I often do a post after I submit an article for the paper when it comes to non-profit groups. Almost everyone who writes for our weekly paper is a stringer, but we do have more-or-less “beats”. It’s no surprise I focus on the military, but also non-profits, certain aspects of education, and generally heart-warming things. I do, at times, get the heart-breaking as well, but thankfully those are less frequent.
In this case, there was a piece I intended to do months ago, but other topics kept bumping it back since it wasn’t time-sensitive. Among our tourist attractions, we have the Everglades Alligator farm with air boat rides, plenty of gators and so forth. When the kids were here right after Christmas, we thought two-and-a-half for Amelia was probably still a bit young for that, but we also have the Everglades Outpost Refuge. It is actually on the way to the other and I thought it would be more age-appropriate. A plus was that before son was diverted by his passion for dance, he intended to be a wildlife ecologist and work with restoring animal habitats. So off they went and had a wonderful time. Their description of the place was far different from what I was expecting and I mentally filed away a story.
Anyway, back in 1991, a couple who had some acreage in Redland officially established an animal refuge since in truth, they’d been doing that in an unofficial capacity. The founder had his first pet alligator around age six and there are both odd laws and illegal activities that cause non-native animals to be in a situation to need rescue. Basically, when the Florida Wildlife agents conduct a raid and find something like a tiger, they need somewhere to put it. In other cases, there are native animals hurt that need rehabilitation. The website for the Outpost has all sorts of stories, photos, and some video clips. https://www.evergladesoutpost.org
In essence, they are on “speed dial” for the Florida Wildlife agents and they are linked with other groups around the state. The resident camel that certainly can’t be released into the Florida wild was at another place in Florida and the owner was having too many issues with him. The three gray wolves (mostly wolf with a little bit of dog) were born into captivity, yet again, they aren’t native to Florida. They’ll be in residence unless someone else is willing to adopt them. As I mention in the article I did for the paper last week, there is never a shortage of good causes to support. This is one I can vouch for if helping wild animals is something you care about.
