San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
REPTILE MUSEUM BARELY HANGS ON IN PANDEMIC
Founder vows to carry on at Ecovivarium for homeless snakes, lizards and spiders
“If I had to f ind a way to move 300 animals into my home, I would do that.” Susan Nowicke • Ecovivarium founder and president
The pandemic has been hard on every museum in San Diego County, but it’s become a true life-or-death struggle for the Ecovivarium in Escondido.
The 12-year-old reptile museum and education nonprofit at 641 E. Pennsylvania Ave. has become a refuge of last resort for nearly 300 unwanted, unadoptable and special needs animals, which include boa constrictors, monitor lizards, skinks, iguanas, geckos, chameleons, turtles, tortoises and tarantulas.
Until last March, Ecovivarium was able to feed and care for its menagerie of donated animals and pay its staff of four through a mix of admission fees, school presentations, field trips, birthday party bookings and donations. But with the arrival of
COVID-19, virtually all of that revenue disappeared.
Since it closed to the public for all but virtual and private, family-only tours 10 months ago, Ecovivarium’s revenues have plummeted 75 percent. Founder and president Susan Nowicke said keeping the museum open has become a day-to-day struggle of creative problem-solving and overdue bill-juggling. But Nowicke is determined to keep Ecovivarium going because without its mission as a sanctuary, many of the sick, injured and starving animals that arrive on her museum’s doorstep would have nowhere else to go.
“There are a lot of concerns we have, but we refuse to give up on the animals,” Nowicke said. “If I had to find a way to move 300 animals into my home, I would do that. I will never give up on them. They don’t deserve it. They’ve been given up on enough.”
Ecovivarium takes in, rehabilitates and re-homes donated reptiles and spiders. It keeps those creatures that would either be good animal ambassadors for its education programs or are too medically needy or too dangerous to be considered adoptable. Because of the pandemic, 2020 was a banner year for rescues, with more than 200 animals cycling through to new homes last year, Nowicke said.
Many of the animals that arrived at Ecovivarium last year were surrendered by owners who lost their jobs or homes, or who couldn’t afford their pets’ veterinary and food bills. Some owners released their reptiles into the wild when the animals grew too large or too expensive to manage, like two crocodile monitor lizards that museum staff recovered in Fallbrook. The museum also took in 72 reptiles and baby tarantulas abandoned when a local pet store abruptly shut down.
Some animals, like gentle bearded dragons, are easy to place in new homes. But Nowicke said nobody wants the massive monitor lizards, which have razor-sharp teeth, nervous dispositions and can grow up to 7 feet in length. To ensure a permanent placement, the museum now hosts classes for prospective adoptive families to make people understand the animals’ physical needs, temperament and how big they can grow.
With limited staff resources last year, Nowicke said the museum was able to expand its corps of teen and adult volunteers, who come in daily or weekly to chop up vegetables, help with care and cleaning and even to cuddle the socially friendly animals, like iguanas.
“Many of our animals are connected with people, and not having that attention from people has created all sorts of challenges, like animals reverting to a more wild nature because they’re not getting that constant socialization to straighten out their depression,” Nowicke said.
Last summer, Ecovivarium moved to its current location — a 50-year-old medical office building in the shadow of the old Palomar hospital — after losing the lease on its downtown retail space on Grand Avenue.
Most of the office building’s 52 patient waiting rooms have been converted into room-size enclosures for the larger animals in Ecovivarium’s collection, like Ed, a 350-pound Galapagos tortoise that arrived last summer after the death of its owner, local tortoise expert and rescuer Kim Thomas. But with negligible income, the museum hasn’t been able to afford needed building improvements, like replacing the inoperable heating and air-conditioning system or fixing the leaky faucets and broken water pipes on one side of the building.
When donations, grants, loans and tour fees do come in, Nowicke said they’re spent first on animal care. As the weather has cooled this winter, the monthly electric bill to heat the animal enclosures has climbed to $2,600. Food bills average $2,000 a month. The veterinary bills for 2020 totaled $6,000. Money is so tight right now that Nowicke said they’re replacing the UVA lights on the reptile aquariums on a case-bycase basis, and large carnivorous reptiles that were once fed every two weeks are now waiting a couple extra days for their midwinter meals.
Despite the challenges Ecovivarium has faced in the past year, Nowicke said she’s been inspired by the outpouring of support from the community. Two Vons supermarkets donate their excess produce every week. Employees come in on their days off to volunteer. And many new donors, large and small, have stepped forward to help, including one teen volunteer who donated her collection of more than $200 in spare change.
“It’s just been amazing,” Nowicke said. “It’s been nothing short of miraculous that we’re able to still continue and still be able to do what we do.”
Until the county allows the museum to reopen, Nowicke said the public can help Ecovivarium by volunteering at the museum, booking drive-thru birthday parties or private tours, and purchasing items on the museum’s “wish list,” like scrub brushes for turtles, UVA light tubes, frozen feeder rats, reptile bedding and jarred baby food. For ways to help, visit ecovivarium.org.
“We’re chugging along, we’re hopeful, and we’re committed to making our way through this,” she said.