And it's interesting, I think, that of those people about 60 % are adults and 40 % are children. Okay, come on over here and talk to us for just a minute. First of all, before we get into the conversation here between Clifford and the baby elephant, let's talk about what you do out here. What do you do? Well, everything. Clean, feed, watch the children see that they don't climb the fences and get bitten by the animals

or bite the animals. We, they're about during the summer and nine of us here and we, one of us has to stay in with the elephant to see that it's not fed. It's much too young. Someone has to stay in with the chimps for an hour at a time. Someone has to be in the pet ring and they pass the baby animals around for the children to touch. Okay, here with the baby elephant is an animal which looks to me like it's a llama, is that right? Well, this is a little guanaco, the tiny one. The bigger one is a llama. This little one's only about two and a half weeks old and we've had it since the day after it was born. It's a very friendly little thing. I don't know whether you'll be able to hear her. She speaks very, very softly. Put it down there. You talk to me? Will you talk to me? Come on, talk to me. Talk to the man. We'll talk to the man louder. Trying to take a nibble off the microphone. Talk to the microphone, honey. Will you? Will you talk? We'll talk a little louder. Come on.

There must be something on that microphone that tastes awfully good. It's pretty. Come on. Can you say something? Well, she's a little young two and a half weeks to talk. She speaks very softly. The llama's getting interested now. She that's a pretty animal. White face and sort of black hair around the eyes. I'm getting bitten here. That's all right. It's all right. It's in the children's room. Gonna leave half of my suit here. The llama's code is the loveliest thing to feel. You ought to touch it. Well, I'd like to. That's like nothing. Let me walk over and oh my. Wouldn't somebody like to have a coat made out of that? That's where we get our, when you call that lovely stuff, all the lovely sweaters you made out of. I don't know. And what do they call it? Alpaca, is that a, is that? This isn't an alpaca. It's the same family, but they are a little bit different, but their coats are very much the same. This coat here is a little bit more coarse. It's more coarse, yes, but it's also, it makes up into a lovely sweater or suit coat. Well,

that's where they get that fur then to make those, make, make clothing from llamas and from, what did you say this? This is a guanaco. Guanaco? Well, we were going to go over here and have Clifford talk to the baby elephant. Clifford, what's the baby elephant's name? Well, we haven't named it for sure yet. We just call him first one thing, then another right now. Do they get a permanent name for it? Well, what are you calling them as of now, anything? Well, I just call him baby and something like that when I work around him. Well, go ahead, Clifford. Let me hear you talk to him. What's your matter, boy? Oh, what a matter, huh? What a matter. What a matter, huh? Well, come on here. Come here. Where'd you go? Oh, what a matter, huh? Yeah, you're hungry. No, you're a good boy. You're a good boy. Yes, you're a good boy. Come on back. Come back now. I just got stepped on. If I don't get out of

here, I may be ruined for the day. Oh, he wouldn't hurt you. My coach been eaten by a llama getting stepped on by an elephant. He's pretty nice little elephant. He wouldn't hurt you. Clifford, how long have you been around animals? I've been at the Brookfield Zoo for 12 years, and I've worked on elephants for the last about 30 years. Where were you before the Brookfield Zoo? Well, I was on Pollock Brothers Circus, and then I worked for Barnes and Crether's book, an agent out of Chicago with some elephants from Missouri. Okay, I think the last time we were out here Clifford, we talked to you, and you talked to, was it Ziggy? The big elephant? Yes, that's Ziggy, the big male. That's right, and you had a conversation with Ziggy. One of the strangest things I've ever heard, but Ziggy actually talked. Yeah, Ziggy, Ziggy, mine's pretty good when I'm around him, I don't never have any trouble with him when I'm around him by myself. He's that awful nice with me. Okay, you and I are going to have to move along. If we can get Mr. Graham to go with us, we've got so much to see here in the children's zoo, and we've spent a lot of time here at

the baby elephant. I'd like to talk to a few of the mothers and some of the children while we're here, and then maybe we can move on. But let me ask you this, how many different animals and how many different, well, areas do you have where the animals are located? For example, over here you have actually farm animals, some sheep, some chicken, chickens, cows. We have ducks and geese, and chickens, and rabbits, and guinea pigs, and what cows? How many animals do you have out here, Mr. Graham? I'll tell you. I don't know what the count is this year. Last year we showed 54 species of animals. Of course there were, for instance, ducks we had as many as 30 ducks at one time, and this is the only children's zoo that really showed exotic animals. Like an orangutan, a gorilla and a chimp together with tame cheetah, and then we have lion cubs. Well, let's go on and take a look at some of them, but first of all, let's walk over here and talk to some of these people.

Ralph and I have walked over here to the edge of the, well, I don't know what you call it. I'm not going to call it a cage or a pen. What do you call this area where you keep the elephant? Let's see the elephant enclosure. Just an enclosure, enclosed by a pink fence. It's a very attractive place out here, Ralph. Different colored fences, as a matter of fact. There's one over there that's sort of a green color. Yeah, we have a color scheme of this pink or coral, turquoise and light green. Sounds a little horrible to describe, but with the background of the green trees, I think it's quite beautiful. Here's some children over here. Hi! What's your name? What's your name? You don't know your name? What's your name? What? Cabin, you said. How old are you? Three years old. Three years old. Hi, what's your name? Bobby. Bobby, how old are you, Bobby?

Two. Two years old. He looks a little bit older. I bet he's older. How old is he? Three. Three years old. Is this his first trip to the zoo? Yes, it's the first time. Has Cabin been out here before? I know. This is his first time. What if this boy could talk? How old is he? He's two. He'll tell you. Hi, how old are you? Take two. Yeah. He's sitting down here in a go -cart. Looks like his mother just came back from shopping. What's your name? What? What's your name? Michael White. Michael White. Okay, Mike. Thank you. What's your name, son? Robert. How old are you, Robert? Seven. You out here with a school group? Yes. What school, Robert? Lindop. Are you the teacher? No, I'm one of the room mothers. What I say, what school is this? Lindop's school and Broadview. Where's the teacher? Well, I think we've talked to just about enough children, Kay. Suppose you and I move on. We'll find them all over the place and we can talk to

them. I suppose anytime we want to. Okay, what would you like to see? Well, tell me about the farm animals over here. Let's go look at the cows. All right. Okay, and I are back on the farm. What's this bell, Kay? This bell was presented to the children of Chicago by the children of Bosnall Switzerland. It was given to us in 1955 and we hang it here in the windmill and it goes all day long. There's always someone giving it a good big push. But I say we're back on the farm. I really mean it. First of all, the first thing we heard was this bell, which I suppose was used on a farm in Switzerland, wasn't it? Not this one, I think. This one was new, but they do use these all over Switzerland. It's a different type of bell than you see in this country. It's not exactly shaped like a bell, a shape almost in the shape of a mushroom. And anyway, as Kay said, it's hanging on the windmill and the windmill is going around today. The windmill is about 425 feet high, I guess, isn't it? Oh, I would imagine y 'all. Well, it's a pretty good size windmill and then right behind it is a

barn and it's a good looking barn. You don't see many barns any better than that on a real farm. No, we think it's an awfully nice little barn. It gets a lot of comments about it from people. And here's Bossy the Cow. Is that the wrong name, but that's a cow. Ah, we call her Bossy too. I don't know whether we're going to be able to hear much from her. She doesn't talk too much. You can hear it chewing. I can almost hear it chewing from here, but I'm afraid the microphone probably can't. Without going into the, while I could walk over here, we'll see. I can't even get one more of you when she first came here. She liked only men and we had quite a time getting to know her. Now she likes only women. Oh my. So it's getting a little complicated with the boys trying to clean her. She much prefers us around her. We can't get one move out of her. I don't know. Would you talk to me? Would you say something? Would you? Come on, come on, come on. No, I don't think she's afraid

of me, Kay. What's inside of the barn? What are you having there? First, I have to look for an egg before she eats it. All the chickens lay eggs in her manger, and yesterday we got a full dozen in the afternoon. Oh, I see. There's a hen in there, and Kay is reaching down to see if the hen laid any eggs. She's setting on her egg for the time being. Well, she looks awfully proud of it. She is. They all are proud. They certainly let us know when they're through. What's inside of the barn, Kay? Right now, nothing. We have two stalls in there. We keep the elephant in there at night, and we keep the little donkey, and then the center stall we use for feed. But right now, everything's outside. Mr. Kim, I think it's very interesting to see some of the farm animals, but we'd like to go and take a look at some of the wild animals. Not sure how wild they are in the children's zoo, but anyway, some monkeys, for example. We have the chimps there over in the, what we call the little women's village. There are four barrels that they stay in. Of course, we bring them in at night. Okay, let's go take a look at it. Maybe we can stir them up and get

some noise. We'll try. Okay, is here with the chimps now. She just walked over to the center of the cage. Listen to them. You're talking to him. You're talking to them. Reaching out, grabbing for the microphone. They're two little chimps here, and Kay walked over to the center of this enclosure, and brought them over here to the edge now. She's sitting on a ladder, and let's see, are you going to talk to them? Why are they hugging onto each other here, is if they're either cold or frightened? They always seem to do that. They seem to come in pairs, and they stay in pairs, and it's really a job to get them apart. Well, they don't want to leave each other. No, they don't come apart. They don't want to come apart.

Come on, come on. The chimps always come in pairs. Always seem to come in pairs. Oh, he's mad. What's the matter? What? Oh, you need to do his whole one, the other stay there. Now, they do not like to be separated. Well, that's all right. We don't have to separate them. I don't guess. Well, in the morning, I've been trying to get their faces in handswashed, but I have to take two, and then try to find all the different hands and feet, because I can't get them apart, and when I do, the screaming is so awful we can't stand it. Well, now, wonder what they can say. Anything? How old are these? We think they're about nine months. About nine months? Did they, were they born here? No, they were born where, Ralph. Africa. They were flown over also far that children too. Oh, I see. Well, let's say something here. What's their name? This is Amy and Joe, and then we have two more. Amy and Joe. Yeah. And the other

two are Megan Beth. And where are they? Well, right now, they're in the hospital. They got a cold. The first day, we had them out. It was kind of chilly, and they each got a cold, so they're over there. All the animals seem to like this microphone. Don't they, King? Love it. Shiny, I guess. That's why. What do you see in there, a peanut? You can't know. Don't give her. She mustn't have anything, because she's too little. A couple of girls here are trying to feed the chimpanzees peanuts. What do you think of these two? Cute. How do you like them? What do you think of that, chimp? I think it's cute too. Which one do you like the best? I like them both. You like them both, huh? What's your name? Seesan, whom's Triter? What's your name? Shamran Roy. Well, I think that's about enough with the chimps. We're going to have to move on, because we're going to run out of time here in a minute, and we've got so much more to see, so we better move on. Yeah, I'll put them back down where they belong. We're in a little enclosure

now, which contains... listen to that, that's a lion. Roft, that doesn't quite sound like a lion's roar, but that's a junior size. A junior size roar. I started to say there were in an enclosure which contains lions. There's a big goat here, and some geese, a rabbit or two. Now, why have you put them all together in here, Rob? Well, we call this the contact pen. We have a K and the other girls pick up the baby animals and pass them around so our children can pet them. And do you allow the children to pet the lion? Oh, yes, so the girls hold them. Well, I'm petting the lion now, and believe me, this is about as big as I want them to get when I start to pet them. Is he ever snapper scratch? Oh, not viciously, no. What's the matter, boy? What's the matter? I don't think he likes me, Kay. I don't think he likes you, either. What's the matter, sweetie? This is the one that doesn't like to be held too much.

That a few chickens around. Oh, you're such a lion, lion. Yes. Oh, you're a big lion. How long will it take this lion to get real big? Well, we've kept ours here all season, and even after we've closed, and we've kept still lions we can hear them very nicely. These lions stay as tame as this or do they get wild? Well, no, not with us. In fact, the two we had last year are in an animal act, aren't they, Ralph? Yes. We sent them down to St. Louis. The St. Louis Zoo has them in a, uh, one of their trained animal acts. Little lions can't stay tame. Oh, yes. Yeah, a few handle them right along. They're comparatively tame. What's got up here, Diane and Daphne. Most of that's the name of the cub. Yes, the lion cub. But you have some birds up there. Yeah, those are mucaws from South America. They make any noise, gee, that's a beautiful bird. Uh, do they talk, okay? Yes, they both talk. This red one particularly talks very well.

Uh, the other one talks quite a bit, but uh, which one is this? Diane or Daphne? This is Daphne. Diane is a nice, a little nicer disposition. Diane is asleep at the minute. It looks like. Yes, Diane is asleep. I think you woke Daphne up. I did. They sleep a good part of the time. They're still pretty little. We passed around for a while and we last sleep a while. Take it easy, Daphne. Oh, my, you better put her back. She's getting mad at us. Where'd you get the goat? Uh, that goat came last year as a kid and that was a companion to the baby rhino, African black rhino. Uh, the girls call that one bell and uh, well, she's wearing a bell too. Yes, and you can see she's uh, slightly outside. She's got the biggest appetite of any of the animals there in the uh, children's room. Okay, ring that bell for us. Ring the bell for us so we can hear it. The bell.

That's bell's bell. That's bell's bell. Well, we can hear it from there. These bells were also given to us by those children, weren't they, Ralph? Yes, they all came from Basel, Switzerland as a gift to the children of Chicago from the children of Basel. Ralph, we keep hearing how you have gifts of animals here at the children's zoo. How did the zoos, while the children's part of the zoo, start? Uh, well, the zoological society here at Brookfield is one of the children's zoo for many years. And finally, uh, five years ago, Mr. Charles Ward, Seabury of Chicago, uh, gave the money towards building them. And each year since then he's uh, given us a uh, baby elephant. Not each year, but every other year I should say. First, it was a, uh, an Indian elephant. That was, uh, Melinda. Then the second year after that, he gave us widget, a little African. And she's well grown now. She's in the elephant house. And then finally,

uh, this little elephant that we have now that we don't have a name for yet. Well, now Ralph, uh, we were going to go talk to that donkey and get some noise out of him. And then I wanted to hear from that, was it a minor bird? Yes, we have a minor bird here. We get some noise out of her or here. He usually talks, limited vocabulary, but he talks well, what he does say. He's getting quite a vocabulary. Can you talk to him, Kay? Well, we do, uh, he always seems to talk better when there's nobody around but us. Oh, well, let's give it a try. Let's go on over. Let's go over and see the minor bird first. Hello. How are you? How are you? Come on. Come on. Kay is trying to get rainy the minor to do some talking. She's standing just outside of his cage. I think perhaps many of you know

what a minor bird is. If you visited the children's zoo, that other zoo, which is located in downtown Chicago, the minor bird is black, has a orange and yellow colored beak. Very small bird, but the minor bird does a lot of talking. Right now, we can't get this one to do much talking, but on the sign here, it says that rainy, the minor says, hi, darling. Hello there. Hello, Joe. minor bird, minor bird, talking, cock of the rock and scram. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. There was. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Hello. Hello, Joe.

Hello, Joe. Hello, there. Hello, there. Hello, there. Hello, there. Hello, there. I think we could hear that. Said hello, there. Right over here is the, are the donkeys. Now, we were going to talk to one of them. Okay, I think you said you had to take one of them in. Yes, I have to take one in, then you can hear him better. Okay, you go ahead and we'll wait for you, and when you get ready, why, just call us over. Well, that's Chico, the donkey. What's he so mad about, Kay? Well, we just put Chordy in and he doesn't like that one bit. They don't want to yell. Chordy is his friend, yes. Same kind of a donkey, a little bit small or a little younger, but they're very great pals. And what, you put Chordy inside the little shed there and Chico gets mad about it?

Yes, he has to be with him. Usually, uh, Chordy will be screaming at the other end too, but maybe he's found something to eat in there. Well, Chico and Chordy are in a little enclosure here, standing right next to a brown shed, and that's where some of the animals are kept. We're only a few feet away from where the minor bird was doing some swistling just a moment ago, and you might know what we didn't have our tape recorder on. Over here to our left are some chickens, and there's a rooster that was growing loud and long a little while ago. And of course, now we can't get it to do anything. And we're standing in a long pin, about 25 feet long, and about three feet wide, just outside the enclosure containing Chico. And here is a kangaroo. Kangaroo, isn't it? Yeah, will she say something? Yes, you can over here. Jody, the kangaroo. Which we can hear that rooster crow again? Get down close to her. Oh, I see if I can. Oh, Jody. Jody started to run away and K grabbed her by the tail, and she still wants to run. And

K, we got a fight going here. That was Jody. That was Jody. Jody was indignant because her elf was going to pick her up. Oh, I see. It doesn't like to be picked up, so she makes that awful noise whenever you start to lift her. How'd you get Jody, Ralph? Jody was a young kangaroo born here, and as a young one, we brought it over to the children's zoo for five years ago, and he's been here ever since. You know, I was just saying, we've been very fortunate in getting some of the animal sounds, but while we had our tape recorder stop this cock of the rock over here, that rooster was really crowing. Jody. And it's not doing much right now. Here's a beautiful, and now that's, is that a rooster? Yes, yes. I'm not up on my farm animals like I used to be. But that looks like a rooster. Tall, graceful, beautiful bird. Well, here's the, uh, this little fall I down here is a jungle fall. Uh, that's the progenitor of all domestic breeds of chickens.

They're beautiful. I just heard one crow. I think maybe we might have been able to pick that up. Is this an American rooster over here? Yes. Yes, that's common breed. It's a beautiful bird. Gold and yellow feathers, and of course, the red beak and black tail feathers, which, uh, shoot up into the sky towards the rear end of the bird. And, uh, well, there's a black donkey. Did we have anything to say about that one over there? Is that a donkey? Well, that's a donkey. Yes, she has a young one there, if you see, to her right. What's the name of that donkey? Have you got any? Oh, we call it Jenny. She has a fancy name, but I don't even remember it. Asma. Is that Jenny's baby over there? Yes, that's Jenny's baby. Well, the donkey, the baby is, uh, donkey yoddy. Donkey yoddy. Here goes Chico again. Now, Chico wants Shorty. Kay, you better go get Shorty and bring him back. That's better, cute. By the way, I wanted to tell you that Jody is the oldest thing that we have here

in the Brookfield. The oldest animal. The oldest animal. In the children's zoo, yes. How old is that? She's been with us since the day we opened. The only older than that? Oh, I don't think she's older that way. I mean, she's the thing that's been with us longest. Oh, yeah. Eddie is a big bore. Oh, Eddie was here in the beginning, wasn't he? Well, I think Eddie is really the oldest. How old is Eddie? Uh, I think he's six or seven years old. Now, how old is the, uh, how old is the children's zoo? Uh, that's, this is its fifth year. You know, I was almost four or four years. I was interrupted there, actually, when my train of thought I looked over there and there's a couple of great, big black bears outside of the children's zoo. Yeah, those are asiatic black bears. Is this bear weather? Yeah, well, they like any kind of weather. Well, Jody, they don't mind cold or heat. We came out here as you recall Ralph about a year ago and did a story on the zoo and we saw quite a bit out here and promised you that we'd come back. And so here we are. But, uh, what's going on here now? That's the greeting of Chico and Chardi. Look at their real good pals, aren't they? I

have a fine time. I hope they're not fighting. No, no, that's a whole play. Chico and Chardi are going running into each other, jumping up on top of one another and having themselves a real ball. Well, Ralph, it's about time for us to depart. We've seen as much as we can see and talked about as much as we can talk because we're just running out of time. We want to thank you so much and we want to thank K Shriver too for going along with us on our tour of the Children's Zoo here at Brookfield. Well, we would like to thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to show you around and I hope you'll come back. And that's the story of the Children's Zoo and Farm, a two and a half acre area at the Brookfield Zoo. This is Hugh Hill speaking.