- April 19, 2024
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Kara Kimes strokes Squinty the screech owl . Squinty lost an eye in an accident but now he visits schools.
Karen Washington, Kara Kimes and Kathy Kimes
Kara Kimes gets a hug from Captain Blackbeard.
Michelle Hernandez eagerly pets Mocha, whose scent glands were removed when she was a kit.
Mocha was born as a pet skunk, and was never wild.
Captain Blackbeard the monitor sauntered around the carpet. Some students were reluctant to pet his scales.
Lucy Palmatag strokes Indy the snake.
Indy the indigo snake is nonvenemous, and his species is protected with a threatened classification.
Kara Kimes lets Kimora King pet Mocha the skunk.
Kara Kimes turned to a class of McNeal Elementary students before she opened the large, black bin holding a mysterious creature.
This next animal was her favorite, she said.
“But, you can’t scream,” Kimes, a Sarasota Jungle Gardens zookeeper, said. “Say it for me —“
And the first-grade class repeated for her, “we won’t scream.”
The students held in their screams, although a few gasps did escape them, as Kimes lifted a giant, nearly 5-foot black-throated monitor named Captain Blackbeard from his container and set him on the ground. He blinked his orange eyes and flicked his long grey tongue out at students. A few shrunk away with terrified delight as he swayed their way, and Kimes explained how he was smelling the students with his tongue. She reassured them, although he was a predatory animal, humans were not on his menu.
Kimes, daughter of McNeal’s science teacher Kathy Kimes and niece of first-grade teacher Karen Washington, brought both feathered, furry and scaly creatures into the classroom for students to touch and observe Wednesday, May 4.
