Outreach zoo visits Trout Creek

TROUT CREEK - As a part of the Trout Creek School’s after school summer program, the participating students have had a summer full of animal adventures.

Recently, they traveled to Missoula to a live insect museum called the Insectarium. June 23rd a forest ranger took the students to on a hike on Eddy Mountain to look at different flora and fauna.

However, last Wednesday, the students did not have to travel to encounter some very special exotic animals.

In the basement of the Trout Creek School, along with students from the Noxon school, the group was introduced to eight exotic animals from around the world.

The animals were brought by an outreach program called, “Animal Wonders Incorporated (AWI).”

AWI adopts displaced exotic animals and will then house them at their facility in Potomac, MT.

“We don’t have a facility open to the public and so we do outreach,” said co-founder and teacher Jessi Casteneda.

Over the year, within a two hour radius of their facility, the organization will bring a select number of animals out to classrooms, museums, parties and special events.

The goal is to teach Montanans about exotic animals and share the history of how they became displaced. The organization is the only licensed and insured non-profit animal outreach program in Montana.

“We want to educate Montanans about exotic animals, because we may have a lot of native animals, but we don’t get a lot of exposure to exotic animals,” said cofounder and Native Montanan Castañeda.

Choosing from a list of different types of classes the AWI could teach to the students, Gabriele Ohning the after school director picked the Animal Adaptation class.

The students were taught how a parrot, cockroaches, an armadillo, a milk snake, harris hawk, a golden tegu, sugar gliders, and a Patagonia cavies all adapt to thrive in their environments.

Students learned how the sugar gliders glide from tree to tree to find sweet sap, and how the harris hawk is the only raptor to work in groups while hunting.

The Madagascar cockroaches received a lot of attention.

The AWI teachers brought the insects into the crowd of students to be touched, and many of the students were grossed out and laughed as they touched the large bugs.

A very lucky student, Serenity Barrus had the opportunity to have the sugar gliders, named Gizmo and Gadget, climb all over her. She had to wear a hoody because the sugar glider pees and poops a lot to continuously mark its territory.

“I love animals!” said Barrus  after the AWI staff gathered up the gliders.

After each animal was introduced, the AWI teachers taught the students how the animals came into their care and why exotic animals are so hard for people to care for.

An older student, Shawunee Brayer, who graduated from the Trout Creek School, who attended the show and answered the questions when the younger students couldn’t, said she watches animal shows with her younger brother and remembers the facts.

Brayer said the show was, “...awesome, I’ve never touched a cockroach before and I’ve never seen these animals in person.” She then said that her favorite animal was the milk snake.

At the end, the students were given a half hour to touch the cavies, tegu, and parrot.

Ohning said, “They put on a really good educational show,” describing the AWI and then said they were, “Very kid friendly.

This week the students will be traveling to the Wallace Silver town for a class on how silver is mined and will be working with Noxon after school students on improving their swimming skills.