“There’s a really soft spot right behind their ears,” says Megan Ryburn with an amused smile. She’s talking about giraffe ears. And as it happens I have one a foot in front of me. And so I check. She’s absolutely right.
And just how does one end up a foot away from the ear of a creature that is sixteen feet tall? When they lean down into the window of the vehicle in which you’re riding to eat corn from a cup in your hand. At this point, my inner child is fully reawakened. And that is the magic of the Global Wildlife Center, near Robert, Louisiana.
The non-profit center is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year as a refuge for more than four thousand animals from thirty species. “They’re all herbavores,” explains manager Brittany Thomas, of one reason the animals all live in such harmony on these nine hundred acres. Thomas, Ryburn, and our driver Ben Martino, are three of the twenty staffers who run the facility.
Each day it’s open, staffers lead visitors out to meet the animals, either in the jeep-like vehicle I’m in, or a tractor pulled train that looks sort of like a bunch of conestoga wagons hitched together.
On we go past herds of Father David Deer, originally from China but now extinct in the wild as a result of the Boxer Rebellion and the Hung Ho river flood, which killed all of the deer in their natural habitat. On past a herd of zebra. With each species we encounter my trio of guides tag team each other with a stream of fascinating insights.
Zebras, explains Thomas, cluster tightly together in the herd because their striped pattern confuses predators, who can’t figure out where one animal ends and another begins. And, she adds, while a zebra's normal gestation period is twelve months, they have the ability to postpone an upcoming birth for up to two months during hard times.
Next up is a herd of Watusi cattle, named for the African tribe—the first ever domesticated cow, used to build the pyramids. Then past the rare Cape Eland antelope, “We call them cup stealers,” says Ryland with a chuckle, “They’ll take the cup right out of your hand.”
A young Bactrian Camel ambles up to the window. He hasn’t quite acquired the Cape Eland’s skillset. “He’s still learning to eat out of a cup,” says Martino of Abu, affectionately called Boo Boo. Boo Boo leaves a trail of drool on my sleeve as he departs. An experience you just won’t get at the zoo.
The Global Wildlife Center is open seven days a week. Call (985) 796-3585 for a daily tour schedule. globalwildlife.com.
