Day 33: Wildlife Images

I wasn't sure what Wildlife Images would be like, but it was awesome! In front of the log cabin gift shop and registration center they had several benches. This one is in memory of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. The tour an hour walk. The grounds were gorgeous. I wish we would have taken more pictures of the flowers and gardens. Our first stop in the walking tour was the Eagle Flight Facility. This habitat housed eagles and vultures that can not be released back in the wild for various reasons. Next was the Birds of Prey Building where we saw eagles, hawks, owls, and vultures. Unfortunately the cages prevented us from taking good pictures of these beautiful birds. Above is an barn owl. Did you know that owls do not have eyeballs and sockets like other creatures? Where our eyes move so we do not have to turn our heads, the owl's eyes are like tubes and can only see straight ahead of them, thus the reason they can rotate their heads all around. Here's another interesting fact that our tour guide, Brandon (who couldn't have been more than 16 years old) shared with us: we (Americans) are the only nation to call the birds above hawks, they are known as buzzards in every other nation. Same bird, 2 names.

We saw a couple of bobcats. That was cool because Oliver is a Desert Lynx which is a direct descendant of the bobcats. They have a male and female but have to keep them in separate cages because they are very territorial. We couldn't get a good picture of them.

There were 2 grey wolves. To me they looked white, but Brandon said they are called grey wolves becasue they have a grey undercoat. The badger was a real ham but none of the pictures came out well enough to see him.They had two types of bears on the compound, as they called it. Black bears above and Grizzly bears. Black bears do well in groups. The big girl above was eating the last of her watermellon rind. Believe it or not one of these bears was a pet, but when the owners moved they left him chained to a tree in the back yard and abandoned him. Can you imagine buying a house only to find a hungy black bear chained up out back while you were moving in!!!Another of the bears was sold as a pet to someone in Russia, but was later animal rights activists rescued her and brought her back to the states. But she had to get a passport in order to be transported, complete with photo and all.
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While we stood at the black bear habitat we heard alot of birds squaking overhead. Brandon said they will swoop down to eat what the bears leave behind. Grizzly bears do not live in groups so this one and her brother are in two separate habitats. They also only live in Alaska, I didn't know that.
Last but certainly not least, was this beautiful cougar. Their habitat was being mowed so he was in a smaller cage for the day.
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The Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Educational Center is a non-profit organization that provides care and treatment of sick, injured and orphaned wildlife. Their goal is to rehabilitate the animals in such as way that they can be returned to the wild. However some of the animals (in fact all of the ones we saw) are not able to be returned to the wild for various reasons, either they are too lame from an injury or they have been humanized by living when they were young with humans so that they never learned to hunt for food or to protect themselves. The habitats were wonderful, much better than any zoo I've ever seen.

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Check it out for yourself: www.wildlifeimages.org