Children visiting the Bright Vista Youth Center in Colusa last week went wild for exotic animals most wouldn’t see outside of a zoo.
The educational program was sponsored by Colusa County Behavioral Health.
Gabe Kerschner, and a few animals from the Conservation Ambassadors’ Wild Things menagerie, entertained about 60 people inside the center.
Kerschner has been a longtime director of the nonprofit organization, near Colfax, which is home to a number of wild creatures that have been injured or rescued from captivity and are unsuitable to be returned to the wilderness.
“Sometimes we have a big big problem with people trying to make pets out of wild animals,” Kerschner said. “That never, never, never works out. It’s also against the law.”
Furry critters, reptiles, and birds from Wild Things have been dazzling visitors at schools and special programs in Northern California for years, and kids and adults can’t seem to get enough.
The Wild Things program is designed for children to learn about animals, but also to understand and respect the animals’ natural environments.
“We take the animals in and give them a whole lot of love, a lot of attention, and a whole lot of food,” Kerschner said. “Each one of our animals comes with a story.”
Children and adults got to meet Clover, a 1-year-old Australian red kangaroo, whose mother was removed from a private home in Los Angeles, where she was kept illegally.
“They tried to keep a kangaroo in their backyard,” Kerschner said. “Is this allowed? No. It’s also very wrong.”
Kerschner said Clover poked her head out of her mother’s pouch just a few weeks after being placed at Wild Things.
“As much as I love sharing her, I wish she was in Australia; I wish she was in the grasslands,” Kerschner said, reminding kids that wild animals forced into captivity would not survive if returned to their native habitats.
Visitors to Bright Vista on Sept. 21 also met Nike, a 32-year-old kinkajou, a confiscated illegal pet that has been at Wild Things for 28 years; Dewey Hopper, an African Pixie Frog; and Tawny, a red tailed hawk that had been seriously injured and rehabilitated, but could not be returned to the wild.
Kerschner also brought Miss Piggy, a 15-foot, 150 pound Burmese python, who has been bringing squeals and screams of delight in his program for a number of years.
The Wild Things sanctuary in Weimar is home to dozens of confiscated illegal pets, including monkeys, lemurs, and alligators, as well as many surrendered pets, including pot-bellied pigs and snakes.
All the pets can be symbolically adopted by making donations to the organization, which helps with their upkeep and care, according to the company’s website. ■