New Life on the Virginia Range!

While all of the volunteers are busy doing the things they do, the animals on the Virginia Range are busy living their lives, too. Check out the newest additions to the range!

Welcome to the world to these Big Horn Sheep lambs!

Photos by Lauri Duke.

Did You Know? Fun Facts About Wild Horses

Horses and facial hair

Wild Horses are built to survive from the bottoms of their hooves to the tips of their ears. Those fuzzy furry stocky mustangs may not win a ribbon in the show ring, but they function perfectly in their home habitat as they roam free and wild. The fuzzy ear hair that is sometimes snipped out of the domesticated show horse actually serves the purpose of protecting the inside skin of the inner ear from bugs, sunburn, and objects that blow around on windy days. Can you imagine a wild horse with a twig with stickers stuck in their ear? How would that become safely dislodged? Fortunately they don't have to deal with that as they have their fuzzy ear hair intact. Also normally clipped on show horses are the whiskers on the chin, nose, and "eyebrows". This practice has been outlawed in Germany, and others have followed, recognizing the incredibly important function of these whiskers. The whiskers function as a "curb detector". I am aging myself but cars made in the 1900's had noisy wires that you'd hear scraping if you got too close to the curb. Well, in the same manner, the horse's whiskers are special tactile hairs called vibrissae. These specialized tactile hairs are an important part of the sensory awareness system. They help the horse to detect their surroundings, keeping them safe from something outside their vision. The eyebrow whiskers aid in depth perception and these special hairs even have their own blood and nerve supply! By Deborah Walker. Photos by Christine Dallas.