sculptor
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How Dinosaurs Thrived in the Snow
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Dennis Tate
Banned
Back during the 1970's there was a guy named Al Oeming who travelled around Canada talking about his farm in Alberta where he had elephants and lions and lots of other creatures native to Africa. The ability of animals to adapt even to our nasty climate here in Canada is kind of amazing.
https://www.animals24-7.org/2014/05/14/al-oeming-88-ran-alberta-game-farm-for-40-years/
Al Oeming, 88, ran Alberta Game Farm for 40 years
Wrestling star turned zookeeper
Al Oeming, 88, died on March 17, 2014 in Edmonton, Alberta, from complications of heart surgery.
Born in Edmonton, Oeming and his boyhood neighbor Stu Hart served together in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II, then became professional wrestlers in Harlem, New York, in the National Wrestling Alliance, ancestral to World Wrestling Entertainment. Oeming, who was also studying ornithology, wrestled as “Nature Boy.”
Oeming and Hart eventually began promoting professional wrestling in Edmonton. Oeming, “after completing his master’s degree in zoology and becoming the Edmonton Zoological Society’s inaugural president, sold his half of the wrestling venture to Hart and built the Alberta Game Farm with the proceeds,” recalled Toronto Globe & Mail obituarist Omar Mouallem.
Cheetah (Flickr photo)
Started with cheetah
“Oeming already had a pet cheetah,” named Tawana, whom he toured with doing wildlife shows, “and some other animals,” Mouallem wrote, “but the game farm became an Albertan Noah’s Ark, believed to be the world’s largest private animal collection, drawing thousands of visitors each weekend. The game farm also had breeding and research programs for rare wild animals. At a time when urban zoos crammed animals into small enclosures, Oeming took great pride in his 500-acre facility’s open spaces and large compounds.”
Al Oeming with his cheetah Tawana.
Oeming starred in several television documentaries, including In the Land of the Black Bear, Wild Splendor, Journey to the High Arctic, and the 13-episode CBC series Al Oeming: Man of the North, aired in 1980.