on Blythe Island

By DAVID ROYER

The Brunswick News

A North Georgia wildlife preserve is bullish on Blythe Island as a new home for a 250-acre exotic animal park and education center.

C.W. Wathen, owner and manager of Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega, told Glynn County officials Tuesday he wants to move the not-for-profit operation to Glynn County to give his more than 400 animals more room, warmer winters and more exposure to visitors brought by Interstate 95.

In the process, a possible lease arrangement could keep the 1,100-acre Blythe Island Regional Park afloat financially while providing an added tourist draw for the county.

"We're out to promote and protect wildlife," Wathen told a group of county officials on Blythe Island, as he and several volunteers trotted out white tigers, leopards and bears, and draped corn snakes over the arms of county commissioners.

Wathen, a certified wild animal expert, raises rare, endangered and exotic animals at his 25-acre facility in Dahlonega, about 65 miles north of Atlanta and 370 miles from Brunswick.

The park is open to visitors seven days a week, and Wathen often takes his animals to schools to educate children on the importance of conserving wildlife, he said.

Wathen said he is waiting for a go-ahead from the county before he draws up any detailed plans for a Glynn County park, but indicated that the facility would likely resemble Chestatee Wildlife Preserve, a series of pens and enclosures where visitors can get up close to wild animals.

The proposed 250-acre Glynn County Park would be 10 times larger than his current facility, and a little larger than half the size of the 400-acre Retreat golf course community, formerly the Island Club, on St. Simons Island.

Wathen said his plan is to maintain parks in both Dahlonega and Brunswick for some time, later relocating all operations to Blythe Island if the arrangement is approved and proves to be successful.

He is not asking the county to put up any money for the project. The county would receive lease payments and a percentage of admission fees.

Wathen has support from Home Depot, which supplies building materials for animal enclosures at Chestatee, said Jon Wandeck, a supervisor at Home Depot in Brunswick, who also works with animals at the Dahlonega facility.

If the idea of a wild animal park in Glynn County sounds familiar, it should – a company formed by wild animal expert Jim Fowler proposed a similar idea called "Jim Fowler's Life in the Wild" a few years ago.

Chestatee was to have supplied some of the animals for the Life in the Wild park, but that project unraveled about two years ago and has been abandoned by Fowler.

The 2,000-acre property in north Glynn County that was to have been Life in the Wild has since been reworked into proposed residential and commercial developments and a heritage-themed amusement park, called Steamboat City.

Despite some past dealings between the two, Wathen said Fowler is not connected to the current proposal.

Unlike Life in the Wild, Wathen's proposed park does not include a theme park, hotel or any other commercial development and is about one-tenth the size.

That could be a positive for Wathen, since county officials were left with a bad taste in their mouths after the Life in the Wild Park failed to materialize, potentially jeopardizing the futures of several developments in north Glynn County that were expected to benefit from it.

Vernon Martin, executive director of the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center, worked with Fowler's group as it attempted to develop the planned park.

He had a better feeling about Wathen and his proposal for a smaller, less ambitious wildlife park, he said Tuesday.

"It'd be a heck of a regional draw," Martin said of the idea.

Wesley Davis, director of the county's Recreation and Parks Department, was also excited by the prospect.

"I personally think it would be a great revenue enhancement for the recreation department," Davis said. "More importantly, it would benefit the community. The revenue would be secondary."

The decision to allow the group to lease the county-owned property would have to be approved by Blythe Island's advisory board and by county commissioners.

Commissioners Carl Johnson, Don Hogan and Howard Lynn were in attendance Tuesday. Johnson and Hogan both said they were receptive to the proposal and would consider it.