This is a large rescued wild animal sanctuary build at Hudson Colorado, and I hadn't heard of that place either until tonight.
It is located directly north of the Denver International Airport, so the sound of jet engines must be comforting. It's as far north of Denver as Boulder and a little farther east of Denver as Boulder is west of Denver, if that makes sense, that is, if you were to triangulate. Here, look.
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The information site that I read said if you use your GPS don't obey it because it will send you on bumpy dusty rural unimproved back roads, be sure to stay on the highway all the way to Hudson. And it will cost you $30.00 entrance fee. They're trying to get people to adopt animals and to be supportive of the place.
Apparently not that many people are aware this place exists. There are only 4 images pinned on Google Earth.
But first, here's something that one of the sites that I looked at tonight ended with saying, "Don't be one of these people" and this feedback garnered all the remarks.
"Our visit was wonderful but we never saw any bears. Please train your bears to be where guests can see them. This was an expensive trip to not get to see bears."
Ha ha ha ha ha. Bless.
This reminded me a traveling show aired a decade ago. A group of young travelers were paid to explore different places in pairs. They all did excellent things. A pair went to Alaska and they hiked through the woods, climbed over a hill and down the other side where rivulets drained to shallow pond with a stony bottom that itself drained to a larger rivulet then eventually down to the ocean. They chanced to coincide with salmon spawning season and the whole pond was loaded with bright red salmon. As television viewer I was thrilled. Thrilled for them, for the encounter of a lifetime. The fish were all sexing it up, still it seemed like walking upon something holy. The thought of what those fish went through to get there, these, the survivors. It's breathtaking. The fish are exhausted. This is their last thrust to project life. They will soon all be dead. This is fish-private sanctuary. It's all quite incredible.
After all that. After having been treated to the finest thing imaginable, upon reviewing their experience the young woman guest/t.v. hostess complained, "But we didn't see any bears. I wanted to see a bear."
Dear woman, no, you do not want to encounter a bear. Just incredible.
So, a lot of walking then. I'm not sure I'm up to it, but it does look like a lot of fun.
11 comments:
It looks like a great place to visit.
If ever up in Anchorage, there is a nice wildlife sanctuary about an hour south of town with an awesome scenic route to get there. There are other ways to see wildlife near Anchorage, but you mostly don't want to find them in those places. And if you do find them and think; "at least it is a Moose and not a Bear", then you haven't been studying.
I've mentioned this place a few times. It's not a zoo.
Lots of American idiots think it's a zoo.
I am lucky to have met the owner, Pat Craig. He is a saint.
A few years back, Scott invited Mary for a tour. Mary invited me and the three of us drove one hour east to visit. It was a paradigm shifting experience. If people understood the circumstances of how/why these large animals are on this great expanse of land, anyone with a heart would break down. The back stories of these rescued animals in incredibly sad.
I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter. I donate every year.
Wild Animal Sanctuary
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a wonderful place to visit.
We got to see how they feed the animals. They take meat that is mostly donated, freeze it,. add vitamins and minerals, create large cubes - and they toss it to the the carnivores. A giant meat Popsicle.
At the time, the Bolivian Lion shelter was just finished. The mile walkway did not extend just yet. We were given a tour on the ground floor in the Bolivian Lion shelter. Wow was that cool. The Bolivian lions were saved in part by money donated by Bob Barker (yeah - that guy) These lions were kept in small cages their entire lives and used to make money. They didn't know what ground felt like and many were so weak they could not walk.
Bonus Inadvertent Good Deed: Restoring faith in humanity.
I watched "The Grizzly Man" last night. I can relate to his passion for the outdoors, but his ideas about wild animals and especially bears were really delusional. Lots of people think wild animals are like dogs or horses which have domestication at a genetic level bred in over thousands of years. Some individual wild animals do have a tendency to be less wild than others, and they can appear docile and even friendly. Those are the ones humans selected over centuries and bred to get domestic animals, but in general wild species are just that: wild, unpredictable, and entirely driven by survival instinct. Even domesticated animals occasionally revert to it, resulting in attacks on humans. It was a miracle of luck and the well fed bears he hung with that he survived as long as he did. Even among humans, we have predator individuals who don't respect others, and in the end, Grizzly Man and his unfortunate girlfriend just ran into one of the bear community's less respectful members.
Apologies for the crap English. I made a few changes. My excuse? I haven't one.
Maybe they should shift Denvers homeless out there. At least it will be a constant food source for the wildlife.
If anyone wants a tour- let me know.
Homeless people have choices.
The animals who were rescued had no choice but to live a wretched life in a small cage.
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