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News 12 Staff

EyesOfTheWildPart2NJLE_2023-11-20-05-56-08

Well, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with the owner of Eyes of the Wild. It's an organization dedicated to connecting people with wild animals. Check this out, get ready for a wild time. We're joined today with Travis Gale, the owner of Eyes of the Wild and exotic animal rescue that's providing homes to 175 animals for over 20 years. Educating audiences of all ages here today to share the mission is Travis and you brought some friends with you Travis. I did. Yeah. Thanks for having all three of us. Yeah, these are American alligators. We rescued these about six months ago. I had finished a library program over in Pennsylvania. I was walking out to my car and this man comes up to me holding a frozen pizza box and he says, can you take this? And I was like, I don't wanna eat frozen pizza in the parking lot. But inside were these two guys, but now they're probably gonna be stuck with me for the rest of my life because we know alligators can live over 50 years. We think up to 100. Um, you could tell that they are alligators are not crocodiles because they're coloring on their back. They're black. Um, crocodiles can be gray green, shades of tan, things like that. They also have a rounded snout that makes the letter U shape. Crocodiles is more V shape but the best way is their teeth, their top teeth stick out when their mouth is closed because their upper jaw is wider than their lower jaw. I need to learn more about who this guy. This is a sugar glider, sugar glider. Yeah, they're similar to our flying squirrels that live here, but they're from the rain forest in Australia. Um, this is an animal that was very heavily impacted by the fires that happened, um, that we kind of lost track of because COVID happened. So they're a nocturnal animal. They have really big eyes to let in light. Um, and so they, they are fruit eaters too. You know, what, what is he eating is a dried piece of pineapple. Yeah. So the thing is where they live, the trees can be over 200 ft tall. So, if you're this big, this is full grown and you're climbing a 200 ft tall tree to look for fruit. Fruit might be gone. The guys on the day shift might have eaten all the fruit seasons have changed at that point. Right. It's taken so long to get the fruit. So they, you know, they don't climb back down and walk across the forest floor and go up, they can glide.

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EyesOfWildPart3NJLE_2023-11-20-06-54-58

Well, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with the owner of the Eyes of the Wild. It's an organization dedicated to connecting people with wild animals. Take a look. All right. So let's talk about this porcupine that we have here. So, yeah, this is Charlie. She's a South American porcupine called app prehensile tail porcupine. Right? You now, a lot of times I do that when I show kids just to show that she's not, I'll bring her into a preschool and I'll see the teachers looking at me like I'm crazy. But then if I show kids that she's really not an aggressive animal, their quills are used for protection. They don't walk around the rain forest, poking other animals and running away. They only hurt things really that try to eat them, which is fair. Now, the porcupine is attacked, the, she can raise them so they, they can't shoot them out, but she can raise them and lower them so she can change her hairdo and she doesn't need gel. So you see that she can raise in that fabulous. Look at all that volume. Perfect for Jersey. So I just, yeah, she been in a few decades earlier better. But so she'll stand up and spread out her quill. She tries to make herself look big, which is a very common thing that if an animal can't get away from danger, it tries to look big. Even guys will stick their chest out when they argue sometimes. But, um, then she does this warning dance where she'll stomp her feet and shake her quills. And then if the predator still tries to bite or scratch, she'll push back at it. Why don't we let you early, finish that banana and let's meet another new friend, right? So, cue the Os on this one who's this guy or girl? So this is a female. Her name's Ali Ali Bino. Yeah, we have several of these and she's the only albino one that we have. How common is the albino of a wallaby? It's not terribly rare, but in the wild you wouldn't see it. They become targets. It's a really neat opportunity when with kids, I can talk about pigmentation. Um, her parents are both grayish brown with brown eyes. She's white with red eyes. She's had a baby, it's grayish brown with brown eyes and I'll say to the kids, you know what that means and they kind of look at me and I say nothing. They're all just Wallabies. It doesn't matter what their pigments just give us pigment. That's all that they do. Um They don't pay any attention to it and So if they can figure that out, people should be able to as well.

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EyesOfWildPart4NJLE_2023-11-20-07-59-31

Well, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with the owner of Eyes of the Wild. It's an organization dedicated to connecting people with wild animals. Check this out. And before we get to our next animal Travis, do you actually go to schools and other places to educate people about these animals? Yes, our rescue is totally funded by outreach programs. We work really closely with a couple of wildlife rehabilitators um, that are close to us and I get mailers from them like four times a year asking for, for help. So we've always tried to provide a program where the kids can actually learn about these guys and we get paid to do that. And so we go to senior centers detention centers, anything really? So we saw a bunch of cute animals and now you got something. It's a little more scary with a scary name. Who's this guy? He's savage. That's the name he came with. His name is savage. Yeah, I mean, you can see he's just savage. He's looking, he's like, this is really kind of what they're like. They're not, you know, this is kind of a famous snake right now. There's a lot of people talking about. This is the species that you see down in Florida. What kind of snake? It's a Burmese Python. And this one isn't even really that big. He's about 15 ft long. Um, he weighs about £95.90 pounds. Somewhere in that range. He continues on by the way past this table. You just can't see him. We couldn't fit him all up here. Yeah. But the, the biggest ones, there was one that they just caught in Florida that was 19 ft long. Um, they can get bigger than that. The heaviest one ever was £403. But they're a problem in Florida because they're an invasive species. But they are a vulnerable species in their natural habitat. So, in Southeast Asia where they're supposed to be found, um, their numbers have drastically decreased. So there, they're trying to save them in Florida. They're trying to get rid of them snakes, save our lives. Mice and rats have carried some of the worst diseases humans have ever gotten. Um, so these guys in South, in Southeast Asia, in Singapore, they used to catch Burmese Pythons sometimes bring them into the city and let them go because they knew it was safer to have a snake eating the rats than rats spreading disease. So, obviously not venomous. They, no, the larger ones are usually their, their body size can indicate to you it's a constrictor. This is mostly muscle for constricting their prey. All right, Travis and Savage. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll have more information on our website at News twelve.com. When it comes to eyes of the wild Travis. It was really great meeting you.

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For over 20 years, Eyes of the Wild has provided homes for over 150 animals.

Interview: Eyes of the Wild provides homes for over 150 animals

For over 20 years, Eyes of the Wild has provided homes for over 150 animals.

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