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The forest food we see has to do with foraging skills. The silence has to do with us. “We want every animal that’s released to keep that natural, healthy fear of people,” Andrea explains. “If you change their behavior, they’ll look to humans for food and that’s how people get attacked.” Here, behind the scenes, we see one side of Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park’s identity. The other, you might say, is its day job as one of the Florida State Park system’s most popular attractions, accommodating more than 300,000 visitors annually. “We’re a home for native Florida Wildlife,” explains Susan Strawbridge, one of the park’s original employees. “We’re sort of an assisted living facility for animals that can’t survive in the wild and a rehab unit for those that can.” When the State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection took over this exotic animal Park and former roadside attraction in 1989, it came with a mission: protect Homosassa Springs—source of the Homosassa River and one of the most important springs in Florida— and join multiple other agencies in the task of protecting and saving native Florida wildlife. “Our main objective for any rescued animal that comes to this park
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t’s 7 am. The light is still dim in the sky when we arrive at the animal care building tucked away in the hammock forest that surrounds Homosassa Springs. We slip through an industrial-sized kitchen where menus for hundreds of different animals are written above. Andrea Junkunc, a wildlife care specialist, takes us to a door with a blacked out window and a sign that reads, “QUIET.” “We don’t talk here, we don’t look at them, minimal human contact,” she tells us. The door leads outside to a covered row of large enclosures curiously draped in fresh palm fronds and other native vegetation. It’s a makeshift forest. A small cub looks back through a gate. We don’t return the gaze. We’re here a little over a minute, just long enough to notice forest food—magnolia pods, acorns and beauty berry—tucked away inside. Then, slowly, silently, we slip back into the building. These are the latest abandoned cubs brought here by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from the hinterlands of Florida. The Park and FWC, as it’s called, have a 100 percent success rate releasing cubs like these back to the wild, but it’s a delicate task.