6th Grade Field Trip - Oasis Camel Dairy - June 3, 2013

http://www.cameldairy.com/Home_Page.html

We are a family farm.  An unusual family; Gil, Nancy, a small handful of very dedicated animal caretakers and a huge family of camels, birds and other farm animals call the Oasis Camel Dairy home.

Located on thirty-four rolling acres, this unique "farmily" supports the efforts of furthering the education of the public world wide about the amazing nature of camels and their milk. 

BENEFITS OF CAMELS MILK:

1. Camel's milk is the closest milk to human mother's milk.  Our bodies not only tolerate it well, our bodies thrive on it.
2. Camel's milk has triple the amount of vitamin C found in cows milk.
3. Camel's milk has TEN TIMES the amount of antibacterial and antiviral properties found in cow's milk.
4. Camel's milk contains an insulin like protein that survives the digestive tract and may benefit people with certain forms of diabetes.

WHY CAMEL’S MILK?

The most commonly asked question we hear is simply ... why?

Why milk camels?  Why invest so much professional and personal time and resources, completely change your life, move to a large, rugged property where you can toil away at a "pet" project that you don't know is even marketable?

The answer is because it is important.  Because it needs to be done.  Because in other countries across the oceans, adults and children suffering from a wide variety of maladies including colitis, crohn's, autism and diabetes have found relief and reduced their symptoms with raw camel's milk.

We are not scientists.  We are not suffering from nor do have children suffering from any of these diseases.  But we know people who are.  We know people whose children are.  And we are working to find a way to help them acquire camel's milk.

This is a long reaching project with many steps to take.  The first steps have been huge.
 

1) Awareness and education.  We do outreach ... lots and lots of outreach.  Through live presentations, newspaper articles, television appearances and magazine articles, we educate the public about the wonder of these magnificent animals and the benefits of their milk.

2)Viable retail product.  What good is milking a bunch of camels if you can't do anything with the milk yet?  That's what we asked ourselves ten years ago.  Gil came up with the idea of making camel milk soap.  Based on a modified goat's milk recipe with special steps to maintain the delicate properties of the camel's milk, our camel milk soap (made right here on the dairy in own kitchen) now sells around the world. Everything is done right here on the dairy. 

3)Availability.  Until we started the Oasis Camel Dairy, camel's milk was not readily available in the United States.  Although there are thousands of camels living in America, nobody had trained them to offer their milk on a daily basis.  Now, any research project can come to us and be supplied with the raw milk they need for their studies.

We now have four camels trained to share their milk with us.  We have three more going into training this spring after they have their calves. Our goal is to have twenty females with an average of ten milking each year.

4) Making Raw Camel's Milk available to those who need it.  The laws concerning the public sale of raw milk are very stringent. However, individuals who own camels can legally drink their own camel's milk.  So Gil and I get to enjoy fresh, raw camel's milk whenever we like.  People always ask us what it tastes like... ours tastes like very fresh, mildly sweet low fat cows milk.  Like with any milk, taste can change depending on what the animal is eating.   

There are definitely obstacles.  We are forging ahead into territory unfamiliar to American mainstream.   Female camels are expensive to purchase, slow to mature, and don't always mother their calves.  Their reproductive cycle is very long.  After a thirteen-month pregnancy, there is still no guarantee the camel will be milking.  If after calving she does not bond or something happens to the calf, it will be well over another year until you have the opportunity to try her again.  Because when it comes to milking camels, no calf... no milk.

So here we are just a 40 something married couple with a BIG idea and a small bank account.  Our camel milk soap, tours, camel safari rides plus our other interests including the bird show, the wild west turkey stampede and Gil's work as a quartz crystal cutting artist pay the bills while the camels continue to gestate our "pet" project.

It is slow and hard and uncertain... but it is so enriching to be a part of something fresh and new and different and great.

6th Grade Field Trip - CA Wolf Center - June 3, 2013

http://www.californiawolfcenter.org/

Our Organization

The California Wolf Center is a one-of-a-kind education, conservation, and research center located 50 miles east of San Diego, near the town of Julian, California. Founded in 1977 to educate the public about wildlife and ecology, the Center is currently home to several packs of gray wolves, some of which are exhibited for educational purposes. Our wolves serve as ambassadors representing wolves in the wild. We also host highly endangered Mexican gray wolves, now being reintroduced into the southwestern United States. A visit to the Center provides a unique experience involving one of the most charismatic and controversial species in North American history.

Our Mission

Photo Credit: Gary Borland

The California Wolf Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit wildlife education center committed to increasing public awareness and understanding of the importance of all wildlife by focusing on the history, biology, behavior, and ecology of the gray wolf (Canis lupus). This is accomplished by offering engaging educational presentations, participating in conservation programs, and hosting and funding research on both captive and free-ranging wolves.

Our Vision

Wolves once roamed North America in countless numbers. Despite their important ecological role, and posing no real threat to humans, wolves were hunted nearly to extinction in the lower 48 United States. Today in the U.S., the haunting melody of a howling wolf pack is heard in only a handful of states, as wolves have been exterminated from a vast majority of their original range.

By learning factual information about wolves, people come to understand that this highly social and intelligent animal also plays a key role in the functioning of a healthy ecosystem, and we learn to coexist with an animal we once feared. This new understanding deepens our appreciation of and our sense of stewardship towards other species and the habitats they need to survive. Our survival depends on theirs, and their survival depends on our decisions and actions.

Our goal is to provide the best, most natural environment for all wolves living at the California Wolf Center and to provide complete and balanced information about gray wolves and the environment to the public so that people can make informed decisions about the issues that affect us all.

Photo Credit: Bonnie McDonald

Our Wolves

The California Wolf Center is home to several packs of gray wolves, including an impressive pack of Alaskan gray wolves as well as multiple packs of Mexican gray wolves. Some of our wolf packs are featured in our educational programs. Seeing our resident wolves helps people form a bridge of understanding and heightens interest in conserving wolves in the wild.

Our ambassador pack of Alaskan gray wolves is an intact pack that retains its wild nature. This allows thousands of visitors each year to observe the natural social interactions that occur in wild wolf packs. It also gives students and researchers opportunities to learn valuable information about wolf behavior.

Mexican wolves once roamed the southwestern United States in countless numbers, but government-sponsored eradication programs almost wiped out this distinct subspecies of North American gray wolf. In the mid-1970's, only seven unrelated Mexican wolves were available to start a captive breeding program. Today, as a result of that successful breeding program, there are approximately 42 free-ranging Mexican wolves living in the wild. However, they remain one of the rarest land mammals in the world.

The California Wolf Center participates in the Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan, a bi-national effort to help Mexican wolves recover in the wild. We are the third largest breeding and host facility for Mexican gray wolves in the United States.

Most of the Center’s Mexican gray wolf packs reside in spacious, off-exhibit enclosures that help prepare them for potential release into the wild. Retaining their wild nature by keeping them off-exhibit will help them to survive if they are selected for release into the Mexican Wolf Recovery Area in New Mexico and Arizona. The Mexican wolves that are not candidates for release or breeding are on limited display during some of our educational programs. This gives visitors the extraordinary opportunity to view the distinctive physical features of this magnificent and unique subspecies of gray wolf.