NATURE CENTER NEWS
Nature Center SHATTERS Annual Attendance Record in 2014
More than 117,000 guests visited the Nature Center in 2014, up over 9,500 guests from the previous record for attendance. Nature Center director, Chris Gentile, credits beautiful weather and increased marketing efforts as the driving forces behind the dramatic increase. Also, the Center added two gray wolf pups to the exhibit in late June - resulting in over 18,000 visitors for the month of July alone.
Gray Wolf Pups Make Debut
Two new arrivals made their public debut on July 17th. Wayah and Nova, gray wolf pups born in April 2014 explored all areas of their new home and are now sharing the habitat with our adult female, Shalimar.
Barn Owls Now on Exhibit
A pair of barn owls went on exhibit July 16th at the Nature Center's Bird of Prey exhibit. This marks the first time that these unique owls have been on exhibit with us.
Nature Center Mourns the Loss of Male Gray Wolf
Cody, a seven year old male gray wolf was euthanized on April 6th, 2014 due to rapidly declining health as the result of a blood cancer. Cody came to the Nature Center as a pup in 2007 along with his sister Shalimar and will long be remembered as a guest favorite. The Nature Center is actively identifying young wolves from other facilities that can be introduced to Shalimar.
Eastern Hellbender Salamander Settles in to New Exhibit
The Nature Center recently introduced our large hellbender salamander into a new 250 gallon Appalachian Stream exhibit. Designed by Nature Center staff and built by Living Color Aquariums in Florida, the new exhibit almost quadruples the size of the old exhibit and features state of the art chilling systems, upgraded water filtration and aeration systems and a backup water holding tank that makes necessary water changes much easier. Soon, a school of brook trout will join the hellbender in the exhibit.