Cobb’s Exotic Animal Rescue’s Wildlife Festival braved stormy conditions to bring a variety of animals in Lloydminster.
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The wildlife festival took over the Lloyd Ex’s Alberta Building April 24 to the 26 with a plethora of exotic animals for people to see.
“You don’t see stuff like this all the time, so it’s kind of nice for other people to get to experience it,” said Maureen Sheppard, Cobb’s Exotic Animal Rescue executive director.
Proceeds from the touring shows help cover operational costs during the winter months while their Calgary park is closed.
“We get a little bit of government funding but not much,” she said.
The event tours Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan.
“We’ll go anywhere where there’s a good venue and a market and within a day’s driving distance of Calgary,” she said.
The festival offers an interactive look at animals and their habitats, featuring a popular sloth experience. The rescue was founded by Sheppard and her husband, who began taking in exotic pets that owners could no longer care for.
“We had a little petting zoo with six wallabies and then people started dropping off exotic animals, pets they couldn’t keep anymore,” she said, noting they have about 500 animals. “Of the 500 animals, probably about 400 have been surrendered to us.
“You’ll see the tortoise we have here. He was one of our first surrenders. He’s the reason we started the exotic rescue; he’s about 25 years old.”
Sheppard says there will still be people around to care for the animals when her and her husband aren’t around.
“That’s why we set up the exotic rescue, so that when we’re gone, there’ll still be an organization that takes care of him,” she said.
She explained they have 100 snakes, 40 to 50 different kinds of lizards and 45 sugar gliders. Some of the animals they have, like the sugar gliders, could make for good pets, which inspired them to begin a foster program.
“Some of these animals can be OK pets for some people,” she said. “The sugar gliders, we fostered about five of the 45, but they’re a lot more work than people expect. That’s why we’re doing it as a foster, rather than an adoption program. We’ll foster them and then you get to try it out for a few months and there’s really no risk.
“(If the pet works) then after a year of fostering, we’ll do something called a forever foster.”
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