Cachuma Lake Recreation Area, Santa Barbara, CA – October 5th, 2024 marked the day for another edition of the Neal Taylor Nature Center’s popular Halloween-themed event, Creepy Creatures. Each year the Nature Center collaborates with performers, educators, and nonprofits to make this event possible. With over 200 attendees, this year’s Creepy Creatures was a huge success and was a blast for all who attended.
Biologist Alice Abela returned this year with a plethora of live animals, including snakes, frogs, lizards, and tarantulas. She taught curious kids and adults alike about the fascinating features of these creatures. For example, Alice showed the crowd a Chuckwalla (Sauromalus spp.) lizard, which is related to an Iguana. It can store fat in its tail during periods of scarce food, and was also eaten by Native American tribes in the southwestern United States.
Santa Barbara County Parks and Cachuma Lake naturalist Kristin Loft presented a table with real animal skulls from various creatures native to the region like bobcats, mountain lions, skunks, possums, wild boars and raccoons.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History brought the Teen Programs Manager Haylee Rosso and her team of Quasars who set up a table with skulls, bones and fossils, including a mystery touch box where participants had to guess what was inside.
2 Amigas Arts & Crafts, consisting of Nature Center volunteers Barb Hale and Patti Sandow, decked out in full witch attire, hosted a Halloween mask making activity. Popcorn and Witch’s Brew (secret recipe: lemonade) were real crowd-pleasers.
Elevated Dreams Aerial Arts Studio brought over 20 youth students to display dazzling aerial performances, co-led by Nature Center board member Alison McCullah, and accompanied by enchanting music from JÜPITER. Alison also served as this year’s Emcee Spooky, as she announced each performer and helped hand-pick fun and spooky tunes during the event.
Dozens of kids enjoyed finishing our special edition creepy creatures scavenger hunt led by Nature Center President Edward Grand. Halloween-themed spider and bat rings were handed out as a prize for completing the scavenger hunt.
All proceeds from the event supported The Neal Taylor Nature Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Check out the rest of our photos, as well as videos put together by Nature Center volunteers!
Article and photos by Colin Eldridge
