The Draper Museum Raptor Experience is an exciting live raptor education program at the Draper Natural History Museum in Cody, Wyoming. The Draper is one of five museums at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, which embraces the Spirit of the American West. What better way to celebrate the wildness of this wonderful area than by sharing some of its most spectacular wild animals with our guests. Visitors to the Center have the unique opportunity to get an up close and personal view of some of Wyoming’s most recognized predators – the birds of prey!
Once we had the painting done I called the Game Warden to schedule our mews inspection for the Draper Museum Raptor Experience. Wyoming requires that your facility be inspected and approved before you can even apply to have birds for an education program. They take their job of ensuring the safety and humane treatment of […]
Things were getting pretty exciting around here. The mews for our Draper Museum Raptor Experience actually looked like a building, the electrical and plumbing were starting to go in, and I had four of my five birds lined up and secured for the program. I talked to our local Game Warden to find out how “done” the […]
The bird I have wanted the most for this program is one that few people appreciate—the Turkey Vulture. I never even gave vultures a second glance myself…until I met one. Vultures have big personality and, until you see one up close, you don’t appreciate how beautiful they truly are. I fell in love with vultures […]
Holy cow! It actually looks like an official building—the siding is on! The original plan for the mews for our Draper Museum Raptor Experience didn’t include siding due to budget restrictions. Fortunately, Susan Ahalt, aka “the bird lady,” generously donated the money for the siding on our building. Susan is an amazing lady who not only […]
Periodically, the work on the mews for our Draper Museum Raptor Experience would come to a stand still. While waiting for the electrical and plumbing to be installed, we started to focus on getting the enclosures for the birds exactly the way we wanted. The windows were in—every bird has at least two windows, one […]
As the summer progressed, I began to stress more about the fact that my interns from the University of Wyoming weren’t actually getting the internship they were supposed to have. They are here to participate in a raptor education program, but, as you know, we have no birds in our possession at this point for […]