The Island community turned out Monday for a memorial gathering in memory of Island naturalist Gus Ben David, the original director of Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, who died July 4 at 81.
Augustus (Gus) D. Ben David 2nd, the Vineyard’s famed wildlife specialist and former director of Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, died on July 4 at his home in Edgartown after an extended illness.
Gus Ben David is an Island institution. For 30 years he has directed Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. Anyone walking the trails gets a sense of a wild place that is tended by loving hands. The open grassland is mowed at strategic times of year. Waterfowl find refuge in the small duck pond at the far end of the property.
It takes a warm-blooded naturalist to run a den of cold-blooded creatures. Gus and Shane Ben David’s World of Reptiles is now in its third year. These are the animals that will never be friendly, but they do get along. They range in size from a 21-foot, 230-pound reticulated python down to a bullfrog from Cape Cod.
To raise a golden eagle, according to Gus Ben David, you need a way of life and time. But even he didn’t know how much time he would give to Chameli, his 40-year-old longtime educational partner.
Each spring, Gus Ben David makes sure he has a large group of hens in various stage of motherhood. He’s not doing this because he loves chicken eggs and baby chicks, though. He’s maintaining a roster of foster moms.
A juvenile, cold-stunned Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is on the road to recovery Friday after washing up on the Chappaquiddick side of Norton Point Beach Thursday morning.
