Settling down was far from our minds after only seven years on the road fulltime RVing. Living on and volunteering for national wildlife refuges for the past few years has instilled in us a love of open spaces inundated with wildlife. But when we found a small affordable house on two acres in lush desert …
“I remove rattlesnakes from my property myself,” a neighbor told us. “In two pieces!” Recently we purchased a small home on two acres in a rural area near Tucson, Arizona. Because we chose the property for its native vegetation and wildlife that it attracted, we assumed others who live here share our values. For the …
Reports show that kids these days don’t get outdoors enough and explore nature. So when we were asked recently to take two boys on a hike in the remote desert, we were glad to oblige. Terry and Diane Moilanen, whom we met through our Wednesday interpretive hikes at Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, host their …
Since we don’t subscribe to cable, we rarely see Animal Planet. However, we have been under the impression that this channel promotes educational and factual information regarding the natural world. Recently, however, we watched a program called “Rattlesnake Republic” on Animal Planet while visiting friends. The program portrayed several so-called snake handlers wrestling snakes in …
Growing up in Maryland, I longed to visit a dude ranch. I expected to ride horses and talk with cowboys and drink in the western experience. I didn’t expect to encounter a rattlesnake. My father instilled in me a fear of snakes that I gradually overcame years later while volunteering as a docent at the …
“A zookeeper has more of a chance of being killed or injured by an elephant when doing everything right than being killed or injured by a venomous snake when doing everything wrong,” a curator at a major zoo once told us. Some people who don’t mind crowding a moose or a bison or a bear …
The rugged 660,000 acres of Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is perfect habitat for reptiles. But it’s also home to mountain lions, bighorn sheep, mule deer, and now (as of December) Sonoran pronghorn. Sonoran pronghorn (sometimes called antelope) are an endangered subspecies that inhabit the Sonoran Desert in southwest U.S. and into Mexico. A captive breeding …