The Wild Center

Today the Poko staff got to go the Wild Center in Tupper Lake. The museum was closed to the public today, but they let is in for a behind the scenes tour! We got to see the animals in their "backstage" holding areas, which let us get a much-closer look than ususal. Here is a Saw Whet Owl. It's hard to tell from this photo, but this bird (a full-grown adult) is only about the size of a human hand!

The next photo is of one of the three river otters that live at the Wild Center. The otters split their time between their water tank, which is open to public display, and their behind-the-scenes play area. It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of them in the water because they move so fast, and it's not much easier when they're in their play area! One of them did pause just long enough for me to snap this picture, though. 

My favorite animal-encounter of the day was Stickly the Porcupine. The curator let her out of her cage to climb around a bit (porcupines are excellent climbers), so we got to see her up close. At one point, my face was probably only 6 inches from hers! It's an urban myth that porcupines can throw their quills, so we were safe as long as we stayed a few inches away. Given how cute porcupines are, however, we had to keep reminding ourselves that we couldn't pet her. 

Finally, here's a photo that shows you exactly how "behind-the-scenes" our tour was---the refrigerator where they store the food for the animals...which was mostly dead rats and mice!