Nature Center

Gret Horned Owls Nest at Green Oak Ranch

One of Our Nature Center Friends

Animal Therapists

The Green Oak Ranch Nature Center is a unique part of our campus. It houses a collection of domestic farm animals and some unusual species (e.g., emu, llama, peacocks), and a few wild, non-releasable animals that –due to injury or human imprinting– cannot survive in the wild.  

Our indoor collection includes many different reptiles and other interesting creatures.  

The Nature Center animals have proven to be good therapists. In their own way they provide comfort and friendship for men and women who have been emotionally wounded, or who have lost fundamental social skills through their many years of chemical addiction and homelessness.  

Our animals don’t judge, will not condemn, and will not call you names. Instead, our animal friends quickly learn to trust and never criticize attempts to make them comfortable.  They seem to forget about the mistakes we’ve made, and, they are always happy when you show up.  

It’s a joy to observe a street-hardened man or woman begin to warm to our Nature Center animals as they begin to care for them.  

Residents soon realize that the animals depend upon them, and that if they don’t do their part the animals won’t be fed, and the animals will suffere from neglect.  

Taking responsibility for a dependent animal can be the beginning of life change.  

Though they are non-professional and have no credentialing, our animal friends often turn out to be the perfect therapists for emotionally wounded men and women.  

We hope when you visit you will take a moment to say hello to these fury and feathered therapeutic members of our community.  

Green Oak Ranch

(a tax exempt nonprofit corporation station)
1237 Green Oak Road
Vista, California 92081-7890