Oatland Island; What Most Don't Know

(Savannah, GA)- Fewer busloads of summer campers cross through the main gate at the Oatland Island Wildlife Center this July, but not for a lack of educational opportunities for the park's visitors.

Taking precedence this summer is a massive renovation project to improve the center’s main building; a 1927 structure in need of a lot of T.L.C.

Moss-draped trees stand several stories high and flank the main building. Traditionally, the main building has been the home base for summer campers who go to Oatland Island to learn about wildlife and Coastal Georgia’s ecosystem.

The stately, red brick building has served many purposes throughout the decades. First used in 1927 as a retirement home for the Brotherhood of Railroad conductors, the building has also been a clinic and a laboratory for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most recently, however, the building contained the offices for the park’s staff as well as the rooms that host thousands of school-aged children involved with the park’s summer programs.

Since construction got underway at the main building a month ago, the area has been off-limits to all visitors and even most of the park staff.

“We will have 21,000 square feet of usable space,” said Oatland Island Wildlife Center Director Chris Gentile of the $5 million dollar project to renovate and redesign the building.

The plan includes seven classrooms and a veterinary clinic with a window so that visitors may see the staff render medical care to the center’s animals.

“All the offices will be moved upstairs so that the entire first floor is usable guest space,” said Gentile.

As the main building remains closed to the public for the rest of this year, Gentile is enthused about the estimated project completion date.

“May 2010, we think,” he said. “Next summer we’ll have so much more space to host summer camps.”

Very Visible for Visitors

In the last year, there has been a big push to make areas of the park more visible to visitors. Much like the windows that are planned for the new veterinary clinic, there are other exhibits already fully visible to even the smallest park visitors.

“We recently added viewing windows to the cougar exhibit,” said Gentile who has a 2-year-old boy.

“The first thing my son did in here is press his face to the glass,” he said standing inside the Wolf Wilderness building.

The pen that is home to Nine-Banded Armadillos also contain see-though panels that extend from the deck upward. Not even a toddler throwing a temper tantrum on his or her belly could miss viewing one of the armadillos dig grubs out of a piece of tree trunk or take a mud bath.

“Put clean water in there and they won’t touch it,” smiled Gentile. “The mud keeps them cool.”

Changes for Adults, Too

One of the most popular places at Oatland Island is the $180,000 Wolf Wilderness exhibit that has been open for a little less than a year.

“We wanted a climate-controlled area,” said the park director standing inside the comfort of the exhibit’s air conditioned building. The space offers relief from the summer heat and a place to sit, take some deep breaths, and enjoy the view of the apex predators in motion.

Ceiling-to-floor windows provide a panoramic view of the wolves’ habitat both for those pressed against the glass and those sitting on one of the benches that stretch the length of the window.

Inside the Wolf Wilderness building are also separate habitats for a some snakes and a few fruit-eating bats.

“All three blood-sucking breeds of bats are in South America,” informed Gentile. Despite the craze among teenagers to have an interest in vampires and all things blood-sucking, Gentile said he has fielded no more questions lately about the bats.

“People have ALWAYS asked if these bats suck blood and if they get tangled in the hair.”

While bats draw a lot of attention for their active behavior at “twilight,” one thing is certain, their exhibit is hardly a breeding ground for microbials and viruses.

Disease-Free

Oatland Island Wildlife Center employees; which includes twelve full-timers and six temporary workers, go to great lengths to keep the facility at large disease-free. The bat habitat, for instance, appears to be constructed out of wood planks.

“Those boards are actually made of fiberglass,” revealed Gentile during what he called a “Director’s Tour” of the wildlife park.

Going behind-the-scenes can give a person a better understanding of what it takes to care for the animals and reptiles. The not-so-wooden boards inside the bat’s area allows the staff to hose down the walls and ensure the area remains disease-free, all while giving the appearance of a dark, rustic shed; classic habitat for bats.

There are countless other nuances that give Oatland Island the distinction of being a clean place for its captive inhabitants.

The produce; carrots, lettuce, apples, and such are delivered fresh weekly. Fruits and vegetables are kept in a separate cooler than the meat that is used to feed some of the mammals on site.

“USDA inspections are unannounced and they’re an annual check,” said Gentile.

The government only checks on the safety of the food fed to mammals at the center. United States Drug Administration officials look for signs of disease that could become a large-scale problem, like the H1N1 virus the world is currently battling.

The USDA has long said it would create a system for checking on avian populations as well as mammals, however Gentile mentioned that year-after-year the federal budget does not seem to have the funds available to start such a program.

“We have the same practices for our birds as we do our mammals,” said Gentile who seemed in favor of regulating the environments of bird populations nationwide.

“We’re ready for it, even if they started checking today.”

Inside the building that houses the meats, grains, fish, and produce is an ice chest that contains bags and bags of rats.

A single, living rat may be difficult for some to look at, however dozens of stiff, frozen rats laying side-by-side in bags may have more of a potential to freak a person out.

“They ARE clean rats,” said Gentile with a head nod. The rats purchased as food for some of Oatland Island’s creatures come from a company called RodentPro.com. The rats are farm-raised in a much cleaner environment than rats in the real world, according to the director.

Methodical, not Mundane

Doling out rats and portions of other food to the animals is a combined effort. Senior Animal Care Technician Carrie Newton, and Animal Care Technicians Allison Ballentine and Jodie Eval pay close attention to the health of each and every creature in the park. The meals are weighed and whatever portion an animal does not eat is also weighed and charted.

Each of the Animal Care Technicians have a background in dealing with animals, according to their boss. All three women had experience working at other zoos and wildlife centers before getting on the payroll at Oatland Island.

Staff members hone their skills by attending seminars that address everything from animal husbandry to record-keeping. Employees from large outfits like the Cincinnati Zoo and smaller wildlife parks share ideas on caring for captive animals.

Representatives from some well-known zoos were recently enlightened by a system Allison Ballentine uses at Oatland Island.

“I told them about how we treat our ‘program animals’ or the animals that travel with us to schools to teach the children,” said Ballentine.

The Animal Care Technician takes rats, in particular, to help her teach children. Both Ballentine and Gentile said that rats are very intelligent and therefore are good animals to cart from school to school.

“Since the rats’ daytime exhibit is rather small, we shift them to a nighttime exhibit,” explained Ballentine. The two “program animals,” or rodents, spend the night playing in a large cage filled with activities, including a wheel for running. In the morning when it is time to head to a school, Ballentine waits for one of the two rats to, in essence, come forward and volunteer for the day.

“You can tell which one wants to go because it will seem more eager; greet you and go to the door of the exhibit,” she said. Once one of the rats has “volunteered,” Ballentine scoops it up and carries it in her hands to the daytime cage. Once there, she gives the rat a reward; a strawberry or some other treat.

Enrichment Conditioning

Ballentine, Gentile, and the others who work at Oatland Island realize that the most interesting and appealing animals to visitors are those that seem at peace with their surroundings. Providing enrichment conditioning, as is done with the rats, gives the animals something to do everyday besides sit and wait for the next meal.

“For instance, we introduce a new scent to the wolves’ exhibit everyday,” said Ballentine.

The scent may be man-made droplets that make it seem as though deer were wandering about the wolf exhibit. During this particular day at the park, the scent was one that comes around periodically.

“Today, we had to do pest control,” said Ballentine.

Yates-Astro Pest Control in Savannah is the vendor that works with Oatland Island. A pest control that is safe for animals is applied to the park to keep the bug population at bay; as it is a benefit to both the animals there and the people who walk the park’s trails.

Growing the Park

The wildlife park is operated by the Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools. Two-thirds of the park's budget is given by the school board, while the rest of the operating costs are covered by donations from the community, fundraising projects, and the fees visitors pay for admission to the park.

“Every year we have a surplus,” said Gentile. Last year, the Wolf Wilderness exhibit was built, in part, with the money that was left over from the year before.

New attractions that were added, particularly in the last year, are bringing people to the park, according to Gentile.

“Attendance has basically doubled since 2006,” said the director. Going by current attendance numbers, Gentile believes the park will host 80,000 guests in 2009.

Whether it is the unison call by the pair of cranes that meander about the natural tidal area picking at small crabs, the sometimes rowdy wolves that demonstrate pack behavior just as they would in the wild, “Comanche” and “Talieka” the male and female cougars who have eyes that seem to cut right through humans, or the eleven alligators that claw their way through the salt marsh as white ibis stand inches away, uneaten, there is a lot to see at the Oatland Island Wildlife Center.

“This isn’t just a park for teaching children, said Gentile. “This is really a place that everyone can enjoy.”

(Don't forget to view the 58-picture slideshow! Captions on some of the photographs reveal more about the operations at Oatland Island)

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Leave a comment for Jessica Kiss on this story or email her at jkiss@wjcl.com