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"When I get to a place
for the first time and know it like home, this is when I know my journey
will be over"
"There are always two
people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer."
"I was born lost, and take no
pleasure in being found"
"The strongest reason for the people to retain
the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect
themselves against tyranny in - Thomas Jefferson
"If I am fortunate, I will live 80 years on this amazing planet, so I will throw caution to the wind, strive to make a difference, and seek out adventure with every breath, as I am far more afraid of regret than failure!" - Scott Brady
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of 4x4's, handguns and tequila." - Joaquin Suave
"The Sure Sign of Life is Death. Why Else Would humanity Thrive So Hard To Leave Its Mark on This World" - Unknown
"A tourist does not know where they have been, a traveler does not know where they are going."
"I Have Learned Something About Creating Art. People Do Not Want to Hear What You Are Going To Do, People Want To Hear About What You Done Did." - Unknown |
Global Wildlife
Center ****
One of the Best Kept
Secrets in Louisiana
I'll apologize for our absence the past few days, but we've just returned from a little excursion over to Africa where we finally notched out a true African Safari. This has been a dream for Cindy and I for years now, and it was everything we expected it to be. Only difference was we saved something in the ballpark of $10,000 each by only having to drive 15 minutes from where we're staying to the Global Wildlife Center in Folsom Louisiana. Cindy and I have always dreamed of taking a true photo safari where you spend days in the back of a 4x4 roaming open savannah's in search of exotic wildlife. We've priced out packages and even going with a bare bones, no extra's tour, we're talking something around the $10,000 price range and this doesn't include airfare or the 20 something hour flight. Round trip Coach seats are a few grand each to Africa. A true African Safari will always remain a pipe dream I'm afraid, so we did the next best thing.
The history of the farm is this: the owner of the property inherited the
farm at the young age of 35, he thought it would be great to have an
exotic animal on the large piece of property since it would have plenty
of room to roam about. The Global Wildlife Center is now a not for profit organization which is home to 4000 exotic animals who are well kept and have the ability to roam freely on this acreage while reproducing at will. All of the monies generated goes right back into the center, which by the way was voted one of the best places to work in the state of Louisiana. There are a few different ways to view the thousands of exotic animals roaming the open prairies and savannah's with no fences or barricades to keep them locked up. You can go the inexpensive route and board a wagon train that is pulled by a big Farm Tractor and has an experienced guide narrating the whole journey, or spend double the money, but still a steal in my mind and reserve a private tour in the back of a World War II era Pinzgauer. The Pinzgauer makes for a perfect vehicle to shoot photography out of for two people. You have plenty of room to lay out your camera bag on the floor and with full length bench seats along the bed and open sides, it's hard to miss a shot. Now when I say 'Double the Money', I'm only talking $35 an hour per person to be in the Pinzgauer. If you want to ride along with everyone else on the wagon train, it's a measly $17 for adults and only $10 for children 11 and under.
You should know there are no Predators on the Wildlife Preserve. No Exotic Big Cats or Reptiles that can do any harm with the simple reason being they would then have to fence in the animals to protect them from one another. But to be able to see large herds of Antelope, Zebras, Fallow Deer, Pére David Deer, Watusi Cattle along side Giraffe's, Gobi Camels and crazy birds from far away places and not have to fight and shove our way through hordes of people was worth every single penny and then some.
He is a Gobi Camel native to Mongolia and is covered with dreadlocks right now, he will eventually drop all of his dreads and become completely bald for the warm summer months. Aladdin sat and had a stare off with me a couple of times as he waited for more corn from the 5 gallon bucket. His lips were so thick and fuzzy, surrounded by the massive amounts of hair, I couldn't resist almost filling up an entire photo card on him. And this was only our first of thousands of animals we would encounter over the tour! We next went on to the giraffes which are all from the same family. Scott, our guide let us know that the mother was 24 years old and had given birth to 4 or 5 babies since she has been in the Global Wildlife Center. The father of the babies has just recently passed away of old age somewhere around the ripe ol' age of 28. They think that the mama might have gotten pregnant one last time before he checked out to that big zoo in the sky, but it's too early to tell just yet.
At first I got pretty freaked out by the four giraffe surrounding us and putting their giant heads in the back of the vehicle looking for food. But that wore off quick enough and after a few minutes I was actually petting one while it helped itself to corn from the bucket. The exquisite markings on them are so intricate and all of them are individually different. They let us know that we could get out to shoot images of almost all of the animals except the giraffes and the Watusi Cattle since they can be dangerous when one least expects it. Not that they are aggressive, but if one got spooked, major damage could occur to us tiny humans in comparison to their massive size, not to mention their humongous horns. Throughout the tour there was never a reason for us to get out of the vehicle since the sides are all open and we could get great shots from right where we were sitting. Scott stopped any time we asked and usually humored us with a story about one of the animals or gave us some more interesting facts on them. My favorite personality of all of the animals is that of the Rhea Bird. This bird looks like a smaller version of the Emu, which by the way they used to have here but they had a fascination with shinny things. This resulted in women being chased around the parking lot for their earrings and jewelry, so the Global Wildlife Center traded them in for this smaller version.
If they find him not being a good parent to one of the chicks, all of the mothers will come to him at separate times and pluck out his tail feathers until he is bald. The feathers won't grow back for at least two years leaving him so unattractive that no females will mate with him for those two years. Now that is a woman's scorn if I have ever heard of any. No, I did not do that to Pat's bald head! We spent two and a half hours riding with our experienced guide, Scott who knew so much about the animals, it was mind boggling to take in all the information he was telling us. Scott would tell us stories about each of the herds, knew who the dominate males were in each herd and why that male might have certain marks along their hides from past fights or scrapes with fellow males trying to knock them off the hierarchy. Scott would go on to tell us specifics about the breed of any animal we would drive up on, the history about where they got their names and usually add some great Bar Trivia that I can bring up at a later date to impress some person along our adventure. We asked why the Pére David Deer had the nickname of Father David Deer and he told us a great story which I cant remember all the specifics of, but after Googling Father David Deer, I found the exact same story Scott told us at this link. It goes something like this: _______________________________________________
These deer
with a strange name should be extinct by now. Most of its ancestors had
become victims to relentless hunting centuries back. But some are still
alive today in a wildlife reserve in Bedfordshire, England. The very
fact that they are still around today is purely because of the efforts
of a single man 'Father Pierre David' of France and due to a series of
events he carried out.
During the
1800's there was an Emperors Reserve Forest in China to which only the
rulers had access. It was mainly used for hunting and recreation. There
were rumors that this forest was home to many exotic animal & bird
species, but no one dared to enter the forest as it was banned for
common people. The punishment for the violation of trespassing was
death. He knew straight away that he was looking at an animal not found anywhere else in the world. He also knew that if he didn't do anything, the deer would soon become extinct in that forest by itself. He needed more information on it but the only way he could get it was through theft. He tried to bribe the guards of the forest, but no one was ready to say anything fearing the punishment they would get if they were found out. After a year he managed to get a pair of horns and the skin of the deer. He knew full well that if he was found out he would be hanged.
He secretly smuggled these pieces back to Europe where animal experts confirmed that this was the mythical creature found in the Chinese paintings and agreed it was not known anywhere else in the world. They started pressuring the Chinese to send a few of these deer to Europe. They feared that since the deer were found only in that forest, any natural disaster or epidemic or even indiscriminate hunting could wipe out the species completely. The Chinese were initially reluctant, but Father David worked hard to persuade them. Finally the Chinese agreed to send only a few baby deer to a zoo in France. It was these few babies which saved this species from complete extinction. Soon after this, floods arose in the Huang Ho river near Peking which destroyed most of the farms. A portion of the wall surrounding the forest collapsed & the deer stepped outside. The starving people were mad with hunger. As soon as these deer caught sight of the people their fate was sealed. The local farmers neither paused to think how important these deer were, nor cared about the strict laws banning common people from hunting them. They more than likely didn't even know these deer were an endangered species. It didn't take long before the deer were hunted down and gone for ever from this area.
These deer
nearly became extinct save for the 7-8 babies in France. Animal experts
were worried that even these may not survive so far away from their
natural habitat. A few of these babies were sent to a wildlife reserve
in Bedfordshire where they Surprisingly thrived. The number of these
deer which was only about 8 has gradually increased to nearly 200 now.
This is the only herd of its kind in the world. ________________________________________
Another endangered species that roam the Global Wildlife land is the Scimitar Horned Oryx which exists only in captivity due to over hunting. They are wanted for their thick leather hide and their sharp horns which African Hunters use for spears. They are native to Africa and are in the process of being reintroduced back into the wild in that country. The Global Wildlife Center has 3% of the world population of the Scimitar Horned Oryx living on its land. These animals are quite majestic and have said to be the animal that started the tale of the unicorn. The horns are so long and close together, it looks as though they only have one giant horn which goes right up the center of their skull. They are also one of the animals that can go without drinking water for very long periods and usually get their water from food they eat. African Tribes used to believe they brought the rains because they followed the rainy season around in order to eat the lush grasses. If you see carvings of African Rain Gods, many will resemble the Scimitar Oryx.
But just the fact that we were sitting only 20 feet from all this action was amazing. There would be times Cindy and I would just sit staring at the beautiful creatures with neither one of us snapping a single picture. After a long pause of beautiful silence, one of us would snap out of the dream and go back to filling the compact flash cards on the camera. Today was also Cindy's first time to really use the Canon 400mm lens we got back at Christmas. She's tried to use it a few times since we've been back on the road, but always said it was too heavy for her to hold for any length of time.
I figured I'd at least check it out before dropping the big bucks on the Wimberley brand. When ever dollar counts right now, I cant afford to always buy American even if I really want to. Look for a full write up on this Gimball head soon. Once Cindy started shooting with the 400mm, it was all I could do to wrestle it back out of her hands. I know I've said it before, but the lens is amazingly fast and produces some of the sharpest images I've ever seen. Check out the Global Wildlife Center Gallery to see for yourself. This is a huge Gallery, but some of the images are the best we've ever shot. I honestly cant wait to get out to Yellowstone and start living this type of life every single day. Looks like we need to start selling some of our photographs in order to fund the purchase of another big lens since I know I've now lost that one to Cindy. When the Pinzgauer Tour finally ended, I was bummed. The afternoon weather was picture perfect with a nice breeze blowing across the open fields and big fluffy clouds rolling in as a perfect backdrop for the large herds grazing before us. I don't even think we were out the drive way of the Global Wildlife Center when I was saying to Cindy "When can we go back? Please can we go back another time before we leave for Arkansas!?!"
If you're ever traveling through Louisiana or visiting New Orleans, make it a point to visit the Global Wildlife Center. If you're a photographer and have been dreaming of an African Safari, I've got news for you. It can be had for thousands less than flying to Africa. And I'll bet you'll come home with just as good of pictures as your friends did who blew their 401K on their African Excursion, and you wont have to get all the documents or inoculations that go with traveling to Africa these days either...LOL The Global Wildlife Center can be photographed in a weekend and you'll still have time to party on Bourbon Street to celebrate all your photos that will be hung on every wall of your house when you return. Or just check out our gallery and buy some of ours....Hint..Hint!
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