A woman with a heart for animals started a wildlife education center with a few animal companions from college, a boa constrictor, a desert tortoise, an Amazon parrot and a chinchilla. Jackie Navarro visited schools around North County and introduced her animals by name. She talked about where they came from in the wild and what their jobs are in the wild. Kids who were terrified of snakes stepped a little closer. Word got around and more people invited Navarro to come and share her animals. She started getting calls from wildlife rehab centers and other educational facilities, asking if she could provide a home for some of their animals that could not be released in the wild. The effort grew into Wild Wonders, an internationally known wildlife education, rescue and conservation center. The 10-acre wild animal refuge at 5712 Vía Montellano in Bonsall, is home to more than 100 animals representing 70 species from around the world, ranging from wallabies, bearcats and armadillos to porcupines, binturongs, lynx, marsupials and kinkajou along with an iguana and alligators. The center, which is accredited by the Zoological Association of America, marks its 35th anniversary this year. But the mission is the same, “Rescue, educate conserve.” “Our goal is to nurture and inspire kids and adults to become better stewards of the animals’ environment as well as our own,” said Navarro, founder and director of Wild Wonders. Wild Wonders typically runs more than 1,000 onsite and offsite educational programs each year, ranging from behind-the-scenes tours of the private wildlife refuge to zoo camps and sunset safaris. Offsite there are visits to schools, libraries, and community events featuring its animal ambassadors, also known as, creature teachers. The programs pay for running Wild Wonders, which costs roughly $24,000 per month. Navarro works with eight employees, a few interns and several dozen volunteers to provide a home for the animals. “The animals are what keeps me going. The best part and hardest part are the same–the animals,” Navarro said. “Creating a bond and giving those animals an enriching life is rewarding but the hardest part is the heartbreak of losing an animal,” Navarro said. Navarro remembered Victor, a Cheetah known as the “Polka Dot Prince,” from South Africa, who died in 2020 at the old age of 14. “He was the heart and soul of Wild Wonders. He inspired people to care about the plight of cheetahs in the wild and raised money for cheetah conservation programs in Africa,” Navarro said.  Wild Wonders partners with conservation groups across several continents, such as South Africa-based Cheetah Outreach Trust, Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Bornea, Arctictus Binturong Conservation in Southeast Asia and Costa Rica-based Kids Saving the Rainforest. Wild Wonders runs conservation-focused safaris to Africa, Borneo and Costa Rica through its travel company, Wild Ecotours. “Over our many years visiting Wild Wonders we have been able to see the wonderful work that they do for our local community, engaging people with wildlife and educating people about all of the animals that call Wild Wonders home, as well as the work they do globally, partnering with conservation programs abroad working to protect species in the wild,” said Michelle Dauble, a Temecula resident, whose son participated in Wild Wonders programs and now works as a zookeeper in Eureka. Navarro has shared her animals on TV with millions of people through her appearances on programs such as National Geographic, Animal Planet, Oprah and The Tonight Show, among others. Some of the stories of the animal ambassadors are on the Wild Wonder’s website. Most of the animals have come from owner relinquishment and confiscations and  are non-releasable, which means they cannot be brought to their native habitats because they would not survive. There is the rescue story of Caliopea, a baby North American porcupine whose mom did not produce any milk and had to be hand raised and Lucius, an opossum, who had been shot in the head with a BB gun and lost his natural protective behaviors. There’s Brownie, a stray boa constrictor who was wandering in an apartment complex and Kiki, a shy kinkajou, who was relinquished when his caregiver became ill. Navarro puts a lot of thought into habitat design to replicate the animal’s natural environment and keep them safe. “We do a lot of research and we look at specific components as we try to replicate an environment where they can exhibit natural behaviors, such as digging or burrowing. We look to the natural physiology of the wild species,” Navarro said. Navarro started rescuing animals when she was a kid and brought home injured baby animals and rehabbed them. She went on to become a zoo keeper at San Diego Safari Park and worked in partnership with a number of zoos, including in Santa Ana, Atascadero and Columbus, Ohio. She has a degree in environmental and systematic biology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “I saw there still was a large need for grassroots wildlife education programs in Southern California,” Navarro said. Part of her mission is to mentor future zoologists. Since Navarro started Wild Wonders 35 years ago, she has gotten thank you emails from biologists and zookeepers across the county who got their spark from her programs ...read more read less