“They’re not your typical animals,” Joshua Sparks told an audience of children and their families at Casco Public Library on Tuesday, July 15.

Sparks, owner of Sparks’ Ark Animal Services in New Gloucester, has been taking care of animals for 30 years, becoming licensed at age 15. According to the Sparks’ Ark website, Sparks took over a major portion of the business from his father in 2013. In turn, Sparks’ father, David, is said to have been inspired by his youth in Maine, where he trapped and released animals along the shore of Sebago Lake, and befriending Helen Perley, a well-known animal lover from Old Orchard Beach.

The business largely functions as an animal control service, removing and relocating wild animals from people’s homes, while also taking in and caring for non-native species that people have abandoned or are keeping illegally. Currently, the Sparks property houses more than 300 animals, ranging from domestic livestock, such as chickens and goats, to exotic creatures like sugar gliders and boa constrictors.

It also has a heavy focus on public outreach, with Sparks and his family doing family-friendly wildlife shows throughout Maine every summer. Sparks told Lakes Region Now that he does multiple shows a day throughout the summer over an area from Ellsworth to Kennebunkport, with his show in Casco being his fourth that day. Nevertheless, he always makes sure to return home each day — while the animals can travel for quite a while, they need to be returned to their regular enclosures each night.

At the Casco event, Sparks showed off several of his exotic animals, including the aforementioned sugar glider and boa constrictor, as well as a chinchilla, hedgehog, bearded dragon, tortoise and barred owl. The latter, he said, was unable to fly or be rehabilitated because it had been hit by a car. He also spoke about some of his larger animals, such as an emu, whose egg he showed to the audience, and a llama that served as ring bearer at his wedding.

Sparks also recalled some of his more interesting jobs as an animal control officer.

He said a man in Portland had a squirrel in his chimney, and wanted to help in the process. Sparks allowed him to watch without directly participating, and removed an adolescent squirrel from the chimney without incident. However, when he tried to remove the mother squirrel, it panicked and ran around the house, causing the previously excited owner to run away in terror.

Sparks also spoke about what he described as his favorite call ever, in which a woman’s pet snake went into the drains of her apartment building, eventually ending up in the bathroom of another tenant. The snake, he said, was removed from the building and rehoused at Sparks’ Ark.