Tales of a Nature Center Tour Guide

Yeah, did you just hear what I said about most of the animals you like needing them for food?

I would love to say that this was only children. It wasn't. I have actually had to stop people actively carrying turtles out of the park.

A lot of children these days don't see very much nature in real life. I had more moments like this than I can count and they are simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming. Seeing animals doing their thing in nature is something all kids should get to see.

I have had terrible experiences having to explain animal death to children ranging from parents screaming that their children are too young to know what death was (those kids were about 11) to parents wanting me to relate that dead turtle to their dead grandma.

These kids just took it like champs and started telling me all the good things that a dead fish could provide to the ecosystem (food, nutrients, etc)

If your child wanted to touch a turtle, I can facilitate that with a captive turtle in a controlled environment. What do you think happens to kids that pick up turtles while they are laying eggs? They get bit, that's what happens.

They then yelled about our turtles not being trained not to bite people. That was about when I gave up trying to give them an explanation.

Nature Center. We try to keep it as natural as possible. I will never understand why people have such a hard time with that. Plus 95% of the snakes here are non-venomous.

Sorry for typo. As I get passionately frustrated, my typing abilities go out the window.

People truly believe that Nature Centers should have rides. And that's fine, I'm sorry if you were unaware, but they usually don't and we don't either.

I've 'ruined' countless vacations. I've 'wasted' the time of people who came from out of state to ride our rides. I've been 'responsible' for children crying because there is no roller coaster.

This was horrific, I felt so terrible. I managed to radio in help and we somewhat safely got the doe out of the water. So I got to explain that we saved the deer to the children... but she died a few hours later.

Someone had (illegally) set up traps that were breaking the legs of deer. We never found who was doing it.

Nature Center. NATURE. Center. Rats are a part of nature, even if you don't like them

90% of our tours were classroom field trips and teachers usually treat the trips like their day off and let the parent chaperons run the show.

This particular parent was pretty heavy into conspiracy theories and had some pretty interesting views about a non-profit nature center. But the teacher was great, she took him aside and told him that if he couldn't be quiet, enjoy the tour and ask appropriate questions, he could wait on the bus.

At least once a week someone would complain about the lack of colorful fish. For kids this was easy to explain using Finding Nemo: Those colorful fish they were in the ocean. This is a lake. Can anyone tell me the difference? Why wouldn't those fish be here? Why do you think they were colorful? Why would being colorful be bad for a fish here? Kids usually got it VERY quickly.

Adults were harder, but the Finding Nemo explanation usually worked.

This was a beautiful experience. We went on a hike and then a tour of the lake. I don't know how the kids knew so many names, we had to have names over 100 animals. (about 90 of those were fish.)

No, your tropical fish will not survive in the lake. I know they are difficult to care for.

No, you can't release a turtle here. Especially if it is not native to this area.

Yes we have cameras, please don't came back in the middle of the night.

No your bird can't live here so you can visit it.

I don't care what you find on the road, we are not equipped to rehabilitate animals.

Senior groups were the best. They usually didn't want to hear me talk for a couple hours, so I would just walk with them and answer questions as they came up and point out cool things they might've missed. Also, they tip.

This is by far the weirdest thing that happened to me there. This particular park had a hotel that was by the lake, but it went out of business and the nature center renovated it into an aquarium.

This lady went into a long explanation about how the hotel was actually a boat that used to drive around the lake (it wasn't) how she stayed there last year (she didn't, at the time of this story it had been closed for nearly 20 years) and how all the movie stars stayed there (that might be true, I have no idea)

I very calmly DIDN'T tell her she was wrong, I just gave her the brief history of the building.

When I said "The hotel closed in 1992" she swung her purse up to hit me in the face. I was too shocked to dodge. She started yelling that closing the hotel is ruining her life and how could we close it because she made reservations.

Working at this Nature Center was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Seeing children and adults getting to view animals in their natural habitat and seeing it light up their faces is priceless. It's unfortunate that I couldn't afford rent working there because I would still be there if I could be.

If you would like more stories, I worked there for almost 5 years... I have tons more.

Guys, I did another
http://imgur.com/gallery/dg8cI

and another!
http://imgur.com/gallery/Mblbr

and another!
http://imgur.com/gallery/b8JCh