Education Station

A large part of what we strive for at Wild Wonders is education. Sure we love our furry and scaly friends, but if we kept them at home all to ourselves we wouldn’t exactly be sharing the love. Every week many of our animal ambassadors hit the road to make guest appearances at a variety of outreach programs. Whether its a school assembly, education convention, or library program, all in attendance can take a ‘walk on the wild side’ and see some unique animals from all around the world up close. In a fun and interesting way, our wildlife educators bring conservation to life taking their audience on a journey interacting with the inhabitants of the African savanna, to the top of the rain forest canopy, and all the way down under to the Australian outback. Allowing kids to see a wallaby hop two feet in front of them, or for them to actually touch an American alligator excites and inspires them like no textbook or website ever could. We are so pleased to share our passion with so many bright young minds!

Here’s Mika the kinkajou being the amazing ambassador that she is!

Bringing Rainforest Conservation to Life

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KUSI Segment- Only 2 Days Left

Safari Soiree is Here!

Saturday September 12th

6PM – 9PM

La Jolla Images of Nature Gallery

www.zoofari.com for Tickets

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Tiny Tikes

Juli and I did a show in San Diego for a preschool on Wednesday. The kids were adorable and very young. The first program was for toddlers age 12 months to 2 years! I’m not sure if children this young realize how special it is to get to see and touch these animals up close. They did have a great time though! The kids were really well behaved for their age; it was a nice surprise. We brought Sandy the Boa, Timmy the tortoise, Latte the hedgehog, Dulce the alligator, Sleepy the opossum, and Armando the armadillo. I held all the animals while Juli gave a wonderful presentation.

Casai holding Dulce the baby gator.

One of Juli’s favorite animals are armadillos. She is so happy to get to work with them and hold them!

Juli holding Armando the armadillo

Armadillos are difficult to hold. They’re very wiggly, and have sharp nails. You have to hold them by their plates. A lot of our animals don’t stay still, and we have to hold them in one spot long enough to let the kids touch. It’s trickier than it sounds, but we manage to do it without stressing the animals.

~Casai

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Screaming Hairy Armadillo

Today I went to a show in Chino with Brian, one of our keepers and educators at Wild Wonders. It was a long drive (more than an hour) but it was a fun day. We did one show for a community center. There were about 60 people there, mostly kids, with about 20 parents. The kids were really well behaved. I had fun talking with two cute little girls before the show. I told them we brought an amphibian. They thought that just meant animals that can swim and go on land. I explained that amphibious animals or vehicles go on both land and water. However, Amphibians are a taxonomic group of frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians.

We brought Mika (kinkajou), Baba (ball python), the new argentine horned frog, Cajun (alligator), Misto (hedgehog), and Roly Poly (armadillo). Unfortunately, Howard couldn’t come with us. I held all of them except Mika and Roly Poly, while Brian talked. Check out the video of Roly Poly at the end.

Kinkajous have a prehensile tail. They can use it to hang from a branch if they need to!

Mika can hang upside-down!

Casai holding Creole for the kids to touch.More kids touching the gator

The hit of the show was Roly Poly. This little armadillo is so cute and makes a really funny noise when he’s picked up. In the wild this can be used as a defense against predators. Listen carefully to this video!

-Casai

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Siri is a star!

Today I went with Wendy, a ZooKeeper at WW, to a couple shows in Costa Mesa. Interns and Volunteers are often brought along to events to help with heavy lifting and animal holding. For this event we brought Siri (serval), Sleepy (opossum), Puff (bearded dragon), Baba (ball python), Soy (hedgehog), cockroaches, and Flick (Fennec Fox). Siri hasn’t been to a show in a while and we certainly don’t want this superstar to get rusty. The best part of this event for me was being able to handle and show all of the animals, except Siri!

I held Flick for the first time. He is so adorable, and has such soft fur. When he is in his crate, and you open it, he lays on his back and whimpers, giving you his submissive greeting. He needs to be held securely under his chest and bottom. Sometimes when he felt a little scared he snuggled in my neck! Soooo cute!

The second show was with a small group of 5 year olds. This was a great situation to show Siri. We took her out before the show to get her used to the room. She loved the woven mats that the kids were going to sit on! She was sliding across them and playing with them. It was so funny. We’ll have to get her some of those mats to play with.

Before the show she jumped up on the table on command, and was behaving very well. During the show she didn’t jump on the table, but she did let Wendy pick her up. She ate her meat on the table and played with a toy. She is definitely still bringing her A game.

-Casai

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We’re always doing shows

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