State park’s festival held in October when male Tarantulas leave their burrows
Published in the Oct. 16, 2013 issue of Morgan Hill Life.
By Marty Cheek
Sophia Johnson, 9, and Ava Johnson, 7, both of Oakwood School, check out a Tarantula held by Monika Davis of Salinas at the Tarantula Fest, held Oct. 5 at Henry W. Coe State Park.
Many people try to avoid encountering hairy, eight-legged critters that send a shiver down their spines. But at the Tarantula Fest held every October at Henry W. Coe State Park east of Morgan Hill, families come from all over the Bay Area to celebrate spiders and explore the rugged wilderness where the arachnids make their home.
Ava Johnson, a 7-year-old Oakwood School student, has a curiosity for the wonders of nature and came to the Oct. 5 festival to learn about tarantulas. “They’re interesting. They’re a little creepy,” she said after examining some of the large spiders on display at the park’s visitors center. “I like science. We have an orchard and I find a lot of bugs there.”
Johnson’s sister Sophia Johnson, a 9-year-old Oakwood School student, felt a little squeamish when she first saw a tarantula at the festival. “It was a little hairy. I was scared of it the first time,” she said. “But my grandma talked about it and said it wasn’t really harmful.”
Morgan Hill resident Tracer Duckett came with his mom Yvonne Duckett to check out the arachnids as well as do some hiking at the park. The two saw a tarantula in the parking lot. “I like the tarantulas,” he said. “You never really see them. This is the only place in Morgan Hill that you can see them.”
The festival is held in October when male tarantulas leave their burrows and can be seen striding across roads and trails searching for females to mate with. The males are attracted to a scent that the females produce. Visitors saw more than just spiders at the event. Volunteers with the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center allowed visitors to get close to various birds including turkey vultures and hawks. The jug band The Tarantulas entertained visitors with comical songs as people ate a barbecue lunch with a majestic view of the park’s mountain ridges.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Pine Ridge Association volunteer Mike Meyer, who led an afternoon Tarantula hike, points out a tarantula to
Josh Starling, 5, wearing hat at the rear, and Brady Moss, 7, in orange shirt, during the Tarantula Fest held at
Henry W. Coe State Park.
Festival organizer Sue Dekalb said that volunteers of the Pine Ridge Association, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the park for public use, have put on the festival for nearly 20 years. The event is a fun way to encourage families to come to Henry W. Coe State Park and learn about the wilderness recreation area that’s right in the South Valley’s backyard, she said.
“When you have an event like this where people can relax, listen to music, and see all the things that are here, especially when we have WERC and other people showing animals that we would not normally have, it’s just a good way to get the public to come to this park. And maybe they’ll come back,” she said.
Many residents of Silicon Valley, Morgan Hill and Gilroy have never been to the park, and they have no idea that all this open space is here for them to explore, Dekalb said. “I have a hard time understanding how so many kids in Morgan Hill and Gilroy have never been in a park before,” she said. “This is a terrific place for kids and families.”
Palo Alto resident Libby Vincent has served with the Pine Ridge Association for 22 years and agrees that Henry Coe is an undiscovered treasure for many South Valley residents. She noted: “I’ve often had this experience while staffing the visitors center and a family will wander in on a Sunday afternoon and say, ‘I’ve lived just down the hill for 20 years and I’ve never been up here. We just thought we’d take the road up today.’”
Working in the high-tech industry, Vincent believes her time spent at Henry Coe helps her cope with the stress of Silicon Valley life. “This place keeps you sane,” she said.
The annual Tarantula Fest lets children and adults see wild creatures up close in a non-threatening way. “The tarantulas really help us to get in touch with the natural world that’s right here,” she said. “It’s just an excellent way for kids to learn about nature.”
Another focus of the event is to encourage people to know about the natural world and have good experiences in it so that they will learn to love it and become defenders of the wilderness, she said.
“People come to Henry Coe from not all over the Silicon Valley, but also San Francisco, the East Bay and all over California,” she said. “We have people from all around the world come here — Japanese and European tourists — and a lot of them know about it ahead of time because there’s so much information on the Internet.”
