Carlsbad, New Mexico is a small town, situated in the Chihuahuan desert with views of the Guadalupe Mountains to the south. When you are driving down the main highway, views in either direction stretch on with some small cacti, tumbleweeds, and oil pumps. There are stretches of Northern Texas and New Mexico where we felt like we were stuck in a scenic glitch with the scenery seemingly repeating itself for hundreds of miles.
While Carlsbad Caverns are definitely the main attraction, Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park deserves an honorable mention. If you are visiting Carlsbad Caverns, I highly recommend adding on a half day at Living Desert Zoo. As visitors follow the winding trail, placards highlight the native plants and animals. The quote on the visitor's center says it all:
"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he sees."
-John Muir
(Photographic evidence of our time at Living Desert Zoo was compromised by debris in my camera, so ignore any dark black spots in the photos)
After the first few native plants, the kids were largely unimpressed. Many of the different cacti blended together for them, especially without the splendor of their flowers given the chilly climate. In contrast, the kids absolutely LOVED seeing the native animals. When you first enter, there is an aviary and many bird enclosures. We saw a fox kit sleeping in one enclosure and a bald eagle in the next. The wild boars stared at us, seeming to want to interact.
Roadrunners are unique looking creatures whose speed is something you can’t really understand until you’ve watched them dart around. It really solidified the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons in my mind. You can see a Roadrunner watching you, still as a rock for awhile, then almost instantly is gone, appearing on another branch or corner of the enclosure as if it had always been there.
We missed out on seeing some of the large animals such as bears and mountain lions since they were huddled in the back to escape the chilly wind. Two wolves with bright, intelligent eyes stalked through their territory, checking out each new visitor with a gentle curiosity that made you feel connected to these amazing creatures.
There were several small buildings, an educational center teaching about some of the smaller creatures (like scorpions, spiders, and snakes) and a reptile center (which, sadly – wink wink, we ran out of time to explore). The bison enclosure was on the side of a hill, so visitors have a view of the town as they walk along. Riley really enjoyed communicating with one of the antelope and declared that she was marrying him.
Near the end, we enjoyed hanging out with the prairie dogs. Their cute little noses wiggle as they sniff the air, constantly moving as a group to scan for danger. They soon decided we were not a threat and resumed eating and playing. I’m not sure why prairie dogs aren’t given more credit for being such great pack animals, but a prairie dog will literally place itself in danger for its friend, remaining alert for the one prairie dog in need, waiting for the whole pack to move towards the safety of their tunnel system. We should really coin the term, “I’ll have your back like a prairie dog.” The most fun we had was watching them perform some sort of communicative ritual. One prairie dog (or several hanging out at one hole) would repeatedly jump up to stand, making chippy sounds, then bend down to the floor. As soon as one prairie dog would complete this sequence, the pattern would pop up on the other side of the group with 2-3 prairie dogs. After the message “passed” around the group (maybe 3 different groups following the pattern), everyone moved in unison, then they went back to life as if nothing happened. At first, we thought it was an alert system, but this didn’t make complete sense given that they all stayed outside and vulnerable. I joked and dubbed it the “sun god dance.” Scientists don’t know why the prairie dogs dance and yip, but there are two running theories. The first is that the dance is a social game, while the second, more likely, explanation is that it is a call for readiness before a prairie dog engages in a riskier activity. This jives with our observations that one prairie dog would dart out to the food bowls after these sequences. Researchers have identified an elaborate prairie dog communication system complete with different noises based on the size, type, and distance of a threat.
Both kids are keeping journals on their travels. Riley has been using voice to text to record her discoveries and was highly amused that her notes for this experience notated the town as “college burned.” Silly voice recognition software.
I’ll leave you with Riley’s excitement over the Living Desert Zoo …
The first thing I saw was the bird exhibits. I saw a falcon and a crow. We saw wild boars and I saw a bald eagle. I went to this room that had so many birds. Some of them couldn’t fly. It was awesome! When we got out, I saw a baby kit (fox). It was so cute. It was curled up in the cage. I saw some roadrunners. Then I saw some warthogs; there were three of them. They were kind of cute, too. Then I saw a rattlesnake through night goggles (in the education center), and smelled a skunk and deer musk. Which one do you think smelled more? The deer musk! Then, I saw a bobcat and two wolves, Layla and Jack. Layla was the girl and Jack was the boy. I saw elk. They were huge! I saw an antelope and decided he was my husband.
Then I saw prairie dogs. They were so tiny and cute and the group communication was the dance of the sun god. He would sing and dance and go on his heels in the sun, put their hands up, then another one did and then another. They would squeak which was so cute.
At the end, we had to rush back. We couldn’t do another exhibit because it was locked, so we went back and I chose three coloring pages to take with me. It was AWESOME!