Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 817, it's FHELX Morning, it's the Friday Extravaganza, it's time for the Wildlife Rockstars Bridges for Brain Injury Program. James is with us along with our animal handler, Casey, and we'll meet our furry friend here in a moment. Good morning guys, welcome back.
James, KC: Good morning, thank you for having us. Good morning.
Paul Szmal: It's good to have you here. So do you know off the top of your head about how many presentations during 2024 for the Rockstars?
James, KC: I can't say off the top of my head. I would estimate probably around between like 175 to 200 or so. So pretty busy year, but we are as always looking forward to next year. So if you're looking to book any shows or presentations, try to get it in as soon as possible. And we do have a new presentation that we are putting out in 2025 called Little Critters. So this is kind of more geared towards younger audiences, so maybe preschools or just younger children. And it kind of takes a background on smaller animals to kind of build that connection. And even though the animals are small, they still have a huge important role in the ecosystem and it's important to have them around. So just because you're small doesn't mean that you don't matter. So that is a new one that we are adding and we even have bigger news for 2025 that we are really looking forward to. We purchased a new property in Farmington.
Paul Szmal: Wow.
James, KC: So it is a previously a horse farm. So we will be having a lot more space and we are introducing Bridges Barnyard, which will be an agricultural educational experience with hands on interaction. So it will allow people to come in, have agricultural animals to work with. So we'll have that with native species and exotic kind of covering all barriers and teaching all about the different wildlife.
Paul Szmal: Wow, that's absolutely fantastic. Congratulations on that.
James, KC: Thank you. Very excited.
Paul Szmal: That is terrific. I know we'll be talking more about that. And you mentioned the Little Critters program and not everybody might know that you have a whole bunch of different programs that you can tailor for different groups, which is really neat.
James, KC: Yep. So on our website, wildliferockstars.com or bridgesforbraininjury.org, you can see all of our different presentations, whether it's from reptiles or insects or creepy crawly, it flies, it creeps, it crawls. Or as mentioned, the Little Critters, our most popular superheroes, teaching about the different superpowers that animals have as well as us as humans and what we bring to the table. And then our Boy Scout and Girl Scout badge workshops as well as our Rockstar reading rallies at libraries.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's terrific. My wife's done that at the library in Rushville. So go to the website, bridgesforbraininjury.org and look for the Wildlife Rockstars link. And then more coming up on the new property acquisition. That is just fantastic news.
So let's meet our animal today. So today we have Freddy the ferret. All right.
James, KC: So ferrets are very, very interesting and have a very rich history. So Freddy here is a domesticated. So there are three species of ferret in the entire world, the European polecat, the Siberian polecat, and then the black-footed ferret.
Paul Szmal: Okay.
James, KC: Black-footed ferrets live out west. Their main diet is pretty much just prairie dogs. And then the polecats tend to eat smaller rodents. They eat small reptiles and stuff like that. So these guys, ferrets, domesticated ferrets, were actually introduced in 3,700 B.C. in Egypt to help hunt rabbits and rats. And then if you fast forward all the way to the 1880s, New Zealand introduced them to help with pest control. But unfortunately, it got out of hand, and now there is a population of feral ferrets in New Zealand, the only one in the world.
Paul Szmal: Wow.
James, KC: So we use them as majority as pets, so they're bred in America as for pets. And these guys are very cool, as they can live up to 10 years. They can get up to 3 inches in size. So Freddy here is a female. So you can see he's just very, very long. They are part of the weasel family. So that has a couple different things. One, they produce an oil that helps them stay dry and keeps dirt off of them. So if you were to give your ferret a bath, they would become more and more stinkier. So you shouldn't do that. That kind of just helps protect against bacteria and other things that might be in the water and the dirt. Keeps them nice and clean. So these guys, when they do breed, they can have 1 to 18 pups, which are also called kits. Females are called jills, and then males are called hubs, which is very, very cool.
Paul Szmal: Now I know, like you say, a lot of people have them as pets. Are they one of those pets that can be more work than people expect, where they get abandoned?
James, KC: So these guys can be a lot of work. They are crepuscular, meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk. But they do tend to change that a little bit, depending on their owner. So they do sleep up to 14 to 20 hours a day. They will wake up periodically to poop, eat, and play. So it's not too bad. But they are very, very curious animals, and they will put pretty much anything in their mouth to test it first. So Freddie here has a bunch of toys and a bunch of stuff, hammocks and stuff, that she runs around and plays on and takes naps. So if you're going to get one as a pet, just know the diet, know that their sleep schedules, that, you know, take them out, play with them, because they are very playful and curious animals.
Paul Szmal: Now, do you know, were they affected by the new pet store law? I mean, you can't buy dogs and cats anymore at pet stores, so I don't know if they were affected in New York or not.
James, KC: I'm not 100% sure if they're affected or not. I would assume maybe, just because dogs and cats are one of the most common pets that you can get. But ferrets are kind of deemed as kind of a minor, like they're easier to take care of. They only live up to 10 years. But they can be very, very needy, especially if you do have one as a pet. They need a lot of love and attention, so you've always got to make sure. Freddie here is a rescue, so again, people get them as pets and go, oh, I can't take care of them. They're way too crazy for me. So then they end up giving them away or releasing them into the wild or something bad. And we don't want that because they would be an invasive species in New York since they would eat pretty much everything and have no predators to actually hunt them. So we've got to be very careful with that.
Paul Szmal: Now, I always watch you handle these animals. How much were you trained in this, and how much of it do you kind of pick up? Because I've seen people who are good with animals have kind of a sense that probably goes beyond what you are taught in any kind of school.
James, KC: Yeah, so at the facility, we're taught how to handle our animals 100%, and then it's kind of your comfort level of what you think you need to do and how you need to move. Because when handling an animal, you don't want to force them, squeeze them. Like when Freddie moves, I move with Freddie. Like I let Freddie guide where my hands are going. I don't want to force them because you can hurt them. So it's really just what you've been trained to do, but also it's common sense. It's like you don't want to grab them on the neck. You don't want to grab them around the waist and stuff like that. You want to be very gentle with them. So it does take a lot of time to kind of get that feeling at first because they are very small, and you really don't want to hurt them.
Paul Szmal: I was reading a book a while back about the old days of Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show, and he used to have Joan Embry from the San Diego Zoo. And the writer talked about the way that she handled the animals, and sometimes she would kind of pull one away from Johnny and put it away real quick if she sensed, you know, if they're having a bad day, if there's like a bite risk or something. And how Johnny kind of learned from her like, okay, if she pulls the animal back, that means, nope, this might be a problem. He might bite or something. Are they a bite risk at all, these ferrets?
James, KC: Not really. I mean, anything with a mouth can bite, and they do like to put things in their mouth. But Freddie here is very easy to handle, very gentle, just very curious, wants to kind of jump all over me, smell my beard, do all that stuff. And it is to learn behaviors of the animals, to know like this is a behavior meaning I'm content, I'm happy, and this is a behavior meaning like I'm very angry. So a lot of times when we do shows, we have to determine whether an animal wants to come out and whether we don't. Because there's been some times where we do say, sorry, audience, the animal doesn't want to show in signs, we're not going to bring him out today, because we don't force our animals to do anything they don't want to do.
Paul Szmal: Can you feel, is there kind of a tension in the body sometimes that you can feel to go, okay, wait, he's not his usual cuddly self?
James, KC: Yeah, they might be shaking, or they might be really tense, and they might be panting and other things like that that we have to look out for to make sure that we know that they are in the right space to be handled. And that's something that takes years and years and years to learn over time. Luckily, Freddie here is very, very easy to handle, and she's very squirmy, but you just move with her and then she gets content.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I see he likes to crawl up on your neck, because they're very long. How sharp are the claws?
James, KC: They're pretty sharp, they help with climbing and other things like that, so they are as sharp as like a dog's or anything like that for a utility wise. But not too bad where it's like a tiger's claws or something like that where it's really, really sharp.
Paul Szmal: All right, well you better book early because these shows do fill up fast, so go to bridgesforbraininjury.org, look over the different kinds of presentations you can get. And what about, I know I asked you last time, but what do you have coming up for, I call them residencies, where you're going to be at a place for week after week or whatever?
James, KC: Yeah, so I guess one of our bigger ones in January coming up, I believe, is on January 19th. It is a Sunday at Webster Public Library. It's going to be kind of like a fairytale setting, so we'll be there from 5 to 8 o'clock. It'll be kind of a meet and greet. So if that sounds interesting to you, put that on your calendar and we look forward to seeing you.
Paul Szmal: All right, thank you for the terrific news. Say hello to everybody there at the ranch. It's been a while, I gotta come back out. A couple years ago, it's been several years ago that I talked to everybody and it was a lot of fun. Thank you, the two of you, it's been great. I always love the animals and the education and just terrific news on the growth of the program. So happy new year to you both and we'll see you again soon.
James, KC: Thank you so much.
Paul Szmal: Thank you so much. Bridgesforbraininjury.org and look for that Wildlife Rockstars link. It's 827.
