Paradise's brand new wolf experience has arrived!

On Saturday the 7th of September here in Paradise Wildlife Park we had a very lucky group of people who were used as guinea pigs for our latest animal experience, the Meet the Wolves Experience. It's an early start for this experience so the trial group had to be in the park at 8:30am. This early start time will allow visitors to get the best interaction with the wolves.

 

The trial group were greeted by our keepers Pia and Ricky in the Discovery Centre and were taken to the meat room where the food is prepared. Despite only being a trial run of the experience both Pia and Ricky didn't hold back on their knowledge, they continually told the group lots interesting facts about the wolves. This is something that all our keepers here in Paradise do really well and it gives all of our experiences an extra level of depth.

Following the meat room, the group walked over to our two older female wolves, Misha and Tatra. There is a year between the two of them; Tatra had been raised alongside an Alsatian, which means she has a lot calmer, more people friendly personality than her sister Misha.

After meeting the two girls through the mesh, the group of guinea pigs then headed over to our brand new enclosure in the Paradise woods to meet our other three wolves, Romulus, Inga and Anya. These youngsters have been with us for around a year and they arrived at six weeks old. Despite that seeming young, it's actually very late to start socialising them with people. So the keepers spent an incredible 7 months with them 24 hours a day, sleeping with them in their house and everything. Only a few people were chosen to be in their 'pack'. And the wolves still have a very strong connection with that group.

The new enclosure has been fraught with problems during the construction, but we at Paradise are pleased to say it's been worth the wait. The behaviour of the wolves changed dramatically when they were released into their new home, and they seem very happy, calm and relaxed.

Unlike with the two older girls, it's possible for the public to go in with the youngsters. Largely thanks to the hard work the keepers put in with them in the early days. Despite the reassurances of safety, it's an exhilarating experience as you're always fully aware that you're in free contact with wild animals. 

The group filed into the main enclosure, one by one, through the metal 'airlock' system and then sat on the bench just inside. The wolves came straight up to the group and immediately began sniffing them. The group had been advised not to wear perfume or aftershave. These strong smells can lead the wolves to being over-interested in our visitors, if this where to happen then it would lead to the experience coming to an abrupt end due to safety reasons. But all was fine and the wolves spent quite a lot of time with the group being very interested and attentive. Then after a while, they began to lose interest and retreated to the back of their enclosure. 

This was the groups cue to leave the enclosure and to circle round the outside. The best part of the trial experience was yet to come, as the group were now able to hand feed the wolves through the mesh. For obvious reasons, it's not a good idea to do this in free contact. Therefore all of our feeding experiences with our larger predator animals here at Paradise are fed through the mesh enclosures for safety. 

That said, the wolves were incredibly gentle when being fed by the group. The wolves were fed a mixture of horse meat and their favourite, sardines. Strangely, from time to time, the wolves would reject a piece of meat for no obvious reason. Often, one of the siblings would happily take the same piece. After the feed was finished, the wolves ran around their enclosure in an excited fashion, raising their tails. This is brilliant natural behaviour and shows how happy and settled the pack is here in Paradise Wildlife Park.

The feedback from our group of guinea pigs was extremely positive. They described it as a brilliant experience and they'd highly recommend it to anyone, Wolf lover or not.

This educational, exciting and enjoyable experience will be one you remember forever. The experience is now able to book on our website at:  http://www.pwpark.com

Below you can see a photograph of the three younger wolves when they first arrived at Paradise, only 6 weeks old. As you can see they have grown up quite a lot since their arrival.