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An Unexpected Classroom Visitor
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Story by Dr. Grace C. Park
It was lunchtime during one of our Nicte Ha VIDAS clinics. As the volunteers finished up lunch shifts Drs Rodriquez and Park began to discuss the lessons for today’s classes. Outside, excited children began to gather around the classroom for the daily lessons.
Education is a big part of what we do every day at our VIDAS clinics and each year we try to improve the quality of our classes. This is an opportunity for us to teach the local children about a variety of animal issues. For the children, it’s an opportunity to show how much they care about the animals in their community, to learn important animal safety and animal care information, to color with crayons and to win some prizes for their accomplishments. The themes are serious but the mood is light. For all of us it’s mostly a lot of fun.
What happened on this day would challenge a group of young children to suddenly think about some of these issues and to use their own good judgment in dealing with a wild animal posing a potential danger.
As we readied ourselves to begin class a group of children had volunteered to set up the classroom for the day’s activities. While moving some chairs into a circle, the boys found a surprise waiting in a corner. An unexpected classroom visitor was resting quietly in a dark corner. In a flurry of excitement, a few of the boys came running to Drs Rodriguez and Park yelling, “Tarantula, tarantula!”.
Yes! What we saw in the corner in that classroom was a large, hairy tarantula; a shy, native, wild creature of the Yucatan. The boys were very excited and curious and had pushed the spider a little with a long stick to see if it was alive. The animal was not very active but it was alive and uninjured. The boys handed me the stick and I asked them to bring me a cup. I carefully guided the sleepy creature into the cup. After all the children (and all of us VIDAS volunteers) had gotten a chance to peek into the cup and satisfy some curiosity, I took the little animal away to a safe, well-vegetated area so that it could finish it’s nap in peace.
I’m no spider expert but I believe this tarantula is Brachypelma vagans, commonly known as the Mexican redrump or the Mexican black velvet. This is quite a beautiful spider, native to the Yucatan peninsula and some parts of the US. This species is also popular in the exotic pet trade in the United States. This is a docile spider that is not known to have a poisonous bite. It does have sharp hairs containing toxins that can stick into your skin and be quite irritating.
The boys were praised for their actions. Wild and potentially dangerous animals are part of daily life in the Yucatan. We did not discuss wild animals in our classes this year, however, we may in future classes. But we did discuss some general guidelines about approaching unknown animals that we think might have helped those boys make good decisions that afternoon. We were very proud of those children for being kind and respectful to that small wild animal despite their excitement and curiosity and for showing a great deal of intelligence and responsibility by quickly alerting adults to a possible danger.
We used this as a teaching opportunity; confirming to all the children that the right thing to do when you find a wild animal is to leave it alone and alert an adult. All animals, wild or domesticated, enrich our planet and our lives. We hope we have helped to show all of these kids, through the classroom and by example, that all animals should be treated with respect and with some healthy caution. After all, some tarantulas are quite poisonous… and some dogs and cats may bite.
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