Friends of the Wildlife Discovery Center

We love our wildlife that make the Wildlife Heritage Farm home. Yesterday, we had a Bald Eagle Visit the lake and enjoy some fine dining of bass and carp. Last night while finishing barn chores we stumbled across a beautiful Kingsnake. In Memphis, we have an intergrade between the Speckled Kingsnake and the Eastern Black Kingsnake as their ranges overlap in this region of the Mississippi River. These harmless but powerful constrictors are well known to prey on copperheads and cottonmouth ensuring a healthy balance of biodiversity on our farm.

The Friends of the WDC would like to say a heartfelt Happy Memorial Day as we honor and remember everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. It’s because of them we enjoy our freedoms and continue to do so. Denali our Livestock Guardian Dog (a Great Pyranees) is even in deep thought and enjoying the beauty of our farm that we’ve been blessed with.

The venomous Chiapan Beaded Lizard, aka the Black Beaded Lizard, is native to Mexico and northwest Guatemala. There are very few represented in U.S. collections and we possess 5 specimens who are ambassadors. This strange but beautiful lizard lives a fossorial life which means it spends much of its time underground. A study showed that they may live 95% of their lives underground! While underground, they hunt for ground nesting birds and their eggs, rodents and even eggs from reptiles. Their venom is being researched to find new cures for human diseases and we look forward to being part of that process. This is one of our males doing a photo shoot at our farm. Photo credits to Alejandro Tuzon Alejandro Tuzon who did a great job!

The Wildlife Heritage Farm is a great example of how one can have livestock and enjoy nature at the same time. Today, we saw our first cottonmouth on our property which was an amazing sight. And despite getting within a couple of feet, it never once felt threatened and just continued on its day searching for frogs, fish, and rodents. This is one of three pit vipers that live in our region and are key ecosystem managers in keeping rodent populations in check. It’s just a matter of respecting, not fearing, them and enjoy them from a safe distance. Contrary to misconceptions and rural folklore, this species does NOT attack people. Here’s some pics of this beautiful viper!

We hope everyone is having a wonderful Earth Day! There’s so many easy things you can do to help wildlife and their habitat. From reducing plastic, using less water, reusing/recycling, putting up bird feeders and water stations and much more! We have a small pond at the front of the farm that we are converting into a thriving wetland paradise for birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and certain fish species. This is requiring us to convert a manicured lawn around the pond to a grassland paradise. Today, we are planting native sedges along the pond’s edge while putting many wildflower and native grass seed along the edges. Several dead trees will be cut into pieces and used for turtle basking areas. It’s going to take a few seasons but we are already seeing improvement. We will be putting up blue bird boxes too! We also celebrate something that most find despicable; Poison Ivy! Our farm has a few areas where it’s pretty dense and that’s okay! The berries are nutrient dense providing food for many species of birds including Bluebirds, Woodpeckers and many others. Their roots help stabilize the soil which keeps forests healthy. And many mammals eat their leaves and shoots as they are not affected like us humans. So high five to the Poison Ivy:-)

Dr Toni Carmichael and I are so blessed to be at our farm. We’ve been sharing many of our farm animals lately but most of our animal ambassadors are reptiles which we adore. “Bowzer” has been with us for many years and is always the hit at our educational programs. Bowzer is a Broad Snouted Caiman which is rarely seen and he is such a great animal to work with. He loves all the sunlight that comes into his habitat plenty of water to swim in. We have a very busy spring and summer shaping up including taking on two college interns which is awesome. Stay tuned!