Volunteering as naturalists on the deck of the visitor center at the National Elk Refuge with our skulls and snakes, we meet people from all over the country and the world. Some encounters are educational, some are merely social, and some are comical.
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Snake Myths
Milk snakes suck milk from cows.
-All snakes are carnivorous (meat eaters). No cow would allow it, and snakes lack the ability to suck.
Roscoe, Rescue Dog
Although our passion is reptiles, we love all animals, especially dogs. Dogs offer certain benefits that cold-blooded creatures cannot. And we recently discovered another of those advantages.
Antler Retrieval
Antlers are collected on the National Elk Refuge by staff and a troop of boy scouts in the spring and sold at auction in May to benefit the scouts and the Refuge. Last year, however, one old bull died in a pond on the Refuge, its huge rack protruding from the water, barely out of reach. The urge to recover it overwhelmed me!
Serpent Surprise
“Snake!” Sue McDonald’s 7-year-old daughter, Sapphire, still sat in the car in their garage when she spotted the snake and cried out.
Antler Auction
Despite snow, cold, wind, and occasional glimpses of sun, the annual Antler Auction in Jackson, Wyoming, proceeded as usual today.
Does a Snake Make a Good Necklace?
“When my friend was at a reptile program, they hung a snake around his neck,” a second grader told us during one of our school programs recently. “When the snake started to curl around his neck, the owner said he’d take it off when my friend’s face started to turn purple.”