For years I kept my old Beta videotapes, and tried a couple times to buy a Beta player that would be repairable. Alas, I never got one working, and finally last Christmas I gave up and threw away all my outmoded unplayable Beta tapes.
I had replaced almost all of them -- all the important ones anyway -- with DVDs.
The only exception was a TV programme I'd taped a million years ago about an English private zoo owner named John Aspinall, who got in and played with his animals -- gorillas, tigers, wolves -- all raised from cubs so they accepted him as a member of the family. It was stinking amazing seeing 400 pound tigers and gorillas rubbing up against him for belly rubs. Or a 2000 lb white rhino.
The movie, "A Passion to Protect," has never been released on DVD that I can tell.
I poked around online the past few days and found the movie posted on YouTube in five parts, downgraded to mobile device resolution but complete. I downloaded all five parts, spliced them back together, and burned a DVD of it.
Still a freaking amazing show, if you ask me.
The Aspinall Foundation is still active but for some reason they don't market the old 1974 film about the founder (now dead for decades, and continued by his son Damian Aspinall). Changing times perhaps -- many 2-3 minute YouTube videos from the Aspinall Foundation talking about re-introducing the animals to the wild and how they need to be conserved in the wild. Not so much talking about the zoo anymore. Some news reports tut-tutting the irresponsibility of Aspinall for letting his kids play with gorillas. Third generation Tansy Aspinall talking about whether she'd let her kids do the same.
Five keepers at the Aspinall Foundation have been killed over the past 40 years. Apparently you're only really safe if you grew up with the animals, and they you.
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