Sparks Builds an Ark

David Sparks ’73 deals with animals in all kinds of predicaments. In most cases he is dispatched to deal with the run of the mill—cat in a tree, mouse in a gas grill, raccoon in a chimney. But he also gets his share of what regional wildlife biologist Phil Bozenhard describes as “weirdo calls.”

One such call was about a 1,000-pound bull that was loose and wandering into traffic in Limington. Sparks spent four days trying to get close enough to the beast to tranquilize it, but in the end the owner put the animal down.

Then there was the call about a 90-bound black bear that was wandering the streets of Westbrook a few summers back, and another about an anaconda lost in a storm drain in Portland.

“What I like about my job is that I’m on an adventure every day,” says Sparks, who operates Sparks Ark. “I never know what I might be dealing with.”

He talks casually about how he has been bitten by just about everything with teeth or fangs, although those occasions are rare. He has stories about the snake that bit his hand when he was dangling a dead mouse nearby to feed it. “That was my fault,” he explains. There is the one about how a 5-foot iguana bit him on the arm. His first time dealing with snakes was at a police raid where he had to handle a number of them, including a 9-foot Burmese python. “Animals just don’t bother me,” says the seemingly unflappable Sparks.

After years of dealing with animals, formerly as the animal control officer in Westbrook, and now as the owner of a unique “animal emergency services” business, Sparks has become an expert on “pests,” and a local celebrity of sorts. He has been featured in newspapers and has appeared on all the local television stations, most recently in a segment about how the mild winter may affect the spring pest season.

Sparks is the person people call at all times of the day and night when they hear nibbling or gnawing in their houses or see evidence of something tunneling under their driveways. Some calls require him to drop what he’s doing to address the problem immediately, while others are not as pressing. “Usually when people have a bat flying around the house in the middle of the night, they don’t want to wait,” he explains.

No Wild Animal is Safe to Touch—Evah

When he’s not setting live traps to catch pests, Sparks conducts educational programs usually at area schools or senior centers and in the spring was booking birthday parties into August. He also does wildlife rehabilitation—taking animals, typically hit by cars, and nursing them back to health so that they can be released back into the wild. The animals that he takes to schools and birthday parties have become permanent residents of Sparks Ark because they were too injured to be released.

In a talk about Maine wildlife habitat, Sparks explains that even though wildlife habitat has been destroyed, habitat in cities and towns has been created for animals that find crawl spaces and attics of houses perfect breeding grounds. The result has been that foxes, coyotes, and even bear that prey on rodents have started to come into populated areas in search of food.

His mantra is that wild animals should not be touched or moved, but instead left alone for the well-being of the would-be rescuer and the animal. He tells how wild animals often have fleas, mites or ticks or more important might have rabies. Sparks protects himself from rabies with shots and when handling animals wears protective Kevlar gloves to avoid puncture wounds.

Many of the inhabitants of Sparks Ark were brought to Sparks by people who found them seemingly abandoned in a field or woodland. “People think they are doing the right thing and you can’t really fault them for that,” he says. “But in most cases the mother of that baby bird or fawn is nearby.”

Sparks has a unique way with animals, and seems as captivated and fascinated by them as the school children he talks to. At one presentation a barred owl he was holding by the talons started to flap it’s wings wildly in agitation. With his free hand, Sparks gently rubbed the back of the owl’s neck. The stroking soothed the owl to the point that it closed its eyes and seemed to fall asleep to the delight of onlookers.

“David has a real sincere interest in animals and their well-being,” and a dedication to his work that is atypical, says Bozenhard, who has worked with Sparks through the years. Bozenhard, who works in the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife office in Gray, refers calls his office gets to pest handlers who live nearby and who can get to the scene quicker than he can. Bozenhard says that when he refers calls to Sparks, “I know David is always going to take care of the problem.”

And Bozenhard says he only refers the unusual calls to the few, like Sparks, who have the experience and knowledge to deal with them. In the case with the bear in Westbrook, Bozenhard says when he arrived Sparks had the situation under control—the bear was tranquilized and Sparks had a noose around the bear’s neck. “That’s pretty uncommon.”

Building an Ark

Sparks and his wife, Paula ’96, live in Windham on the banks of the Presumpscot River, on property that has flooded a number of times through the years. Paula used to tease her husband, who has always had pets, that he had to have two of every type of animal. Hence, she suggested he name his business: Sparks Ark.

It’s not hard to see why that name stuck after a visit to the couple’s property. One side of the long driveway from the road to the river is lined with various fenced in areas, sheds, and enclosures for all the different animals Sparks has hooting, quacking, baaing, and chirping inside them. He estimates at any given time he has about 200 to 300 animals, many of which require special state or federal licenses for him to house. It’s illegal in Maine, for example, to keep any wild animals as pets.

On this day, he has five owls, seven fallow deer, turkeys, a black sheep, a sick chicken on antibiotics, ducks, geese, pigeons, and other birds of all varieties. There are pygmy goats, peacocks, skunks, and an emu, among others. When he’s not home, folks leave animals they have found in “drop off” cages in front of a chicken coop. In the summer, he says it’s not uncommon for him to return home to find the cages full and boxes containing other animals stacked nearby.

Operating an ark, as one might imagine, takes a lot of time and energy. Some times he might be caring for a baby animal that needs to be fed every couple of hours, not to mention the time involved in distributing the 100 pounds of food he doles out each day to his ark-full of animals. His son, Joshua ’98, helps out when needed.

Sparks worked for 26 years at Bradlees before stepping down from his job as assistant manager in January 1995 to start his business. He attended USM while working at Bradlees and initially majored in business. He has drawn on what he learned in business courses to run Sparks Ark, as well as on advice he gained from the Maine Small Business Development Centers on USM’s Portland campus.

Sparks, who went on to earn a degree in sociology, ironically met his wife in a Sociology of the Family course taught by Associate Professor of Sociology Don Anspach. “My college experience was my growing up time,” Sparks says. “In high school I was introverted, and in college I became much more outgoing and more able to work with other people.” He notes that classes he took at USM, specifically public speaking and child psychology courses, taught him techniques that he employs whenever making presentations to groups.

He started rehabing animals as a hobby in 1980 and worked part-time from 1987 until earlier this year as the animal control officer in Westbrook. Leaving his steady job and benefits at Bradlees to focus on his business was difficult. “It was scary at first, but I’m glad I did it,” he says. “My business has developed into something I really enjoy and I don’t think most people really enjoy their work.”

Making an Entrance

It was another day on the job and Sparks was making a presentation at Gorham’s Village School. All the fourth-graders wanted to know one thing: what animals did their guest speaker have in the covered cages stacked behind him? They tried to get it out of him beforehand, but all they got was Sparks’s standard response: “You’ll have to wait and see.”

In the end, Sparks did not disappoint. He showed the youngsters a flying squirrel; a woodchuck, newly awakened from hibernation; a saw-whet owl, often mistaken as a baby owl due to its diminutive size; an opossum; and Sidney the skunk, among others—each time telling interesting tidbits about each animal. Did you know that opossums can make blood come out of their noses and mouths to ward off predators? Or that there are no poisonous snakes in Maine?

He brought with him only one animal that was not found in Maine, and saved it for last. His slimy pièce de résistance was an 81/2-foot, red-tailed boa constrictor named “Squeezer.” As Sparks pulled Squeezer from her cage, the children went wild, squealing, grimacing, and squirming.

Sparks stood calmly in front of the group, the snake draped across his neck and shoulders, and waited for everyone to calm down

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