By Pam Kragen

The San Diego Union-Tribune

Wendy and Kevin Yates say life has its ups and downs, but even a little sunlight can shine on the darkest days.

In 2003, the Valley Center, California, couple lost their clifftop home to wildfire. But from those ashes sprang Nurtured by Nature, a hands-on wildlife program that the Yateses offer, free of charge, to critically ill children through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

In November, two Make-A-Wish kids visited Nurtured by Nature from North Carolina and Illinois, where they swam with otters, fed fennec foxes, petted a porcupine, sat with a sloth and kicked back with some kangaroos.

Cayla Williams, 7, who was diagnosed three years ago with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, seemed to most enjoy cuddling with a bevy of baby Asian small-clawed otters.

“They’re so soft, they’re like baby pillows,” she squealed.

Wendy Yates said watching how these sick children respond to the animals is something both she and her husband cherish.

“Their parents tell us time and time again that they haven’t seen their child smile in a long time,” she said. “But when they’re here, they smile and giggle and laugh the whole time.”

The Yateses, who are both 51, have been in the animal industry for a long time. Kevin spent 28 years in the mammal department at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. And for more than 30 years, they’ve run Animal Educators, a program that hosts private encounters for the public, does conservation work, and breeds armadillos and otters for aquariums, zoos and animal parks.

Nurtured by Nature was born out of the couple’s shared desire to give back to the community after the Paradise Fire swept through their property 15 years ago. Neighbors lent a hand fighting the flames, and strangers helped the couple recover and rebuild.

“After the fire happened, we were literally blown away by the unbelievable kindness and generosity of the community,” she said. “People we didn’t even know came out of the woodwork to help us get back up on our feet.”

Once they rebuilt, the Yateses decided to create a permanent free educational program aimed at helping needy young families. They chose Make-A-Wish as their charity because they like working with children and both of the Yateses had family experiences with cancer.

Over the years, they’ve hosted nearly 60 Make-A-Wish families, including 24 so far this year.

Chris Sichel, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation San Diego, said Nurtured by Nature offers these children a “unique” animal experience.

“Wendy, Kevin and their whole team have been incredible community partners, in every sense of the word, and we are honored to have such caring and heartfelt mission partners,” Sichel said.

To subsidize the Make-A-Wish visits and the center’s operating expenses, the Yateses offer private groups tours three days a week. Starting at $550 for a three- to four-hour visit, these tours draw visitors from all over the world and are sold out a year in advance.

The Yateses say they don’t do tours every day because they want to keep their schedules open for “rush” visits from terminally ill kids and because they don’t want to overstress the animals.

“We want it to be positive and enriching for the animals, not work. You can’t accomplish by doing it seven days a week,” she said. “If the animals don’t want to do it, we don’t have a program.”

Kevin Yates grew up in North County where his parents got him involved with animals as a boy to help him cope with the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. At 17, he started volunteering at a wildlife ranch in Vista and at 19 he landed his dream job at the Safari Park. He started the Animal Educators school program two years later.

Around 1992, Wendy was managing a bank branch in Escondido when Kevin, one of her regular customers, began courting her. He’d show up at the bank every Wednesday with flowers and every Friday with a cute baby animal to cuddle, like a fox or hedgehog.

They moved to their 4-acre property in 1993 and married in 2006. They have two daughters: Aubrey, now 21, and Mandy, 17. Over the years, they transformed the former avocado ranch into a wildlife center where they raised and bred animals for their school shows and for zoos.

The Yateses became known for breeding healthy, hand-raised species. They’re now the world’s largest breeder of armadillos (100 and counting) and are a major breeder of Asian small-clawed otters (also over 100 so far). Today, the ranch has about 300 animals, including 36 otters and roughly 200 reptiles.

The Yateses got into the otter business in 2005 when a friend asked if they could temporarily care for a pair of otters he’d purchased from a zoo in Germany. Their daughters instantly fell in love with the inquisitive, high-energy creatures, and when the otters went for a wild, slippery swim with the girls in their backyard plastic swimming pool, an idea was born.

Today, Nurtured by Nature’s swim-with-the-otters program is the grand finale of every group tour. Eight or fewer people float in a chest-height custom-made heated pool designed for aqua-farming during a roughly 45-minute swim with two young adult otters. The otters seem to enjoy the session even more than the humans do.

The Yateses say they only use animals in their programs that enjoy human interaction, don’t kill people and can’t take off a finger in one bite. Though kangaroos can be aggressive, the Yateses’ group are all docile neutered males.

Make-A-Wish kids who express an interest in animals are often steered to San Diego, because of its two San Diego Zoo parks, SeaWorld and Nurtured by Nature.

Cayla came from the Outer Banks of North Carolina with her mom, Jessica, grandfather Chris Ayers and his wife, Irene. Also visiting that day from Chicago was 3-year-old Dominic Steadman and his parents, Dean and Sarah.

Dominic has spent most of his life fighting Wilms kidney tumors and the battle has already cost him 1-1/3 of his kidneys. His mother, Sarah, a former zoo worker, said her son has an encyclopedic knowledge of animals and the visit was a very special day for the whole family.

Through money raised with their private tours, the Yateses support several animal conservation programs, including the International Otter Survival Fund, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and a field research station they’re personally building on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.

On Nov. 2, the Yateses opened the calendar for 2019 public reservations and it sold out within 30 minutes. Customers come each year from Switzerland, Australia, China, Latvia, Russia, England, Mexico and South America.

Wendy said she gets a lot of complaints from people who have to wait a year or more to visit, but they only book as many public tours as necessary to pay their bills.

“I feel terrible about it, but I’m sure there’s not a person in this world who hasn’t been touched somehow by cancer,” she said. “If you look at it that way, everyone can come here.”