North Carolina's Wild Inhabitants

            North Carolina is once of the “Top 10 Animal Attraction States” in the country because of the countless wild, exotic, and critically endangered animals that call this state home. Author Jennifer Bean Bower has recently penned a book about the extraordinary state called “Animal Adventures in North Carolina.” North Carolina Zoo coupons are one way to see a plethora of wild animals while in the state, but there are also plenty of animals to see outside the zoo.

            Bower’s book features more than 70 locations throughout the state where visitors can interact with ostriches, wildebeests, giraffes, chimps, wolves, and less familiar animals like Binuturongs (the rather scary-looking creature pictured below). 

            A pair of rare animals even showed up at the signing part for the book on March 29. The duo of Geoffrey’s cats (one is pictured below), named Grace and Victor, were accompanied by keeper Mindy Stinner of the Conservator’s Center in Mebane Carolina, which protects animals at risk of extinction. 

            Bower’s book illustrates the reasons that North Carolina is such a great animal habitat – its diverse landscapes include mountains, coasts, and forests. Among the animals that call these places home are the rare red wolves of Alligator River National Wildlife refuge. The 100 wolves who live here are the last wild pack of their kind on earth. In Asheboro is the North Carolina Zoo, which is the nation’s first state-supported zoo and the is the largest walk-through natural-habitat zoo in the country. 

            Another of the state’s unique animal-interaction spots is Ms. Stinner’s Conservator’s Center, which she founded in 1999 with partner Doug Evans to provide a home for unwanted big cats. Many of her animals have behavioral issues or were victims of animal cruelty – the Center is a “home of last resort,” as Stinner says,  which “specializes in happy endings.”

            You can learn more about the Conservator’s Center, the North Carolina Zoo, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other unique North Carolina sites in Bower’s book. You can see hundreds of species in one place with these North Carolina Zoo coupons, and even then you’ll barely be scratching the surface of what North Carolina has to offer.