Busch Wildlife Sanctuary boasts new 19.4-acre site
What visitors can expect at the $18M complex
JUPITER FARMS — A barn owl closes his eyes as he feels the wind beneath his snowy white wings on an afternoon flight. An animal care keeper feeds black bear twin sisters homemade peanut butter cookies. And a fuzzy little brownand-gray duck named Stew tries to match the voices of passersby with his quacks.
These are a few things a visitor might spot at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary’s brand-new 19.4-acre site at Rocky Pines and Indiantown roads.
The $18 million complex is triple the size of its previous campus on 6 acres off Central Boulevard in Jupiter, from which the sanctuary moved in September after 25 years there. At the new location, about 5 acres are designated for rehabilitation, 10 for education and another 5 for native plants and trees.
Amy Kight, its executive director, said the animals are settling into their new homes nicely and the Jupiter Farms community has welcomed them with open arms.
What can a visitor see now at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary’s new home in Jupiter?
Guests can expect to see otters, bobcats, black bears, panthers, alligators, foxes, snakes, deer, eagles and more at the sanctuary. The animals are kept in enclosures and yards along a paved walkway that circles through the complex.
The sanctuary’s staff recommends that visitors allot at least an hour to walk through the grounds and schedule their visit around an educational program at their amphitheater, which they have daily. Day trippers can witness an alligator feeding, see river otters in action and learn about conservation.
The sanctuary also rolled out the winter season with a brand-new playground for preschool kids that is just behind the bird enclosures.
Construction teams are also working on an exhibit that will focus on educating visitors about Busch Wildlife’s mission to rescue, rehabilitate and release the animals it treats back into the wild.
The “discovery center” will open in mid-January. Visitors will pass through the room from the sanctuary’s entrance to the rest of the facility.
“We really want people to understand what we do before they get to the animals,” Kight said. “That was something we kind of missed at our old place because people would think, ‘What a cute little zoo.’ But that is not what we do. We really want to drive home our focus so people understand why the animals are here with us.”
It is often, though, that traumatic injuries limit the animals from safely returning to nature on their own, so they stay at the sanctuary. Kight said that around 30% are able to return to the wild, which is the national average.
The exhibit also will feature interactive elements, such as artifacts that kids can feel, including furs and eggshells, and an abacus that shows how pesticides can move through the food chain.
In the coming months, Kight hopes to replace the fronts of the bird enclosures with thinner wires so that visitors can see them easier.
The water birds and otters are getting new ponds and the bears are getting a lazy river, similar to the ones for humans at resorts, at the end of January.
Busch Wildlife is expecting a new permanent resident soon, too. Charles the panther, who formerly was an illegally-owned pet, will make the move to South Florida from California.
The sanctuary might also welcome a 50-year-old American crocodile in the coming months because his current home at another animal organization in Florida is closing down its exhibit.
The status of the Florida population of the American crocodile was recently changed from endangered to threatened because of an uptick in their numbers, according to the National Park Service.
One thing the new facility is missing and will take time to have in place, Kight said, is a vast amount of towering trees to supply shade for the animals and visitors. To help make it happen, she started a fundraiser selling Busch Wildlifethemed yard signs to locals.
The campaign raised more than $100,000 to remove exotic invasive plants, including lygodium and Brazilian Pepper, and introduce native trees in their place. Crews are now picking up the tree-planting pace. They planted 40, mostly pine, cedar, oak and wax myrtle in mid-December.
“One thing everybody loved about the other sanctuary location was its canopies of trees, but that was after 25 years of growth,” Kight said. “It’s not going to be that way automatically here. This was a construction site three months ago. It’s just going to take time until this gets to looking like the old Busch Wildlife.”
Wine in the Wild, the sanctuary’s biggest fundraiser of the year, where supporters are invited to the center to sip wine under the stars, will be on Saturday, Jan. 27. Tickets are available for $200 each on their website. They are also hosting a Tai Chi class on Thursday, Feb. 8 to raise additional funds, with tickets for $20 each.
Kight said she is proud that even with the costly improvements that have accompanied the move to the new facility, the sanctuary still does not charge an admission fee for visitors, but asks for donations.
“People can come here every single day if they want,” Kight said. “Here, they will find a place to reconnect with nature and a little peace and quiet.”
The larger site has allowed for bigger enclosures for the animals, which Kight said has calmed them and decreased any anxiety that they experienced with the move.
“This is the animals’ home, and they love it. That’s the most important thing for me,” Kight said. “Right now, it’s about making the animals comfortable in their new surroundings. I think we’re doing a really good job of that, and I think the animals agree.”