Wild experience: Nature Zone is a hands-on opportunity

Meet Marcy, a 2-year-old Virginia opossum. She sleeps soundly in her cage, body curled into the fetal position, paw resting on her pointy snout.

Brain damage brought Marcy to Lynchburg’s Nature Zone in September.

“Some drunk was hitting her and hosing her down,” says Kathie Driscoll, a naturalist with Parks and Recreation. “She would not have survived in the wild.”

Marcy is just one of the animals at the Nature Zone, the city’s only nature center. The operation is nestled in a nook on the bottom floor of the Kemper Street train station, along the Kemper Street Connector Trail.

As I walk in, I wonder why the Nature Zone was voted one of the city’s best-kept secrets in this year’s Best of the Burg contest. It certainly isn’t high-tech or fancy. The 60-year-old owl mounts have seen better days, as have the crusty bug carcasses mounted on faded paper in a display case.

But it doesn’t take me long to discover the Nature Zone’s charm: its people and animals.

Driscoll and Laura Rogers, the center’s chief naturalist, are the muscle behind the operation. Their mission is to educate the public about Virginia’s wildlife and to promote conservation of its resources. And their method is hands-on. Quite literally.

Part of their job is to show off the animals by bringing them out of their cages. That’s how I get to meet Marcy the opossum, Ross the pueblan milk snake and Dirty Harry the mud turtle.

The center is empty at the moment, so I have the full attention of Driscoll, who has a bachelor’s degree in biology from George Mason University.

Driscoll has fiery red hair that matches the corn snake curled around her neck as she shows me around. Driscoll oozes enthusiasm for her work, and factoids on the flora and fauna of Virginia.

My first encounter is with Marcy, the brain-damaged opossum.
Distinct for their pouches for carrying young, the Virginia opossum is North America’s only marsupial (think kangaroo or koala), Driscoll says. She expects Marcy to live only two more years since opossums have a short lifespan.

The Virginia opossum is also nocturnal; Marcy is dead asleep in the middle of the afternoon. Driscoll strokes Marcy’s back, rousing her momentarily, but we can’t bear to tear her away from her nap.

My next stop is the snakes, notorious for eliciting strong emotional reactions from Nature Zone visitors. Driscoll says people love them or hate them.

Driscoll scoops Ross from his glass case and offers him to me. She assures me he is non-venomous.

“All of our snakes are non-venomous,” Driscoll says. “Yes, they can bite, but they don’t have any venom or poison.”

I hold him for a total of three seconds before handing him back. There is something creepy about the way his body slithers in my hands.

Ross, the pueblan milk snake, spends most of his time coiled in a Tupperware container filled with damp moss, which simulates his home environment. The plastic tub has a hole so that Ross can slide out and explore the rest of his glass case.

Milk snakes live in the Piedmont region of Virginia, Driscoll says. They look almost identical to the poisonous coral snake, a trick to keep potential predators away.

How can you tell that Ross isn’t poisonous? The order of the stripes. Driscoll recites an old saying, “‘Red on yellow, you’re a dead fellow. Red on black, you’re OK, Jack.’”

There are only three venomous snakes in Virginia: the copperhead, timber rattlesnake and cottonmouth. The timber rattlesnake can be found in the mountains, and the cottonmouth likes in brackish water, such as Lake Dismal, Driscoll says.

It’s really the copperhead you want to be most wary of, she says, because they can be found anywhere in Virginia. A copperhead can be identified by the hourglass pattern on its back and its elliptical, cat-shaped eyes.

But there’s no reason to live in fear. As far as Driscoll knows, nobody in Virginia has died from a snake bite in recent history. If you encounter one in the wilderness, she says it’s best just to leave it alone.

My last visit is with the turtles. Dirty Harry is a mud turtle, so named by a group of local kindergartners for his favorite pastime: hanging out at the bottom of streams.

The more sociable “Fluffy” is an Eastern box turtle with three claws and a stump, the result of an unknown accident.
Driscoll takes him out of the cage, and he hobbles on the tile floor.

Even with serious injuries, turtles can live until a ripe old age because of their protective shell. Fluffy may live to see a new and improved nature center, which is set to open on Old Forest Road in 2010.

But for now, he seems quite content in his humble abode.

If You’re Going:

WHAT: The Nature Zone, Lynchburg’s only nature center
WHERE: 825 Kemper St., Kemper Street Train Station, lower level
WHEN: Hours vary, call ahead for details
COST: Free
INFO: Call (434) 455-5828 for hours of operation and information on classes offered at the Nature Zone.