A little off subject....

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Posted by hades-raptor on May 08, 2003 at 23:34:25:

In Reply to: Need some help in planning our new wildlife center... posted by Rob Carmichael on May 08, 2003 at 07:47:08:

I wish I knew some sites for yah, I'll look around though! :D

But.. I'm looking to be moving out of this town sometime this year (maybe), and I have no idea where to go. I'm thinking possibly your area, because I would rather live up north somewhere than here.

Would you guys possibly be looking for any hard workers? If I moved up there, I would need a job (doi) Currently I'm working part time as a dog walker (Woo, what a fun job) and dog poo picker-uper for a Kennel. I _want_ to get into something involving Reptiles, and I have one potential job in NY taking care of reptiles, but it's so far away from here... heh, anyways, just wondering if you would be hiring when your new place opens?

-Randilyn

:As some of you know, I direct a successful and fast growing wildlife center that features MANY herps and raptors (my second favorite animal of all time). Our focus is on education but we also engage in captive breeding, rescues/rehab, outreach, youth herpetology trips/summer camps (the best part of my job is in leading junior and senior high kids on herpetology excursions...two more weeks until my first trip!), and field research (I'm working with massasaugas).

:We are somewhere in between a nature center (that usually features native herps) and a zoo (the difference being that people get REAL close encounters with truly exotic species such as various boas, pythons, monitors and even venomous herps under very controlled conditions).

:Recently, I was able to make a case towards obtaining funds from our city (approximately $450,000) to restore an old farm that sits on 600 acres of the finest black soil, tall grass savanna in the U.S....what an opportunity this is. Now, we are working closely with Habitat Systems in designing a public display that will surely knock the public's socks off when they come in. Although our first phase will give us approximately the same amount of room we currently have (one large exhibit area, a classroom, and office area), the outdoor setting is what really makes this place special.

:So here is where I need people's help (for those who are interested): We are going with very naturalistic displays and at first, we were going to go with laminated picture backgrounds, however, we have since learned that this won't be of the quality that we were expecting. So, we are going to go with fiberglass artwork to create rocks, boulders, trees, snags, vines, etc. HS is requesting for me to send him some nice pics of the types of trees, snags, rocks, etc. that we want to recreate as they can do just about anything that we want. If anyone knows any good web sites that depicts herps in natural settings please forward them on to me...we are under the gun on this project as we hope to have our grand opening in September (everyone's invited!). I have found some nice ones but with more people keeping an eye out for high quality pics will increase our chance to find just the right image. If you come across any, please forward the websites/pics to:
:carmichr@cityoflakeforest.com

:MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!
:Rob Carmichael, Director/Curator of the Wildlife Discovery Center
:City of Lake Forest, Parks & Recreation (Illinois)

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A little off subject.... Rob Carmichael 05/09/03 (0)