Reptiles at Risk

Mergel Ranch

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on August 16, 2006 at 9:45 PM

The Mergel Ranch (http://www.woodmountain.ca/market/ ) is a private 2500 hectare ranch just a little east of Grasslands. Besides the regular ranching operations, Judy Mergel operates a small campground at the ranch, as well as annual farmer's market weekends with live music and various other festivities. We were happy to stop in and present a program at the farmer's market, and had quite a turnout- about 250 people! We did some pictures of kids with snakes here, and received quite a few donations as well, totalling just over $210! That is really great, as our funding is very limited and any assistance with our travel costs is really wonderful!

Thanks, Judy, for hosting the program! A photo of us with Judy is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/217317626/
I wish we could have stayed longer to see more of the ranch, but we had to get back over to Val Marie for a wine and cheese reception with the Prairie Learning Centre teacher conference that was just getting underway. It was interesting to chat with some of the teachers, and we ended up presenting a quick lunch-time session for some of them the next day on snakes of Saskatchewan! They will be able to spread our message back to their classrooms, and if all goes well (translation- we get enough funding) we will perhaps see some of them in 2008 when we do school programs on our way back from the west coast!