HAWI — His was a mind enthralled by animals from the start — reptiles first and foremost, a fascination planted when Paul Breese was a young boy. Born in Minneapolis, orphaned early, then raised in California, he kept a pet tortoise in his formative years, as he did later in life: George, a dark brown tortoise who’s been hunkered down for decades in a backyard pen just outside of Hawi.
“He can be shy when strangers are around,” said Jean DeMercer-Breese, Breese’s wife of 32 years, as she stood beside George, who was hiding under tall blades of grass in the far reaches of the spacious enclosure at their home.
Shy for George, of course, is pulling his head beneath his shell and remaining still, which he does at foreign sounds. But when Breese would poke back into the yard, George would extend his neck and search.
“He recognized Paul’s voice,” Jean said.
Breese’s lifelong fascination with the herpetology world never weakened, and George points to that. Stacks of books and periodicals on every facet of reptiles — as well as primates, plants, and birds — inside the North Hawaii home illustrate it as well. So do the scores of friends in the zoo profession who kept Breese’s telephone constantly ringing over the years with the latest animal news for which Breese’s brilliant mind never lost its appetite.
“His phone zoo animal buddies,” Jean dubbed them.
Breese died Oct. 18 at the age of 96, after dedicating his life to displaying, conserving and protecting animals. He leaves behind a legacy of teaching and accomplishment that stretches beyond titles.
He was a Navy veteran who operated landing craft in five different World War II campaigns, including Iwo Jima, an experience that instilled in him a lifelong lesson that a person has a responsibility bigger than oneself. He was Honolulu Zoo’s first director, the one who grew the operation species by species from 1947 to 1964. And he forever left his imprint on Hawaii by spearheading the effort to save the nene bird from extinction in the late 1940s. Later, he chaired the commission that would name the species — 3,000 strong by today’s population count — as the state bird.
But it was his working and relationships with people where Breese stood out, those who knew him say. Because conservation and protection requires stakeholders to surrender something — whether possessions or access — it took a gentle but visionary personality to steer all sides together. That was Breese; funny, humble, yet determined.
“He had a way, a philosophy, of reaching people to make them part of a team,” said Mark Rosenthal, curator emeritus at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and one of Breese’s telephone buddies. “He knew you can’t demand anything. You have to get people to want to be a part of the team.”
Rosenthal is compiling a complete history of the zoo and aquarium industry through video recorded interviews of leading experts and pioneers in the field. He caught up to Breese in New York City when the then 91-year-old was about to embark on a cruise with his wife through the Panama Canal.
What stood out over the six-hour interview was the cooperation Breese engineered to begin the nene restoration project from two pairs of geese.
Back then, Herbert Shipman kept the only known flock of the birds in existence, and donated the two pairs that would start the captive breeding program which has allowed the birds to thrive today. But it was Breese who worked on Shipman to convince him to donate the birds.
“If you do one thing in your life that makes a difference, most people don’t,” Rosenthal said of Breese’s nene accomplishment. “I thought that was spectacular.”
Networking well with others for the collective good was Jean’s favorite trait, too. She loved that about her husband. That, and he was a voracious reader who always thought of others.
“He was always so positive,” said Jean, who co-authored the book, “The Honolulu Zoo, Waikiki’s Wildlife Treasure 1915-2015,” with Breese. “They weren’t problems. They were always opportunities and challenges.”
That skill was why Linda Santos, Honolulu Zoo’s current director, considered Breese a mentor immediately after she started working at the facility in 1986.
Besides his encouragement and detailed storytelling down to times and dates, she admired Breese’s vision. Where someone saw something simply for what it was, Breese wondered what it could become.
“He was so ahead of his time,” she said.
She remembered how thrilled the old director was when the Birds of Paradise program could successfully breed species in captivity — always a dream of Breese’s.
“He was so excited,” she said.
But then, there was always the next project. When Santos told him of her Invasive Species Aviary idea, Breese was over the moon and soon at work.
“He ripped out a proposal,” she said. “I still have it and plan on using it.”
But what’s a century of animal work without animal stories?
Breese was more amazed by the animal kingdom than emotionally tied to it, it’s true, but his life was painted with details of the creatures he respectfully admired that also tipped a tender caring.
He always left little bits of banana for the Madagascar geckos in his home. As an orphan, Breese traveled by train to live with his new family in California accompanied with his tortoise. Later, raising a young family of his own, they lived with two baby silverback gorillas, and it was during a trip to the St. Paul Zoo in the 1990s, when he came across a gorilla he knew and squatted next to the viewing glass as he gestured with his hands in communication.
“Wouldn’t you know it, that gorilla came up to him and it was like acknowledgment, that this is a friend, and this is an old friend,” Jean remembered.
Breese, recognized as a Living Treasure of Hawaii in 2016, treated his insight as he did animals; meant to be saved, spread and enjoyed.
Shortly before his passing, he found a museum in Chicago that wanted his collection of short-lived Vivarium reptile magazines from the 1990s. Jean sent them, but only after Breese sneaked in a last minute re-read.
And all the telephone calls — from across the galaxy it could seem — they were always chiming in with news and notes meant to be absorbed and passed along.
“He was my phone answerer,” Jean said of any time it rang, day or night.
She, a retired teacher, was one who could outline a project and put a plan into words, but it was Breese who’d usually bring the idea. It was a life they shared protecting and teaching, learning and helping.
“We made a good team,” Jean said. “And a lot longer than either of us anticipated.”
A celebration of Breese’s life, with military honors, will be held at noon Friday at the West Hawaii Veteran’s Cemetery. Online condolences may be posted on www.ballardfamilymortuaries.com.
He is survived by spouse, Jean Marie DeMercer-Breese; son, Paul Breese III of Santa Cruz, Calif.; daughters, Marlee Breese of Waimanalo, Oahu; Natalie Sainsevain of Halaula; Dawn Breese of Santa Cruz, Calif.; stepdaughters, Eileen Lee of Kamuela; Elizabeth Splietof of Portland, Ore.; Vicky DeMercer of Kaneohe; 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
