Once a year, a selection of wineries here in Paso Robles, host benefit for the animals of ZOO TO YOU.
I work at Austin Hope Family Wines and we were excited to participate again this year. Since I was actually working on this day, I only had time to briefly visit with the animals, but I loved the short time I spent!
We had Mickayla the Black Vulture and Steve the Boa. We have turkey vultures around here, but I had never seen a black vulture. We have rattlers around here, but I’d never touched a boa before…
For me, hanging out with Mickayla was so much fun. She was totally chill. When she needed a break, she went into her kennel – and the boa came out. Mickayla seemed easy… the boa, not so much.
Although the handler wasn’t too concerned about the boa, it did wrap around her the entire time she was exhibiting him. The trainer spent the entire time unwinding the snake as she educated us on both of the animals.
I think our customers loved this adventure! How it worked was you purchased a ticket to visit 5 of the 18 wineries hosting animals. You picked where you wanted to go… and then you got to taste wines and visit with rare and exotic animals. The proceeds benefitted Zoo to You.
A Win-Win.
Mickayla, the black vulture
She was very well behaved.
Although the handler was not too concerned, I was… seeing this boa constantly wrap around her was disarming.
Yeah, no thanks… but his skin was really soft yet taught and strong. I’d never felt anything like it.
Here is the list of the animals at the participating wineries.
