Buffalo Zoomobile delights at Hoag Library

Photos courtesy of Hoag Library

ALBION – Hoag Library hosted a program on Wednesday with the Buffalo Zoomobile. This year the Buffalo Zoo sent Outreach Program Specialist Robin Sanecki and volunteer docent Betsy Walls.

In the top photo, Walls explains to the children how some birds can’t fly because of their feathers. The Zoomobile showed several feathers, animal skeletons, an anaconda skin, an alligator skull and pelts.

These Brazilian cockroaches were kept in their container while Sanecki explained that they help keep places clean by eating rotten food and other waste materials, which would otherwise risk building up and polluting an environment.

Sanecki brought five animals with her to represent a broad spectrum of the animal kingdom, including mammals, birds, arthropods, and more. A rabbit, a tortoise, cockroaches, a toad and a parrot were all presented to the audience. At the end of the program, everyone was given the opportunity to touch the rabbit and the tortoise.

A young boy at the program gets up close with a rabbit.

The program drew a crowd of over 100 people during the three sessions. The morning sessions were open to very young kids and their parents to hear an animal story, then get a close look at the animals.

The afternoon session was open to anyone in the public and featured more animal education, such as species classification and how animals survive in their habitats.

Sanecki holds Abraham the toad. The children laughed when he came out and performed his two defense mechanisms: urinating and puffing up. Sanecki explains that is how frogs and toads try to get you to leave them where they live.