Animals at Reflection Riding
After our adventure with Byron, we made our way to the animal enclosures with our new guide, Tish. The first thing she told us is that all of the animals at Reflection Riding have been injured in some way and therefore cannot survive on their own in the wild.
The first creature we visited was the Sandhill Crane. Sandhill cranes are not endangered, unlike many other animals at Reflection Riding, and are in fact very populous. These cranes are very aggressive and can sometimes be feisty with Tish and the other animal caretakers. They depend on the river and other bodies of water quite a lot, as that’s where they spend their time and find their food when they are in the wild.
Next, we got to see (and hear) a bald eagle! Some fun facts about bald eagles: the majestic bird sounds you hear on TV when people refer to eagles are actually not the sounds of these creatures, but the call of another bird- the red-tailed hawk. As you may know, the bald eagle was severely endangered, and by 1963; there were only 417 of them left. The reason they became so threatened was because of a chemical called DDT which had polluted the watershed (the land surrounding a body of water) that fed toward the waters where bald eagles fed on fish. The fish ingested small amounts of DDT (not quite enough to be lethal) and as the bald eagles consumed vast numbers of fish, the amount of DDT in their systems became very dangerous. This phenomenon is called biomagnification- something that happens when a chemical makes its way up the food chain until it becomes very dangerous for the animals on top. In this case, the eagles are at the top of the chain. DDT made the eagles’ eggs very weak and unable to survive very long. Thankfully, the chemical was banned, and in 2007 the American bald eagle was removed from the US endangered species list.
After Tish taught us about the eagles’ journey to get off the endangered species list, we traipsed over to the Red-Tailed Hawk enclosure. Red-Tailed Hawks are diurnal animals which means that they are awake during the day and use the daylight hours to hunt and live their lives. ‘Fovah’ is what we call our eyes’ ability to focus on one particular point in the field of vision. This hawk has a really impressive eyesight and has two fovahs. Humans have only one fovah, which means that we can only focus on one point at a time, and since the hawk has two, it means that it can focus on two points at a time. This vision helps the bird catch its prey; mostly mice and rats. Additionally, hawks go through phases after they are born where they can imprint on humans or other hawks. They do this when they register a specific being as something that can be trusted. This hawk, Ember, imprinted on another employee at Reflection Riding, Taylor. Taylor told us that he’s now basically Ember’s boyfriend, which is super cool!!
Next, we ventured over to see the Barred Owl. Barred owls, as well as most other owls, can turn their necks very far around but lack the ability to move their eyes inside the sockets. These owls have 14 neck vertebrates instead of the 7 that mammals have. This allows them to pretty much have eyes in the back of their heads! The hearing on these birds is also incredible, as they can hear a mouse’s heartbeat from 30 feet away!
After that, we visited the crown jewel of Reflection Riding, the red wolves. Currently, they have four red wolves; two breeding pairs of a male and a female each. These animals are incredibly endangered and scientists believe that there are only around 300 of them left in the world. There are 42 sites across the US that have red wolves, and they possess most of the red wolf population. There are only about 12 red wolves living in the wild and they are all in a land area in North Carolina. The wolves need a HUGE amount of space to do their bidding, which makes this nearly 3,000-acre space good for them to live in. Reflection Riding is clearly in the small minority of organizations that have red wolves, and they raise a lot of money that they use to protect this species from extinction.
Next... Archeologists from TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)
After we left Reflection Riding, we got Panera and ate on the lower field at GPS. After we were done eating, two archeologists came down to meet us and talked to us about their jobs. One part I found very interesting was the body farm, which was a farm like area at UTK where human bodies are left to decompose and be studied.
They also talked to us a lot about what they had learned, especially about the atlatl. Native Americans created the atlatl before bows and arrows, and the atlatl has a longer reach as they were originally big game hunters during the Mississippian period. Later on, they created a more domestic lifestyle with villages, and as they settled down, they began to create pottery.
Before the atlatl, they used to use spears to hunt big game, and spear tips were made from flint. People often think of spear tips as arrowheads- have you ever found an arrowhead? It actually wasn’t used for arrows, that’s a spear tip, because Native Americans mostly hunted with spears.
Atlatls
After the archaeologists explained who they were and the kind of work they did, they gave us the chance to use an actual atlatl. They gave us each a spear and then the atlatl itself which is kind of like a smaller stick with a grip for your fingers and a hole in the back to grip the spear.
One by one, we used the atlatls to throw the spears at targets that the archaeologists had set up in the grass. Some of us got super close to hitting the targets, but unfortunately, no one actually hit them. It was a really fun experience, though and we learned a lot!
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