​My name is Lorraine Hillgen-Santa and I am going into my Junior year of high school at Choate Rosemary Hall. This year I joined Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo’s Conservation Discovery Corps. Conservation Discovery Corps, also known as CDC, is a program for high school students which allows them to spend time over the summer working with the Zoo both on and off grounds. Every new or “first-year” student goes through a training program on the weekends throughout the Spring. ​

“Can we pet him, Daddy?” my young daughters asked in near unison at the sight of the giant creature some yards away.

“No girls. We’ll just watch him safely from here,” I responded in a hush so as not to startle the object of our amazement.

Along with a growing caravan of onlookers, we sat quietly a few car lengths behind the huge animal, with the driver’s window cracked open, observing its every move. When the mountain breeze in the notch shifted, we could hear it munching on the undergrowth along the western shoulder of the ascending road.
​
We were treated to a sight of the wild north country. We took in the enormous creature before us. It stood on four impossibly long legs, its blackish-brown barrel-shaped body dominating our field on view. With palm-like antlers crowning its head more than seven feet above the ground, we beheld New England’s largest land mammal.

“Hey, what do you think about the new orangutan?” my friend asked.
Knowing his sense of humor, I cocked my head and smiled, waiting for the punchline.
“Go ahead…” I encouraged him to finish the joke.
The roar of the crowd under the Friday night lights pulled us from our conversation to focus on the game.
“Seriously. What do you think?” he asked earnestly, after the next set of downs.
“I haven’t heard,” I responded in surprise.
Now it was his time to smile.
“You’re not kidding…” he replied.
“Nope. Tell me. I haven’t read anything about it,” reflecting on an especially busy week gone in a flash.
It was the fall of 2017. Our boys were good friends and teammates, so our friendship had grown as well, our conversations ongoing, wide-ranging, and always fun.
Now confident neither was pulling each other’s leg, he began. I listened and learned of an amazing discovery.

​We're very grateful to the many people who make up our Zoo community. Beyond our animals and staff, the Zoo family comprises volunteers, students who engage with us in Conservation Discovery Corps and Explorers, members, and many more who make the Zoo the vibrant place that it is.

We want to share some "Friends of the Zoo.” Today, meet Charlotte D., 8, of Westport. Charlotte and her family have been members of the Zoo since 2018. 

​Also known as ephemeral pools, vernal pools appear in woodlands for a brief period each spring. Formed during the fall and winter by snow and rain pooling in shallow depressions, by summer they’re gone. While they’re here in spring, however, they offer a critical nursery for many species: tree peepers, wood frogs, and fairy shrimp, among others.
 
When the weather is about fifty degrees at night and a light rain is falling, the spring migration begins. It’s a march of amphibians, from uplands to lowlands. A steady procession starts with spotted salamanders when ice still covers the pools’ surfaces, but then extends to red back salamanders, wood frogs and others. These are obligate vernal pool species, “obligated” to use a vernal pool for a part of their life cycle. 

When we think of November wildlife, our thoughts turn to the living icon of Thanksgiving, the Wild Turkey. Yet, the colonists’ first harvest feast celebrated in the new world likely included far more than the large game birds. Historians believe the first feast menu included: sea ducks, geese, clams, mussels, lobster, fruit, berries, squash and a gift of five deer from the Wampanoag Tribe.

Written By: Lorraine Hillgen-Santa, Guest Writer
Zoo Member and Freshman at Choate Rosemary Hall