Nope, not a Village. It takes a little girl.

My first thought when I decided to write this morning was “Some people are going to read your post as a case of sour grapes because a little girl made the front page of the Fresno Bee and you didn’t.”

If it takes a little girl to wake a village, then so be it. All I really care about is that the Chaffee Zoological Gardens gets the funding that it needs.

Visit my page to find out more about the situation and how you can donate money to keep the Chaffee Zoological Gardens — the dream and its animals — alive.

[Read more →]

Today’s front page of The Fresno Bee tells the sad story that poor leadership and lack of will at the Chaffee Zoological Gardens is finally catching up with them.

Before going on, I should point out a potential bias on my part: My wife is Denise Chaffee, daughter of the late Dr. Paul S. Chaffee, affectionately known in his day as “Doc.”

Since many people probably no longer even know who “Doc” Chaffee was — as bewildering as it seems, I’ve searched long and hard and failed to find his name mentioned anywhere on the Chaffee Zoo website other than in the name of the zoo itself — here’s a little background….

[Note: The article also includes never before published photographs from Denise Chaffee’s private collection!]

[Read more →]