Wildlife Science Center

On Friday, we went on our next field trip to the Wildlife Science Center in Columbus, MN. They have the largest captive population of wolves there, along with several other animals. As you can see by our clothing, the weather was a far cry from the 100's on Tuesday. In fact, it was quite cool and in the 50's. That's Minnesota weather for you!

Our guide showed us some animal skins and pelts. First, a super tall snake skin.



Next, a skunk.



And, the main attraction... the wolf.



Next, we got to go outside and see some of the animals they cared for there. The mountain lion came right up to us and followed us on whatever side of the fence we were on. Creepy.



We saw several different kinds of wolves: Mexican gray wolves, red wolves, and timberwolves. We learned a lot of interesting facts--like that red wolves are only found in the wild on an island off of the coast of North Carolina.



The picture below shows wolf pups. Another interesting fact is that the farthest south a wolf will be found in Minnesota is Hinckley (we've caught a picture of one from the game camera on our property), while coyotes are pretty much anywhere. Wolves are afraid of humans, whereas coyotes are less timid.



This looks like a pet, and ironically there are none found in the wild anymore because people took them in as pets. This is a New Guinea Highland Dog, and it really does look like a dog you'd have as a pet.



The funnest animals to watch were the black bears. There were four of them in this enclosure, and one of the youngest ones, Lucy, was a real ham. She played in her pool in front of us and acted just like a young kid splashing around and playing with her feet.



Balancing on the pool rim before hopping in for a dip.





One of the volunteers brought out two birds for us to see. First was a screeching owl...



...and then a red hawk.



We got to see one of the animal handlers feed a treat to the porcupine. Did you know that they have orange teeth?



Here is a coyote. This one was rescued from a dorm where it was a pet! Can you believe it? I found it interesting that many of these animals were rescued from people who had them as pets (yes, even a black bear!). I'm not quite sure where these people live, but they must have a lot of space.



We also got to see the handler feed a salamander its dinner for the week--two (dead) baby mice. It has no teeth and swallows them whole. Kind of gross, but the kids loved watching it.