SYRACUSE — Antelope Island State Park is known for its bison herd, as well as several hundred each of deer, pronghorn antelopes and bighorn sheep, but it’s the spiders that get their own festival.

And they’re back just in time for the Antelope Island 11th Annual Spider Festival on Saturday — especially the western spotted orb weaver. The dominant species on the island inspired the festival, according to Park Manager Jeremy Shaw.

“Yes, people were always asking about them. Some were scared and some were creeped out,” he said. “So we decided why not embrace it and use it as a chance to educate the public. Most people can’t believe how many there are and how large they are — again, one of those things that spurred the idea for the festival.”

Spider numbers have been down of late with the receding levels of the Great Salt Lake the last few years. But the record winter snowfall has the lake 5 feet higher than last year, officials explain, waters now lapping at the borders of the state park again, a favorite expanse for the island’s dominant orb weaver and their many cousins to feed on brine flies.

They’ve come ashore, so to speak, for the shoreline brine fly feasting.

Most numerous are the orb weavers, named and noted for their particularly round webs. They gather by the millions. “More than that,” said Trish Ackley, the park’s naturalist.

“It’s like Halloween in the summer,” she said. “They just drape the island.”

Staffers clear the orb weaver webs from buildings, restrooms, the visitor center, but can’t keep up with the onslaught elsewhere. Ackley recommends a walking stick for clearing webs along trails and paths.

The now ubiquitous orb weaver is by far the largest on the island in terms of numbers and size, officials said, with its its abdomen up to an inch long. The nonaggressive arachnid’s bite is harmless, if it ever does bite, retreat being its major defense mechanism, like all spiders.

The single-day spider festival is the second largest draw at the island, pushing the typical daily 500-plus visitation to thousands of visitors, second only to the annual bison roundup in the fall.

The arachnid fest features guided tours, spider presentations and crafts, a photo contest, even spider poetry. Events are free after paying the usual $15 admission fee for the park.

Yes, spider poetry.

Assistant Park Manager Wendy Wilson said the festival draws 10 to 20 spider poems a year.

One of her favorites is “Revenge” by Christy Bills:

For years we’ve kept to our quiet corners,

We’ve tiptoed on our silent little padded tarsi,

Dining on your household pests, and garden destroyers, and flying menaces,

Asking nothing at all from you but peace.

Our fangs too small to nibble you, our appetites all too delicate for human flesh,

Bereft of wings to escape or stingers to threaten,

We have spent millennia submitting to your screams and stompings,

Your irrational paranoia and jokes about burning down buildings at just the sight of us.

Frankly, we’re hurt.

Our peaceful obsequiousness must end,

After the carnage you’ve wreaked on our predaceous sisterhood.

The poem then goes on in great detail on the revenge to come, starting with breeding “in your butter tubs” and worse, which will not be repeated here in case the kids are in the room.

In conclusion:

The tarantulas, such a reserved bunch, are especially aggrieved and are forming a very strident committee.

Oh you didn’t want a giant spider web across your shower that you encounter first thing in the morning?

We’re sorry, from the bottom of our stepped on little hearts.

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