Wildlife Encounters brings capybara, owl, alligator to Fleming library

A mini capybara, owl and young alligator turned the Fleming School/Community Library into a hands-on animal classroom June 11, as children and adults gathered for a Wildlife Encounters program that brought live creatures to the center of town. Jillian of Wildlife Encounters presented the program, which was sponsored by the Frenchman School District and also featured a snake, tegu lizard and armadillo.

The scene gave families in Fleming a close-to-home summer activity that mixed entertainment with learning. In one photo from the event, John Schmidt leaned in for a look at the alligator while his nanny, Kayle Unrein, helped him watch safely, a small detail that captured how the program reached beyond schoolchildren to adults caring for younger kids.

The visit fit neatly into the library’s larger role in Fleming, where the community library operates under an intergovernmental agreement among the Town of Fleming, the Frenchman RE-3 School District and the Fleming Library Board. The library also hosts a weekly Story Time and an annual Summer Reading Program, and its 2026 schedule calls for Tuesday and Thursday sessions from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. under the theme Unearth a Story. That gives the animal program a broader purpose than a single summer stop: it extends classroom-style learning into a public space families already use.

Wildlife Encounters says it is state- and federally licensed, fully insured and USDA-inspected. The organization says its library summer reading programs are designed to bring live animal ambassadors to libraries and encourage reading, wildlife conservation and lessons about animal adaptations and geography. The lineup in Fleming matched that mission closely, giving children a chance to see and learn about animals that many would never encounter in a typical day.

The program also underscored how much a small rural district can gain from a single community event. Fleming Elementary School served 127 students in the 2025-26 school year, and Frenchman RE-3 served 215 students across two schools. In Logan County, which spans 1,845 square miles on Colorado’s Great Plains and has a population of 22,036, with Sterling as the county seat, shared institutions like the library carry extra weight. When a school district, library board and town work together, even a short animal visit can become a meaningful piece of summer enrichment for families across Fleming.