Finding Close Encounters With Wildlife

All Liberty and Teton did was stare, and the room full of children was suddenly quiet.

Liberty is a bald eagle, and Teton, a golden eagle. Injured, both can no longer live in the wild.

“Liberty is kind of nervous because of meeting you,” Daisy Margetts said to the kids. They giggled between bites of macaroni and cheese, never taking their eyes off the majestic creatures perched in a giant three-sided wooden crate.

It was lunchtime at the Telluride Ski and Golf Resort in southwestern Colorado, and the children enrolled in ski school--the resort has a new multimillion-dollar children’s center--were treated to a visit from Margetts and her animals, as they are every Friday.

Another week, Margetts might show the children how a river otter “skis” down the mountain on his belly or introduce them to an orphaned baby mountain lion. She’s brought hawks and owls and spent hours painting animal tracks--raccoon, elk, rabbit and coyote--on the lunchroom walls to help kids recognize tracks in the snow.

“A lot of kids have never seen these animals before,” said Margetts, who cares for dozens of injured and abandoned animals at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Ark just outside Telluride. “They can’t help but be awed.”

Many environmentalists hope that such experiences will help children grow up caring more about the natural world. Programs toward that end have gotten underway and are growing across ski country, from Utah to Vermont, as well as in warm-weather vacation havens.

Children visiting the 54,000-acre Molokai Ranch in Hawaii, for example, go on bug hunts and sleep in solar-powered platform tents.

On Temptress Cruises in Costa Rica, they cuddle baby monkeys and hike through the rain forest.

At Kiawah Island, S.C., kids get up close to snakes, turtles and baby alligators under the watchful eye of a resident naturalist.

They can help teach a trick to the dolphins at Hawk’s Cay Resort and Marina in the Florida Keys or learn about geology as they pan for gold at Coyote Camp at the Pointe Hilton Resorts in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Kids at Aspen’s Snowmass Mountain, meanwhile, might crawl through a snow tunnel, seeing how animals live underground. Those going to ski school at Vermont’s Okemo Mountain Resort can hunt at designated “snow zones” for snowshoe hare tracks and examine where a pileated woodpecker has drilled holes in a tree. At Snowbird Resort in Utah, kids might ski with a U.S. Forest Service naturalist.

“You get to see things on the mountain you never knew were there,” said Chris Lane, who oversees environmental programs for the Aspen Skiing Co.

He adds that there’s been a dramatic increase in interest in the environmental programs--for adults (snowshoe tours, for example) as well as children.

“The customers want this,” he said. “There’s more to skiing than sliding down the hill.”

Ironically, Vail Resorts, rocked this year by environmentalists’ protests against further expansion, had been among the first to offer on-mountain children’s nature programs, working with the U.S. Forest Service. This is the place for kids to compare different animals’ pelts and learn how ski trails are carved so as not to interfere with elk migration patterns.

“This is a great way to educate people who have an impact on environmental policy,” said Vail’s John Alderson, who developed SKE-COLOGY, the nature program now implemented at nine ski areas around the country. “If the kids care, parents will care.”

Parents are delighted--and often surprised--by the environmental spin to these children’s activities.

“Now my kids understand what people are talking about when they hear about saving the rain forest,” said Saskia Amaro, a Northern Californian whose family loved their Temptress cruise so much that “we’re afraid to go back” for fear they can’t repeat the dream time they had.

“We were amazed how much Jesse learned about the desert,” said Tammy Schneider, noting that the cactus the 4-year-old had planted at Coyote Camp was prominently displayed on the windowsill at home in Pittsburgh. “That part of the program was a real bonus.”

And the kids are enchanted too. Those at Telluride the day Liberty and Teton visited certainly were. “I’ve never gotten this close to an eagle,” said 11-year-old Anna Dornett, who is from Cincinnati. “It makes lunch a lot more fun.”

“Sooo cool,” agreed 9-year-old Alex Ashley, who lives in Los Angeles.

The children listened as intently as they would to their favorite TV show as Margetts explained how eagles mate for life, building huge nests. When lunch was over, they didn’t want to leave.

“You’d be amazed at what they remember when they come back next year,” Margetts said.

Too bad I couldn’t bottle some of my kids’ enthusiasm and save it for homework sessions.

Telluride Ski and Golf Co., telephone (800) 801-4832, Internet https:// www.telski.com.

Molokai Ranch, tel. (877) PANIOLO, Internet https://www.molokai-ranch.com. (One child 4-12 per paying adult is free if travel is completed by Dec. 18, 1999.)

Temptress Cruises, tel. (800) 336- 8423, Internet https://www.temptresscruises.com. (Kids under 12 are half price through August.)

Kiawah Island Resorts, S.C., tel. (800) 654-2924, Internet www.kiawah-island.com.

Hawk’s Cay Resort and Marina, Fla., tel. (800) 432-2242, Internet https://www.hawkscay.com.

Coyote Camp, Pointe Hilton Resorts, Scottsdale, Ariz., tel. (602) 997-2626, Ext. 4567.

Aspen Skiing Co., tel. (888) ASPEN-SNO, Internet https://www.skiaspen.com.

Okemo, tel. (800) 786-5366, Internet https://www.okemo.com.

Snowbird, tel. (800) 640-2002, Internet https://www.snowbird .com. (Two kids 12 and under ski free with a skiing parent.)

Vail Resorts, tel. (800) 427-8216, Internet https://www.vailresorts .com.

Taking the Kids appears the first and third week of every month.