FISH OUT OF WATER - NW Georgia Living Magazine

FISH OUT
OF WATER
A Walk on the Wild Side
W
e were five minutes into
our North Georgia Zoo
excursion and of that
five minutes, I had been
stressing out about my mud caked
jeans and shoes for approximately four
minutes and fifty-seven seconds. It was a
rainy day in Georgia and a dusty animal
experience had turned into a muddy one.
I have to admit that with four more hours
to go in our day, I was already anxious
about how we were going to get back
into our car without getting mud on
everything and whether or not I would
make my son strip in the driveway once
we got home so he didn’t track “the zoo”
through my foyer.
We had only just arrived and already
I was preoccupied with the logistics of
getting home and wondering how we
would sanitize our hands throughout the
day. What a sad preoccupation to have
when there was such a wonderful day
ahead of me.
My son? He didn’t have a care in the
world. He wanted to see some snakes.
That’s the difference between being the
one in the front seat of the car and being
the one in the back. Spotty cell service
and mud shouldn’t determine my day. I
needed to mentally get in the back seat
and be a kid again. Thankfully, I did
just that.
At some point while we were feeding
the goats and sheep from our hands, my
adult worries began to slide off my back.
It was nearly impossible to think about
car floor mats with so many baby goats
running around. I made a vow that we
were going to have a great day and we
just might end up very dirty. It would
be okay.
At first glance, the North Georgia
Zoo looks more like an animal refuge
than a proper zoo. It is missing some
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of the grandeur and crowd conscious
flow one would expect when catering
to people. It’s a collection of pens and
enclosures nestled in the safety of a
valley in Cleveland, Georgia. It was what
you might expect of a place that started
small and grew slowly over time to
accommodate new animals. Rather than
ridding the land of trees and leveling it
to make more room, the zoo is careful
to blend into their space and use what’s
already there to accommodate growth.
Using a lot of recycled and repurposed
materials, they want to cut down on any
waste they can. I saw more than one
old garden shed and fast food playground equipment parts being used to
house animals.
Where a lot of attractions at typical
zoos are built solely for the ticket buyers,
North Georgia Zoo was built for its
residents. It’s not the 1950’s anymore.
The zoo doesn’t exist to delight and
captivate its audiences with views of
caged up, frustrated animals. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. We are there
to be delighted but also to be educated.
The animals housed within are ambassadors of their species and their message
is simple. We matter, care about us.
North Georgia Zoo works to bring the
animals out from behind the ridiculously
high fences, knock down the double
pained glass windows, and forego the
deep ditches between us to bring the
encounter as close to the visitor as
possible. Interaction makes the experience personal; because personal experiences can change the way we think and
motivate us to action.
Sam and I spent the entire day having
one close encounter after another. We
touched deer, snakes, a porcupine, a fox,
a chinchilla, a camel, and some animal
whose name I still can’t remember but
By Rachel Turner
who loved eating marshmallows off
sticks. We were followed around by two
of the friendliest deer I’d ever met and
Great Pyrenees guard dogs were at every
turn waiting to have their ears scratched.
We fell in love with animals that I previously had no idea even existed.
The staff was nothing short of incredible. Made up of professionals with
different areas of expertise and college
interns, they were enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and took their jobs as caregivers very seriously. Mainly they were
excited. They wanted us to encounter as
many animals as we could in one day.
My son and I were taken on a behind
the scenes tour where we met everything
from wolves to three different species of
marsupials that an hour earlier I would
have thought were all kangaroos. During
the tour, we were frequently asked what
type of animal we were looking at. We
repeatedly answered incorrectly. Just
so you know, the javelina is nothing
like a ground hog, the beaver is not a
hedgehog, and that seemingly innocent
looking dog is actually a wild dog from
New Guinea. I’m glad we weren’t graded.
I have to be honest. I like animals, but
I’m not drawn to them like some people.
As my son repeatedly reminds me, he is
the only child in his class without a dog.
It’s just not part of who I am and it’s easy
to disregard animals as a whole.
After our day at North Georgia Zoo,
I now may be a bona fide animal lover
and advocate. I was honored to hold a
fox in my lap, feed lambs out a bottle,
and nuzzle a baby goat. I mean, can we
just say cuteness overload? In addition
to that, I learned the full impact of what
happens when an entire species is wiped
out. It’s really hard to walk away from
that experience and not whole-heartedly
care about the delicate balance of our
environment and the huge impact (both
negative and positive) that we have on
the entire animal kingdom.
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Right: Angel, a Great Pyrenees Dog, taking a break
with one of the baby lambs that she works hard to
keep safe.
Center: Pygmy hedgehogs make cute mini
ambassadors to guests of all ages.
Below: Ruffed Lemurs Zachius and Silas love to make
new friends.
Above: A Nigerian Dwarf Goat enjoys a snack on the
goat bridge where guests can send up food for them
to enjoy.
Left: Gideon, one of the wolf ambassadors, loves to
howl with the guests on the wildlife walk.
firsthand encounter with a wide variety
of animals. Be prepared to get a little
dirty and to leave there an animal lover.
In addition to being a zoo, the
facility is home to multiple projects
in sustainability and helps to breed
endangered animals. The breeding is
done to diversify the bloodlines and
preserve the species. The objective of
the staff and the interns is to get you
to care about the animals and they
truly believe that this can be achieved
through personal encounters, and there
are a lot of encounters to be had. You can
have firsthand encounters with wolves,
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lemurs, and camels just to name a few.
Our day of getting dirty and playing
with animals we would have otherwise
never touched was both educational and
therapeutic. I knew that I could wash a
pair of mud-encrusted jeans and my cell
signal would come back, but it was not
everyday that a group of animal ambassadors could etch themselves so deeply
into my heart.
I advise you to skip the big zoos for
once and head up to Cleveland for a
Rachel Turner is a
freelance writer and
humor blogger. She
also runs a traveling
murder mystery party
business called Make it
a Mystery. Georgia born
and raised she lives in
Woodstock with her husband and two sons.
Drop by her blog, www.rachelshumor.com or
email her at [email protected].
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