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Posted by Rob Carmichael on May 08, 2003 at 08:04:17:
First, I apologize in advance for this long message. 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). I am one of those people who feels that the private sector of the herp community has just as much, if not more, to offer than zoological parks which is why I am coming here. 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).
Recently, I was able to make a case towards obtaining funds from our city (approximately $450,000 plus a few grants) 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 hopefully knock the public's socks off when they come in.
We will be displaying various herps including venomous, various boas/pythons, MONITORS, and several large outdoor raptor enclosures. In terms of monitors, we currently have the following that will be going into our new display: black-throated, ridgetailed, and a pair of crocodile monitors.
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 nor will it hold up to the scratching/digging tendencies of monitors. 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. I realize that simpler is probably better when it comes to monitor set ups, however, if any of the old pros (FR, JL, etc.) have any ideas on how we can make a naturalistic set up that can hold up to monitors would be greatly appreciated. please forward the websites/pics/info to:
carmichr@cityoflakeforest.com
MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!
Rob Carmichael, Director/Curator of the Wildlife Discovery Center
City of Lake Forest, Parks & Recreation (Illinois)
