Live Animals at Local Library

It's not everyday that local San Bernardino residents see a African Pygmy Hedgehog, wallaby, or chinchilla, but June 11th was that day! The Feldheym Central Library recently held a live animal show in conjunction with their “Paws to Read” summer reading program that began on Saturday, June 7th and runs through Saturday, August 2nd. Megan Miller, an employee at Pacific Animal Productions, hosted the event at the library. The company's focus is to conserve wildlife and endangered species while educating people about the wonders of the wild. They incorporate "edu-tainment" into their presentations to engage the audience and give them a safe environment to see, touch and learn about wild animals, reptiles, and bugs. Angela Encinas has been a Children’s Librarian for the past two years, but has worked as a librarian for the San Bernardino Public Library for the past 15 years. The theme of the summer reading program is “Paws to Read”. Encinas shares, “Children like animals and we thought it would appeal to them, last year was a puppet show; every year we have a special program for the kickoff.” The purpose of the event is to get kids engaged and keep them reading over the summer. Extra chairs were brought out as more people came into the room, Miller started off the show with Larry, a seven-year-old Laughing Kookaburra. Miller explained to the audience she is a zookeeper and the animals are not tame. Each time she brought out an animal, she gave background information of each animal. She asked the children what kind of animals the kookaburra consumes and the kids raised their hand and said, “Lizard and mice.” When Miller brought out Penelope, an African Pygmy hedgehog, some of the children stood on chairs to see the little hedgehog better. Miller said Penelope has “super sniffer powers” and could sniff four inches underground. As an interactive animal show, the audience was engaged, asking questions and letting those who answered questions come up and pet some of the animals. Six-year-old Vincent answered a question that Miller posed, “How do chinchillas wash themselves?”, and Miller brought Francis, the chinchilla, to his seat so he could pet him. Some of the children laughed and answered, “volcano and mud baths.” Mike Salcedo brought his two children, Vincent and Deliah to check out books and came across the event because they were in the library when the announcement was made. He said, “We came to the library to check out books for Vincent to work his mind because he has an active mind and came to check [the event] it out.” At the end of the event, Miller told the kids they could check out books about any of the animals they saw to learn more about them. She brought Tryone, a Red Tegu Lizard outside for people to pet. Naomi Plata home schools her children and brought them to the library to check out the event, Jared who is seven-years-old, and Raquel who is four said, “The kids love anything to do with animals, they love watching them.” After an afternoon of learning about wallabies, laughing kookaburras, an African Pygmy Hedgehogs, and watching a race between a turtle and tortoise, families left with more information about wild animals.