Kissin’ Cousins : Center to Sow Seeds for Future of Wildlife

Uncle Sam was getting a lot of attention.

Born on Tax Day, April 15, the baby camel walked on unsteady legs to explore the main barn at the Rolling Hills Refuge and Wildlife Conservation Center. Half a dozen people looked on, along with four giraffes from the barn’s distant corner. A parrot with blazing red feathers chattered away.

Uncle Sam was the latest addition to the Rolling Hills refuge center, joining about 170 animals from 61 species, some of them endangered.

The park, still under construction, is scheduled to open next summer as one of the nation’s largest private parks. It will have 95 acres of public space and 500 acres more that will be used for breeding rare and exotic animals.

“It sounds kind of silly, but our goal is to change the world, to make it a better place,” said Bob Brown, the refuge center’s manager.

The private, nonprofit center is funded largely by Charles Walker, president of Salina-based Blue Beacon Truck Washes.

“Part of our mission is to prove you don’t need government to build a park,” Brown said. “We’re common people trying to do what we can to educate, preserve and protect.”

A short drive from the main barn are two more recent additions to the center: Milly and Wagasa, two 7,000-pound female white rhinos, a species very much endangered.

They came to Rolling Hills from the Knoxville Zoo as part of the Species Survival Plan, a program administered by the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. The program is intended to create a genetically viable captive population of endangered animals.

That fits with the goals that the Rolling Hills Center has staked out for itself: propagation, education, research and exhibition.

A male white rhino is expected to arrive at Rolling Hills refuge center sometime next year. Brown said the center staff wants to start a breeding herd for the rhinos. The center already has five.

The animal is heavily poached on African game preserves, and many people in China believe its horn has medicinal properties.

“Rhinos are probably the most people-friendly animals we have here,” Brown said.

Establishing a breeding herd is just one example of what the Rolling Hills center wants to do, Brown said. The heart of its philosophy is the connection between education and protecting the environment.

In the break room at the main barn, a sign taped to a refrigerator reads: “Plan for one year: plant rice. Plan for 20 years: plant trees. Plan for 100 years: educate children.”

An education center has already been built, with a library and an auditorium that can be converted into two classrooms. Rolling Hills officials are training teachers from 14 school districts to use it.

“The kids will have their own entrance to the park,” Brown said. “The school buses will have their own place to park.”

The center will focus on not only zoology but also the ways in which animals are portrayed in art, religion and culture. Brown said he believes it can have a large impact on children’s lives.

“You know small groups of people have changed the world before us,” he said. “All we have to do is reach into the heart and mind of that one kid who’s going to be a Chrysler, a Vanderbilt, a Mahatma Gandhi; all we have to do is find that one kid.”

The refuge center started out as Walker’s Belgian horse farm. It was basically a hobby. Then Walker decided to buy some exotic animals.

“The kids were interested in the horses, but they immediately gravitated toward the exotic animals,” Brown said.

In 1995, Walker donated 95 acres of land for the foundation’s park and 500 more acres for breeding to get the wildlife center started.

It’s mushroomed from there.

“We consider ourselves to be active environmentalists, as opposed to environmental activists,” Brown said.