For 25 years, the Nature of Wildworks refuge has been located in Topanga, Calif., serving as a home for dozens of wild and sometimes rare animals. Soon, it will relocate to Cornville.
Mollie Hogan, a former animal keeper at the Los Angeles Zoo, started the refuge after the wildlife show that she was working on there was canceled, and she wanted to continue taking care of the eight animals, including two mountain lions.
In the years since, Nature of Wildworks has expanded to over 50 animals, serving as a rescue and rehabilitation center as well as providing educational and outreach programs to residents of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. However, in recent years, Hogan said that the problems of the refuge’s southern California location have been piling up.
“We’re on rented property, and there’s fires here every two seconds now,” Hogan said. “The fire season is all year long now, and we’ve had to evacuate three times — if you can imagine evacuating mountain lions. We went to someone’s garage in a town, so I’m tired of doing that.”
Hogan has family in Sedona, so she decided that the Verde Valley would be an ideal new location for the wildlife refuge. The refuge purchased seven acres in Cornville between South Tissaw Road and State Route 89A from one of the horse ranches in the area. This is an expansion from the two acres that the refuge currently occupies in California. Hogan intends to move to the area in late spring or early summer.
The refuge currently houses about 50 animals, and while most of them are small and easy to move, it includes two mountain lions, four foxes, five horses, four dogs and housecats, as well as a collection of more than ten birds of prey. Hogan hopes to start providing falconry classes in the area. She sees the refuge as a complement to Out of Africa, already in the area, not as competition.
“We’re really looking forward to sharing our wildlife with the community,” Hogan said. “We appreciate how interested people have been, how cooperative and friendly. I just really appreciate that. It’s really quite an endeavor, as you can imagine, to relocate all these guys, so we’re just looking forward to being able to teach the public about Arizona wildlife and others, sharing creative ways of doing it with everybody.”
Hogan has started the process of filing for a use permit with the county, and ensuring that new constructions on the property follow the applicable county rules. Hogan said that with the refuge relatively small and featuring only limited public events, it would probably not cause significant impact in traffic or noise. Though the property has some neighbors, it is not in a heavily residential area.
A public meeting is expected most likely in February, and Hogan encouraged local residents to attend. She also encouraged anyone from the area to email the refuge at info@natureofwildworks.org if they had concerns.
