Kim Habicht, Nederland.

An array of wild creatures took over the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center on Sunday, but it was no infestation. The center was hosting Nature’s Educators, a non-profit educational wildlife program based out of Sedalia, Colorado, as a part of the annual Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland.

Nature’s Educators is a volunteer-based sanctuary for non-releasable raptors, or birds of prey. The organization works with rehabilitation centers to provide shelter for raptors that have been injured and rehabilitated but are not suited to be released back into the wild.

Kellie Roche, a Nature’s Educators volunteer, showed off Attis, a four-year-old female burrow owl, who was found on the side of the road in Arizona. As a chick, she had been hit by a car. One of her tiny brown wings still droops as a result.

Attis cannot fly and would not survive in the wild. Nature’s Educators provides raptors like Attis with food, shelter, vaccines and care, and brings them to surrounding schools, libraries and events in order to educate the public.

Roche said that she enjoys showing the public creatures that are “skittish by nature, and so elusive in the wild.”

Also on display was Hades, a six-year-old turkey vulture, which has been with Nature’s Educators for four years. Shauni, a volunteer, displayed Hades, who sat on her gloved hand, as she explained to a packed room the aerodynamics of Hades’ body.

Guests were shocked to discover that Hades, a bird as large as a turkey, weighed only four pounds. Shauni explained that this was due to the bird’s hollow bones and light feathers.

Other cases full of reptiles and amphibians crowded the perimeter of the center. An ornate box turtle scrounged around under a beaming red light. A hedgehog peacefully hibernated, and various scorpions skittered around terrariums.

In a side room, Gail Rubin, a funeral expert and death educator, screened the documentary “Grandpa’s in the TUFF SHED” to a room of chuckling onlookers. Rubin traveled from New Mexico for the festival, and has been moving between various roles, including putting on the “Newly-Dead game.”

Jill Dreves, the Executive Director of Wild Bear Nature Center, said that on Saturday, 1,012 people came to visit the center. She was elated that the event was able to draw so many people to the center, and to the surrounding businesses.

“It’s been all positivity,” she said.