On Friday, January 23, the Sustainability Council invited Eyes of the Wild, an exotic animal rescue that aims to bring humans and the natural world together through educational events. At the event, founder and owner Travis Gale sought to inspire students to care about wildlife through hands-on, interactive learning with a hedgehog, a wallaby, and a chinchilla. He showed students how hedgehogs expanded their quills as a defense mechanism in the face of predators, shared how he raised a family of wallabies in an artificially constructed pouch, and demonstrated how chinchillas use their whiskers to sense their environments. At the end of each 30-minute session, students were invited to touch the quills of the hedgehog and pet the back of the chinchilla.
By bringing endangered animals to campus, Student Council Sustainability Representative Louise Carroll ’26 sought to make issues such as climate change and pollution more relevant to students. “Being able to touch a chinchilla or see a porcupine eat a banana makes sustainability and an appreciation for the wildlife more personal,” she elaborated. Carroll especially valued how students engaged with the event. “I saw audience members make the connection in real time, recognizing just how detrimental and horrifying purchasing unsustainably sourced coats is on animals and biodiversity as a whole,” she remarked.
Furthermore, Eyes of the Wild inspired students to take proactive steps in protecting wildlife. The experience of seeing a wallaby for the first time or watching a hedgehog eat corn fostered a strong bond between humans and animals. In addition to teaching students the detrimental effects of global warming and habitat destruction on animals, Gale also described nature as resilient in that endangered species have the “remarkable ability to bounce back” when they are given enough time and resources. Whether by describing how wallabies can travel over 10 feet in a single jump or how hedgehog quills are black and white so that all animals recognize them as threats to their safety, Gale emphasized an appreciation for essential qualities in animals that humans cannot recreate. Because humans can never predict exactly how the dynamics between animals and plants in an ecosystem will change after even a single species goes extinct, Gale advocated for the need to protect all wildlife. Especially as an animal rescuer, he revealed how little humans truly understand about taking care of other species.
On preserving nature, Carroll reflected, “Many ecosystems have been destroyed due to uneducated human activities—assuming the interconnectedness of species is simple rather than complicated. Sometimes the best thing we can do is admire nature’s beauty from afar.”
For students, the event provided the unique opportunity to see rescued animals from all across the world in person. “I thought it was super interesting to learn about animals that I never would have come into contact with otherwise, such as a chinchilla,” Skylar Williams ’27 reflected.
All in all, the event inspired students to appreciate nature and prioritize ethical, sustainable practices in their lives. “This event functioned both as a wake-up call to the reality of animal cruelty and endangerment, but also a celebration of biodiversity and the importance of respecting nature,” Carroll concluded.
