MICA: Could you tell me how you got involved with wild animals and shooting wild animals?
LLOYD BEEBE: It started about 1945. I really just wanted a reason for being in the woods and mountains, and I had seen some footage out on the lecture tours, and it was just exactly what I thought would be a great life. So I bought the first camera I ever had my eyes on and didn’t know anything. I just gradually spent so much money that I had to do something. And I had some good footage, so I knew that Disney was my big hope. I told him about the footage I had and they told me to ship it down to him, and right away they called back and wanted some of it.
MICA: What kind of footage were you getting at that time?
LB: I always had animals around and I had deer fawns and bear cubs and grown cougars, anything that I found in the woods, and took home and took care of. I just had a full-grown cougar that Disney was interested in, because they hadn’t found any cougar footage and somebody wasn’t tying them up or chasing them, or something. I had a lot of footage of just taking him up in the mountains and taking pictures of what he did naturally. And then we’d come home and go back to farm work again. They were interested and they called me as soon as they saw it and asked for some of the footage and wanted to know if I couldn’t help them finish Vanishing Prairie.
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