Ostrich, Capybara, and Rhea are not animals you would expect to find in Colleton County, but these and a number of species are located just outside the city of Walterboro. Twin Pines Farm and Exotic Conservation Foundation is a private, non-profit conservation facility focusing on rare, underrepresented species not typically found in zoos. The farm has been in business for 20 years. They have two main initiatives: the Airlift Conservation Initiative, which handles logistics for transporting animals internationally, and the Gennet Conservation Initiative, involving research with universities like Texas A&M and the Smithsonian Institute. Sheri Sublett and her husband Jim own and manage the farm which is closed to the public. Sublett explains the farms operation, “First, we are a logistics company for zoos to transport animals. We basically handle everything from permitting through the US Fish and Wildlife Service, export permits, CDC permits, USDA permits for a wide variety of animals, and we handled flight bookings, international ground transport, and crate specific building to the specifics of the TSA, IATA regulations. We are permitted through multiple agencies, government, TSA, and the USDA, to be able to ship out animals. One recent project that we did was fishing cats that went from three ACA zoos, Smithsonian Riverbank Zoo and Memphis Zoo, to the Prague Zoo. We handled all the logistics, crate building, ground transport, and flight bookings. We work with AZA, which is ZAA and EA ZA, which are all zoological associations worldwide. We found that it was very hard to export animals out or transfer them from zoos, and institutions such as ours to a different zoo, with all the TSA regulations, so we would have to go through, pet transporters and they would charge double or triple the amount of what a flight booking should be, so we decided to become self-sufficient and just do it ourselves.”
Sublett adds, “We also work with genetics and DNA, and we’re also researching field work studies on the Aardwolf Conservation Initiative and the Genet Conservation Initiative in particular those, those two species. The aardwolf is a member of the hyena family, they, there are less than 20 in the United States, and we brought in 15 of those from Africa, there are four different hyena species, the striped hyena, brown hyena, the spotted hyena, and then we have the aardwolf. The aardwolf does not eat meat, it eats insects, so it’s an insectivore, and they are a little aggressive. On the day we toured to the facility, National Geographic photographer Joel Sasortari was present. His mission is to photograph every single species or subspecies in the world. That’s a nice big goal, but he’s been doing this for many years, and we reached out to him because we noticed that the aardwolf and a couple of the other species we have, such as the lesser capybara, the pardine genit, Melanistic Asian Water Monitor, and the African Wildcat are species we have here that have not been yet photographed, so he’s here doing the photography. The aardwolf has never been documented through National Geographic.
Sublett explains how they got into the business, “I guess it started off with just our love for animals, and we just grew into rare species, we found this great interest for species that are just are not in zoos. We started researching different animals and were able to import and export these species. We were able to get grants and house them here for all this research that we’re doing. We also quarantine different species here, depending on the country that they’re going to and the zoo that they’re being transferred to. There are many health requirements that each country requires, so we work closely with our veterinarian that will come and do all the testing, anywhere from tuberculosis to blue tongue, and then just simple things such as parasites. We also assure that they have all their shots and vaccines. We’ll keep them here for 30 to 60 days and then we will meet all the requirements by those specific countries before sending them out. The farm also works with local high school students assist with building crates for the animals, enhancing their learning experience. Sublett says, “Mike Swearington is the teacher for the wood shop at the technical school, these kids have been with us, building the crates and everything for the animals, and they’ve done an amazing job. These kids are just amazing, and they’ve helped out so much. And we’re so glad we can collaborate with the community and the kids, so they can learn from us and further their careers, if that’s what they want to do.
