Think of it as a wild and woolly zoo.
''We're not a big zoo. . . . We're just this fun little place, this little walk-in-the-woods place," says education coordinator Maureen Gilbert, 34. ''We provide an opportunity to see animals up close that you normally wouldn't get to see."
Owned and cared for by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, the 101 inhabitants in the park were orphaned, injured, raised in captivity at other zoos, or confiscated by game wardens from people illegally keeping them as pets.
The dedicated staff members -- who give names to their favorite animals -- recount stories like the one about George, the young moose now sprouting velvet antlers, whose mother swam across the St. John River, leaving her offspring behind. They tell of the musk turtle with a cracked shell that was fitted with a fiberglass patch, and how Charlie, an old black bear, was snatched from a gutted school bus as a cub.
''We don't want them here," insists Lisa Kane, 47, natural science educator at Fisheries & Wildlife who oversees the operation. ''We want them to live wild lives."
Ungainly moose -- a Maine icon, along with lobsters and puffins -- are hard to keep in captivity because they eat young twigs, leaves, and shoots and have delicate digestive tracts, but George and the two adult moose are decidedly the biggest draw in this boreal refuge.
''They look like a conglomeration of a bunch of different animals," Kane says, referring to the moose. ''Skinny legs. Big bodies. Big, long Roman noses. Odd-shaped heads. The big hump in the back. No tail." These biggest members of the deer family are also North America's largest land mammal.
Third-grader Megan Salisbury, on an outing recently with local Brownie Troop No. 126 from the Kennebec Council, stood wide-eyed, sizing up the playful, year-old bobcats. Even in captivity here, the circle of life remains unbroken: Carnivores like the bobcats are fed furred road kill and rabbits and mice donated by medical research facilities.
''They're pretty," said Megan, a redheaded, freckle-faced 8-year-old. ''They have short tails. They're not very tall, but they're taller than a regular kitty."
