Sylvan Heights' Grand Opening of the Waterfowl Park & Eco-Center

              

               --Mike Lubbock's grand vision for waterfowl conservation becomes reality

                         

Cherly Turner (NC Zoo Society), Ali Lubbock, Mike Lubbock and Russ Williams (NC Zoo Society),at official ribbon cutting

(Sylvan Heights' Board Chairman Walter Sturgeon and Brent Lubbock in background)

Russ Williams Russ Williams,Executive Director of the NC Zoological Society:

     The effort to make this Park a reality began in 1997 when the Association of Zoos and Aquariums recognized Sylvan Heights’ importance to zoos, avian collections and to the welfare of waterfowl everywhere. The Zoo Society’s mission to “Save a Piece of the World for Wildlife” really works well in our partnership with Sylvan Heights. As one very special donor said, “If not for the work of Mike and Ali Lubbock, some waterfowl species would not exist today.”

     Some of you gave to the Sylvan Heights Capital Campaign because of your interest in wildlife and wild places, some of you gave to insure that Mike Lubbock’s knowledge is passed on to future generations and some of you gave because of what Sylvan Heights means economically to Scotland Neck and North Carolina.

     On behalf of the generations of friends and visitors who will come to this place after us, the generations who will experience the wonders of the natural world in a special way and who will take with them a lifetime commitment to preserve those wonders, I’m here to say “Thank you”.

   

    

            State Representative Ed Jones at the Australia Aviary          State Representative Lucy Allen welcomes visitors to Sylvan Heights

 

Dr. Mel Levine

Dr. Mel Levine, world-renowned pediatrician and author, Board Vice Chairman of Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park & Eco-Center:

      Last line from the Robert Frost poem, “A Minor Bird”– “And of course there must be something wrong, in wanting to silence any song.”

     I believe the great American poet would have been delighted to be here with us this morning. We are here today because we don’t want to silence any song. And I urge you as you walk around Sylvan Heights, to close your eyes and just listen to the choral music at each one of these displays, because it is really extraordinary. So much of the mission of Sylvan Heights is to make sure that future generations can share in this extraordinary music of wildlife. 

     That’s the realization that is occurring at this historic moment–that we will have the ability to preserve the songs that are a critical part of our lifestyle and our environment. The song of a Trumpeter Swan, the ridiculous humming of Nene Geese, the incredible honking from a “V” of Canada Geese going through the sky, or the absurd grunting of Mute Swans (the most unattractive of songs, very much in a minor key if there ever was one).

     But these are more than just songs. They are the outward signs of individuality. The Mandarin Duck is telling us how proud he is not to be an Eider– each of them confirming, in a sense amplifying, on the glory of diversity. Because one of the other messages we receive as we go through Sylvan Heights is you can no longer say “If you’ve seen one duck, you’ve seen them all”. They are proclaiming diversity, just as mankind celebrates diversity. So what we have here is a kind of avian pluralism that sets an example for the ecology of humanity, not just the ecology of wildlife.  

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