Discovery Trail: Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

The Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce have a fun little program this summer. They call it Discovery Trail: Where West Meets Wild! They have six stops, and you get a free souvenir at each location. Talk about a motivator for my kiddos.
Over the course of the past two months, we've enjoyed visiting the sites, so over the next few days I will be blogging about our Oklahoma Adventures.Our first stop on the Discovery Trail: The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. Here the kiddos are out in front of the Visitor's Center. After my time in DC, I find I have more of an appreciation for the wide open range. Isn't it beautiful?

The gang's all here, checking out the bison. They have an informational video about the founding of the refuge, which is home to bison, elk, Texas Longhorns, and many, many other interesting creatures.

Princess & Bubby pointing out the bison/elk/longhorn mosaic mural. I thought it was very cool.

Bubby in front of a very cool pond habitat. Look closely and you can see a fish and beaver in the water. Isn't it great how they have all the different animals? I love how they point out the interconnected nature of habitats. The center was well done, and lots of fun. You know how I love a good field trip, and this was definitely one of them. (I'm also very fond of nature, so it was a perfect fit.)
Our next stop was Scott Mountain, which was the kiddos favorite stop. Bubby loved climbing all over the rocks and Princess and The General were chasing a lizard.

Isn't it cute? The General is pretty quick, but the lizard won out in the end. They must have stalked that poor lizard for half an hour. Just when they would grab it, the lizard would scramble over their fingers and out of reach again. (No lizards were harmed in this outing.)

Then it was onto Prairie Dog Town, which turned out to be a rather frustrating event. All over the refuge they have signs asking people to please not feed the wild life. At Prairie Dog Town they were very detailed about the risks of feeding the animals (most of which were harmful to the animals.) So I was a little put out to see nearly all the park visitors feeding the prairie dogs nasty white bread. Maybe they are just too stupid, and they couldn't read the gazillion signs which said: DO NOT FEED THE PRAIRIE DOGS! It was especially fun explaining to Bubby the importance of following the rules, even if EVERYONE else is breaking them.

As you can see, this is a pet peeve of mine. Time and time again Mr. Nomad and I are saddened to see trash and rude people at our nation's National Parks. We wonder, what happened to common sense and good manners? Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest. . .back to the refuge.

We saw a herd of bison. The seed stock from this herd came from the New York City Zoo. At the Visitor Center they had the time sheets from the gentleman who escorted the bison from New York City to Cache, OK. They shipped them in on a train in the early 1900's.

Here are the Texas Longhorns. This is probably one of the few herds with pure longhorn bloodlines. At the refuge they try to preserve different species on the open range. They have had great success with the bison, elk and longhorns. We've been over there at least three times now, and we have yet to spot an elk. . . bummer. I'll just have to be satisfied with the ones we saw at the Grand Canyon.

Mr. Nomad and Bubby checking out all the exploring we have left to do.