A mountain lion, also known as the North American cougar, rests in its habitat. Two mountain lions reside at the West Virginia State Wildlife Center, giving the public a look at a species that once lived in the state but has become locally extinct.
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Outside of Buckhannon, on the way through French Creek, the road winds through plot after plot of farmland. Cows, horses and other animals graze along the fence lines. Crops create man-made patterns in the topography. Gravel paths veer off into the fields and up to quaint wooden farmhouses. Everything seems calm and quiet. Life is simple.
From the same road, the West Virginia State Wildlife Center blends right in with its surroundings. The gold and green fields in the front of the facility are only differentiated from the adjacent farms by a red sign signaling to visitors that they’ve come to the right place. Past the sign, though, the animals grazing in the pastures and hidden from view in the surrounding forest are much different from their neighbors — and much more wild.
The West Virginia State Wildlife Center opened in 1923 as the French Creek Game Farm. Because certain animal populations had been decimated around that time due to unregulated hunting and habitat loss, the French Creek Game Farm’s original purpose was to raise species like pheasant, quail, deer and turkey and reintroduce them back into their original habitats.
“This facility was started as a means of raising animals they could use to reintroduce throughout the state to kind of boost the populations,” said Tyler Evans, a wildlife biologist and the wildlife center’s superintendent.
The program was discontinued after it became apparent that the animals raised at the game farm couldn’t acquire the skills they needed to survive in the wild. But the public, which began visiting the facility soon after it opened, gave it a new purpose…
