Hi, welcome back! If you haven't subscribed yet you can get our RSS feed right here. Thanks for visiting!
This week I am posting a column written 44 years ago by long-time Reptile Gardens General Manager, Jim Campbell. In 1965, Reptile Gardens ran a series of newspaper columns in celebration of the move to our new location on Highway 16. For our first 28 years we had been closer to town but were forced to move when the highway was widened and moved.
Right smack in the center of the giant dome at the new Reptile Gardens there is a huge, gnarled pine tree, some forty feet high. And lots of it is underground to keep it from falling over.
Cavorting, or resting, in the tree are lizards, monkeys, snakes, and hundreds of beautiful birds from all over the world. [Over the years we tried a lot of different animals in the Safari Room, including monkeys, muntjacs, wallabies, giant fruit bats, and, free roaming iguanas and snakes. Some worked and many did not. JM]
Several times daily someone asks casually, “Where did the tree come from, was it already here?” When we tell them “No, we had to move it in,” it is always with the feeling that if they really knew the whole story they might be less casual about it. (more…)
