Paws nature center reopens, with new management and old magic

With the smell of fresh-cut cedar in the air and a quick ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mount Laurel Township on Wednesday marked the reopening of its Paws Discovery Center for young children.

On New Year's Day, the township closed what was long known as the PAWS Farm Nature Center for renovations. The name change reflects the farm's new relationship with the Discovery Museum in Cherry Hill.

Through an agreement reached in December, the privately owned museum is "now handling complete operations of the township's facility from tip to tail," Kelly Lyons, the museum's veteran director, explained on a brief tour of the 12-acre site. Mount Laurel continues to own the property.

A popular destination for families with small children, the center features a visitor center and store, an 18th-century farmhouse, and an activities barn, and is home to turtles, snakes, miniature horses, donkeys, an emu, a pot-bellied pig, a peacock and peahen, chickens, and swans.

This year, for the first time, the menagerie includes several longhorn Scottish Highland cattle, which were chewing contentedly in a pasture next to the donkeys and emu.

"They were at the Turtleback Zoo" in West Orange,  N.J., said Lyons, "but they're getting up in age and the terrain there was steep. We had the flat land they needed, and we said we'd take them."

On this implausibly warm winter day —with yellow daffodils poking up from the ground, and green weeping willows and pink cherry trees in blossom — the grounds smelled distinctly of cut cedar from all the new fencing.

"Oh, no," a girl of about 8 cried out to her mother. "They got rid of the butterfly garden."

"No, we didn't," Lyons assured them, and pointed down a newly lighted outdoor path to the popular alcove, marked by a large metal butterfly. She said she envisions it as a setting for Alice in Wonderland-style tea parties —one of many changes the Discovery Museum has in store.

She also pointed out a new "magical woodlands trail" populated by seven garden gnomes, whose differences in size and color children are invited to identify.

In December, Meredith Tomczyk, Mount Laurel's acting township manager, said the township  had turned to the museum to manage the farm because it concluded it did not have the expertise needed to develop and market the site, which she said is difficult and costly to maintain.

"It's hard to be in the animal business," she joked Wednesday. "They have to eat every day."

The child-oriented Discovery Museum, which draws about 250,000 visitors a year, seemed well-equipped to take charge of the farm, Tomczyk said. The township hopes the change of management will boost the supply of visitors, who now number about 53,000 a year.

The farm's reopening was happy news for Marinna Seemuller, who was on hand with her 4-year-old daughter, Ginny, and 20-month-old son, Lucas.

"It's a great place for kids to play," she said as Lucas ran toward a large wooden marimba made of varnished two-by-four lumber in the visitor center. "And they love all the animals."

Out in the activities barn, which includes a large vinyl cow and milking pen, Alison Gumpert of New Hampshire watched as her 4-year-old twins, David and Emma, and 7-year-old Audrey checked out plastic tomatoes and peppers at a make-believe  cash register.

"No throwing," she called out to David, who was gripping a fake pepper like a hand grenade. He dropped it.

Gumpert, 38, said she came to Paws regularly as a child growing up in Marlton. Her mother, Kathy Keenan, who  lives in Marlton, said she still has fond memories of the farm, which opened in 1979.

"It's changed over the years," said Keenan, who said the barn was not here when her children were small. "Now there's a lot more to climb on and play with."