Wildlife rules at Tackapausha Museum and Preserve

I would love to see as many families and people come back and start visiting us again.”

Dennis Fleury, Director, Tackapausha Museum and Preserve

Birds of prey, such as a bald eagle and a hawk, small critters like frogs and tarantulas, and nocturnal animals like an opossum and Egyptian bats are examples of the diverse mix of wildlife on exhibit at Tackapausha Museum and Preserve.

Tackapausha, Long Island’s first natural history museum and preserve, on Washington Avenue in Seaford, is an education center and a rehabilitation sanctuary for animals that are “unreleasable,” or incapable of survival in the wild due to injury or other circumstances. It is also home to 170 bird species, muskrats and opossums, which have been identified in the preserve over time. The historic land was acquired after a land use agreement between Native American Chief Sachem Tackapausha and local officials in 1660, which is shown on a display in the museum’s entryway.

Dennis Fleury, who has worked at the museum for two decades, the past 11 years as its director, said he tried different occupations before finally staying long-term at Tackapausha because of the atmosphere, the animals and the people.

“I love the place,” Fleury said. “I was a special-needs teacher for a few years and a veterinary technician, I did wildlife rescue, but Tackapausha is that kind of place that takes good people. Everyone here makes almost no money (and) they’re here on Christmas morning. Everyone is here just for the animals and the kids.”

Despite what can sometimes be a tricky job, workers cannot help but stay. “It’s just got a really, really good heart, the place; you want to be here,” said Fleury. “It’s not a chore, and the animals need help — they’re all injured and non-releasable, they have problems in the wild and they can’t survive, so we take care of them.”

Two falconers at the museum, Chloe Gross, who has worked there for two years, and Lauren Smith, who arrived two months ago but has years of falconry experience, were out training Dora, a 20-year-old red-tailed hawk with a two-foot wingspan. Noting the specific poses of Dora, like drooling to see if she’s bating, or stressed, they only pushed her as far as she is comfortable with the training.

The exercise of handling her while she perches on Smith’s arm will help get her acclimated to being held should they need to move her in an emergency or possibly to use her in a show at a later date. They make sure the training is safe for both the bird and handler, who wears a thick glove to protect against Dora’s sharp claws. The only thing that can go wrong is if someone is standing behind Dora in the “splash zone,” since hawks are known to unleash their fecal matter behind them with significant velocity.

Dora ended up at Tackapausha when locals noticed she was having trouble maintaining herself in the wild due to a foot injury. The circumstances of the injury were unknown but the two main reasons wildlife wind up at rehabilitation centers are cars hitting them at night and lead poisoning.

Smith explained that when hunters kill animals, the lead-based bullet can remain inside the animal and “they’ll ingest it eating from a shot-deer carcass, and with lead poisoning, it’ll affect them neurologically.” In addition, getting hit by vehicles is another often preventable cause of injury to birds, Smith said, adding, “Don’t drive too fast at night or if you see an animal on the side of the road, move over a bit.”

The museum has a lot more on display than just wildlife. “There’s a lot of indoor exhibits that go over the history of Long Island and fossils, how it was all made,” Gross said. Inside the museum are dioramas of glacial formations throughout the South Shore, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and the story of how man got to the point they’re at now. “It’s a big native museum, if people want to learn about the wetlands and native animals,” said Gross.

Fleury said he hopes to see more families and nature lovers coming into the museum since the pandemic is tapering out. “Now that things are getting back to more or less normalcy, as far as COVID and everything goes, I would love to see as many families and people come back and start visiting us again,” he said.

“We have a lot of great things going on and I’d really like to see the public come back the way they were, I want to see kids in the building, everybody having fun learning about animals and nature. The time for being closed is over and now people need to come back and have fun.”

Fleury said he and one other employee were taking care of all the animals and reptiles for two years throughout the pandemic, which he described as a crazy time.