Wild Center reopening today with safe plans to entertain its guests

By Rich Rosentreter

The Wild Center will reopen to its regular schedule starting today as the nature museum has initiated a creative plan to entertain guests and do it safely amid concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wild Center Deputy Director Hillarie Logan-Dechene told the Free Press on Monday that she and the rest of the center’s staff are extremely happy to once again be open and plenty of planning has gone into the occasion.

“We are really thrilled, we have so carefully planned over the past several months and we are just beside ourselves excited to be welcoming people back,” she said. “We have been really careful about making sure we can do this properly, so the word is just getting out there. We are really cautiously optimistic that we can reopen and start doing our mission again and start bringing some vibrancy back.”

Reopening details

According to Ms. Logan-Dechene, although the center will hold normal hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the big change is that the center is only going to be open outdoors and no indoor attractions will be open to the public.

Admission will be allowed only by timed ticket reservations, a rule that applies even to Wild Center members.

“That’s so that we can manage our capacity and keep the flow even and keep everybody’s experience really wonderful and ensure that we have the right physical spacing between people and really manage it so everybody can have the respite that they’ve been looking for and have that real good Wild Center experience,” the deputy director said.

Hillarie said that to get tickets to the Wild Center, they must be purchased in advance, which can be done in three ways – online, by email or over the phone. Once tickets have been purchased, guest names will be placed on a reservation list at the museum entrance and will also include visitor’s contact information, which is required by the state for contact tracing purposes.

“It’s to make sure we know who’s on site. We’re going to ask you a couple of questions just to make sure that everybody is well and understands that wearing masks are required,” she said. “We’re going to explain to everybody what the expectations are so there are no surprises. Then they can go and have a great time visiting our site.”

Although making reservations are the only way to get tickets, the museum is still prepared for those who did not follow the proper procedure.

“We’re going to be pretty strict about it, it’s going to be a cashless site,” Ms. Logan-Dechene said, adding that the center will still do it’s best to conduct good customer service. She said there will be “pullover” spaces similar to McDonald’s where customers pull to the side when their order is not ready.

“We will have a staff member with a phone number guests can call to make an online reservation on the spot. We’re not going to send people away if there’s still capacity, unless it’s a fully sold out day. We’re going to try to work with people to the extent that it is possible,” she said. “The only way we would not be able to work with people is if we were completely sold out that day.”

Although the indoor attractions are closed, the Wild Center has launched an online store and guests will be able to shop on that medium while at the museum and order curbside delivery for the outdoor snack bar.

“If you order online our staff will bring your bag out to you, or staff can have your order ready for pickup before you leave,” she said. “We do have a small snack bar. We don’t have full food service, so we’re encouraging people to dine at other establishments in Tupper Lake.”

Those visiting from out-of-town are encouraged to check with the chamber of commerce to locate other places to eat prior to visiting the Wild Center, she said, adding that guests should look at other options for a meal such as planning a picnic. The indoor restrooms will be available for guests.

She also recommended potential guests visit the Wild Center website to get an idea of what to expect during their visit.

“And definitely reserve those tickets. Don’t show up without a pre-reserved ticket,” she said.

Safety measures

Ms. Logan-Dechene said that the center is taking several steps to ensure the well-being of its guests due to COVID-19 – including the requirement of having them wear masks to help prevent the spread of the virus.

“It’s a walk and face masks are required to visit the Wild Center. You will be signing off on that when you purchase your tickets that you understand that, so we sort of have an understanding with our visitors that they are agreeing to that when they are purchasing their tickets,” she said. “We have a visitor Code of Conduct that everyone is agreeing to when they come on our site. We’ll make that very clear when they come to the ticket booth and remind people that they have agreed to that.”

She added that throughout the Wild Center there are also “wonderful otter posters” that depict the animal with a face mask on.

“As a science museum, we follow the science – face masks make us all safer. We urge people to come with their face masks, or if they don’t we do have some backup face masks that we will give to people who didn’t bring theirs,” she said, adding that if visitors are on the Wild Walk and not wearing a face mask, there will be staff members who will give a “gentle reminder” to wear one and they as guests “have agreed to this.”

“Hopefully we won’t have any trouble. It is the law in New York State,” she pointed out. “If we have to get more serious, we’ve taught our staff about conflict resolution, so we’re preparing our staff just like any business would for any type of conflict that may happen.”

As an additional measure, there will also be sanitizing and hand-washing stations throughout the museum grounds.

“Thanks to Mayor Paul Maroun, he was able to secure us New York sanitizer, and we have stations – eight or nine – around the site, and we also were able to find some cool portable hand-washing stations. You pump it with your foot - it’s really cool actually – you pump it and stick your hand in, you don’t have to touch anything,” Ms. Logan-Dechene said. “Plus we have extra custodial staff hired to wipe down surfaces. We’re very into the cleaning and disinfecting protocols, we’re actually training all of our staff in that. Again, we’re a science museum and we’re following and looking at the best practices and we want to be a model in those best practices.”

“Nothing is no-risk, but we’re looking at this as we’re trying to lower the risk as low as possible,” she said, adding that the reason the center doesn’t have its indoor attractions open is a “bit more complicated,” but with the outdoor attractions, “we are looking at what capacity we can handle, we’re looking at how we can clean and disinfect, we’re looking at the experiences, we’re looking at crowd control. All those things, we’re keeping the risk as low as we can while still allowing people to get out and enjoy nature and what we have to offer in terms of our mission and bringing people and nature together.”

The deputy director stressed that the Wild Center has taken all the precautions to make a visit to the facility as safe as possible for its guests.

“We would not be doing this if we did not think we could do it as safely as we can. Our number one priority is keeping visitors, the community and staff safe. Then we think about if we could deliver a good experience,” she said.

What to expect

According to the deputy director, the Wild Center has enough attractions available to make for an enjoyable experience for guests.

“We’ve got some surprises in terms of animal encounters. We figured out a way in which people can still see our otters. Hopefully we thought of things to make it a positive experience for our visitors,” she said. “It’s going to be very different. They are not going to have the same inside experience, but we have managed to figure out ways of having a new type of experience.”

She said the Wild Walk will be open but the interactive attractions will be different.

“We’re not going to have a lot of touchy things. Now it’s more of an experience where you’re seeing things and going to have a more of an individualized experience, she said. “We’re going to have small groups of people coming to do things with their own family unit or the five people they came with. We can’t gather people in large groups, we don’t want to do that.”

“What we’re doing now is we’re going to have three different stations along the Wild Center outside and each family will have five minutes with our animal care staff,” she said, adding that guests will be required to maintain social distancing while they have “one-on-one time” with an animal.

Hillarie said the animal staff member will explain a little about the animals and the guests will be able to ask questions. There will be a new area where Cora the raven, Stickley the porcupine and Olivia the pigeon will be and guests can learn about them.

“Where it used to be a group of people at a time, now you’re going to have a chance to go one-on-one with a Wild Center staff for your experience,” she said, recognizing there is one special attraction that is still available. “The super cool thing is that we know that no visit to the Wild Center will be complete without some sort of otter encounter.”

At first, the museum’s staff struggled to find an effective way to provide access to the otter exhibit since it is inside, but Ms. Logan-Dechene said they found a way to utilize the outside area.

“We found a way to create a viewing area where you can come and see the otter play area,” she said. “You can actually get so close to them – you’re safe. You can really see them up close and personal, so a family will have a very private experience visiting with the otters outside in the environment that they are used to just hanging out in, it’s like in their own backyard – and that’s a cool thing.”

One thing guests need to be mindful of are the social distance requirements and having respect for other guests. Ms. Logan-Dechene compared the “keep it moving” concept to being out playing a round of golf on a course with others.

“When you see people coming up behind you, make sure you keep it moving, give them a chance to see things too,” she said. “We’re just going to ask that people be considerate of the next group. We always have great visitors and I think they’ll understand.”

It’s important

The reopening of the Wild Center is good news as it signals somewhat of a sense of normalcy to a challenging time, but Hillarie said the local attraction is lucky to be where it is.

“We’re so fortunate that we have over one-hundred acres that we can space people out on and that we have open air. If we were a different kind of place this might not be possible. We’re lucky we have trails, we have the musical forest where people can space themselves out and walk around,” she said. “We’re fortunate that we have our canoe program where people can sign up and a family can be in a canoe. They can go out with our naturalist on the Raquette River and they can sign up for that and have an experience on the water very safely – and that can be such an amazing thing for a family to have that opportunity to do. Maybe they’ve never done that before and they’re going to learn about all the plants and animals on the river. So for us it’s super important for us to fulfill our mission.”

Entertainment and education are two key factors in the Wild Center’s reopening, but it also has another major role.

“We also believe we’re an economic driver for the community and that’s part of the reason that we were created. There’s a lot of jobs at the Wild Center, and if we’re not open, we don’t have jobs. We’re an employer and if we’re not employing people that’s not too helpful to the community,” Ms. Logan-Dechene said, adding that she and the Wild Center team believe they are ready and set to reopen to visitors, although it’s not without a certain level of stress.

“It’s always nerve-wracking when you try something new. I really feel confident on how we’ve trained our staff. I started working on this reopening plan from the get-go, studied how other countries did it before we did and then studied how other regions of the country did it and looked at all the changing sciences and went through all the different iterations of the plan. We’ve got a forty-seven page plan on how to do this and we’re writing new protocols every day,” she said. “We’re being extremely careful and we’re going to learn things along the way but I feel confident that we’re opening the best possible way we can with this outdoor experience. I know our staff has been super creative with the program.”

“I think people will love to be back on site and I just hope that the people enjoy it. I think they will – and I just hope we can get a vaccine soon for this pandemic. That’s all I hope for!”