We cried when our dog died over 30 years ago. We cried when our cat died in the mid ’90s. We cried when our hamster and our turtle and our parakeet each died. And only a week after watching our bullsnake Hatch leave with our zookeeper friend Bryon Shipley, we cried when our western hognose …
For almost the past ten years we have traveled with four snakes. One of these snakes, our bullsnake Hatch, turned 10 this August. Chuck hatched her out in an incubator at the Denver Zoo after a pair of bullsnakes at Cherry Creek State Park in the Denver area produced 13 eggs. Hatch’s was the only …
“Where do I go to find a bear? A moose? A bighorn sheep?” While working at a visitor center, those are some of my least favorite questions. A wildlife refuge or a park is not a zoo. Some locations may be more likely to produce an animal for observation, but there are no guarantees. And …
Encountering enthusiastic young people has been a driving force for us in our work as naturalists. While it’s easy to criticize the youth of today (as it has been since the beginning of time), we find it more rewarding to search for those with passion and interests that could carry them through their lives and …
“Snakes are mean!” a seven-year old boy exclaimed when we asked him if he wanted us to remove one of our snakes from its cage so he could have a closer look. “They’re really mean!” “Snakes aren’t mean,” I told the youngster. “They are neither good nor bad, but like most animals, they have a …
“Check with Wyoming Game & Fish to be sure you get the correct information,” I told the clerk at In & Out Burgers who noticed our U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service uniform shirts and asked about shooting coyotes if he has a game license. Many people mistake federal national wildlife refuges for state game and …
A glint against the distant hills caught U.S. Fish & Wildlife Officer Walter Duran’s eye as we drove up the dirt road through Desert National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada. To check it out, Walter veered off onto the next side road heading in the direction of the still visible glimmer. “That’s what we do,” …