4/5/2021 - By Mike Hess

Nemacolin is by no means your typical resort. From indoor axe throwing, to off-road Jeeps, and dog sledding, Nemacolin possesses a plethora of unique experiences for all its guests/members. One collection of activities which are truly unique, are the various wildlife experiences. I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Anderson, superintendent at Nemacolin, about the wildlife experiences they offer.

Being located in Farmington, Pennsylvania, you wouldn’t expect them to have the animals that they do. Especially not year-round in PA’s climate. “It’s funny cause they’ve all been here a while and it’s weird seeing lions and tigers laying in snow. So, you’ll drive past them in snow and they’re just all out there meandering around.” Chris chuckled. He went on to say, “I know of some big animals that we have, I’m not sure of all the small ones, because there are a lot. But we have three different bears, we have a white buffalo and a regular buffalo.” I personally have never seen a white buffalo and was very curious to hear more about them specifically. Chris said, “The white buffalo is like a sacred symbol for the Native Americans. So, every once in a while, we’ll have someone come up and pray for it and over it. Which is honestly pretty cool to see.”

Nemacolin also has two sets of lions, one of which has a lion cub who was born just last year. There’s a mountain lion, two orange tigers, two wolves, around 90 Icelandic sheep, as well as a flock of regular sheep, and two big horned bison. All of these larger animals on top of their wide variety of smaller animals, make the wildlife at Nemacolin impressive to say the least, and certainly a drawing point to the resort.

But what can you do with these animals? What experiences are available? Well if you are a member, or even a visiting guest of the resort, then there are plenty of ways to experience them. “You can take a self-guided tour if you’d like, but we have guided tours that a member of the wildlife staff will walk you through and tell you the story of each animal. We have some feeding shows where guests can feed the animals", which sadly had to end in May of 2020 due to Covid-19, "and we do have some hands-on creatures, smaller animals that they bring and do some live shows within the lobby on weekends and stuff like that. We offer those shows to anyone who’s interested as well.” On top of these, there is also a drive/bike through safari tour of the animal’s habitats, where you can see all of the larger animals roaming in their enclosures, and equestrian tours of the grounds.

The grounds were fully open to the public, people could walk or drive right back to the wildlife center and check out the animals free of charge. Anyone who is an overnight guest or member of the resort can enter the space free of charge. But on the flipside, the resort as a whole is now gated, only allowing access to members and overnight guests.

Though the space for these animals is large, the cost to maintain it is not as high as it might be for a park/golf course. Luckily, almost all of the animals living in the space are herbivores and eat the grass of the fields eliminating the expense of mowing. Fertilizer is also naturally produced in these spaces from the manure of all the animals making upkeep fairly simple. They just let the animals do their thing.

The people who work here are very passionate about their work. Numerous times throughout our talk, Chris said how much he loves working at Nemacolin and getting to experience so many interesting things in one spot. Nemacolin wildlife business manager, Jennifer McDaniel, said this about her work, “A wonderful aspect of my job is educating our guests about the animals we have on property.  To see the love and passion a child has for an animal, knowing this will foster care and compassion for animals and people alike, humbles me daily.”

The wildlife experiences at Nemacolin are still very much up and running, without virtually any bumps in the road to their programs. They are able to offer unique, fun, and adventurous experiences to people of all ages year-round, which you might not see anywhere else close by. For more information on Nemacolin and their wildlife programs, visit their website here.