Open day

Our open day this year was a fantastic event and enjoyed equally by exhibitors and guests.
We were joined for the first time by Abbey Lammas who brought 2 beautiful Alpaca's along with them. It was a fabulous experience to walk the friendly pair around the fields.They were a huge hit with the crowds, we will certainly be keeping in touch!
Tiggy, the pigmy hedgehog was also a huge success as was the Bedfordshire Bat group who also delighted the crowds by displaying a rescued bat.
We were also joined by Victoria Parsons a fantastic artist who has done some stunning pictures of our wolves( available for sale on our website.)
The wolves were very relaxed and appeared to dote on all the extra attention, they took a keen interest in the ferret racing and their keen sense of smell was severely tested by the hog roast sizzling in the background!

Building a new pen

We have started to build a new holding pen and it's turning into quite a big project.

The concrete footings are one metre deep with an eighteen metre run. The diggers and the concrete mixers on site promoted wide eyed interest from the wolves and kept them busy for ages. Cheza as usual, found a ringside seat and just watched to make sure they did it properly. Cheza has always liked big machines - cars, quad-bikes, helicopters (we had to physically stop him getting into a helicopter on one occasion).

The work is due to be complete by mid June and we are all very much looking forward to the first time the wolves venture into it.

Birthdays

This month brought two exiting events for the AWS:

Kaya & Aiyana celebrated their fifth birthdays on 22nd April and, unbelievably, Peyto & Cheza were 10 years old on the 29th April.
Both days were celebrated with huge helpings of tripe( their all time favourite)

The 29th of course was also the royal wedding and upon hearing the church bells on the television all 4 wolves started to howl.
Any guesses who we were watching that day !!!

A Bucket Story

In his quest to constantly keep us on our toes our alpha male Cheza has decided to set us a new year challenge. After 10 years of taking absolutely no notice of his water bucket other than to drink out of it, he has decided they are great fun to play with.

Having unhooked one from the wire he ran to the middle of the pen to have a good chew on it and once it was completely full of holes (the power of those teeth is phenomenal) and as flat as a pancake he went back for the second one and repeated the process. Aiyana tried to join in the game but despite her most persistent play bows Cheza was having none of it and gave her a deep warning growl to back off.

We gave him a couple of days without the water bucket (they do of course have another source of drinking water) and then tried to quietly replace it but wolves see everything and he quickly went to work again. At one stage he managed to flip the bucket in the air and was walking around the enclosure with it on his head delighting the volunteers present.

We are now on the hunt for a water trough too thick for him to get those teeth through. Our visitors are amazed when we show them the holes in the galvanised steel.!!!

Halloween

What better way to celebrate Halloween with the wolves than a Pumpkin feed & howl afternoon?

As soon as our visitors arrived the heavens opened and it poured with rain. Thankfully these visitors were a stoic group and took it all in their stride.

The same stoic group also tried howling to hopefully entice the wolves to join in but it has to be said that on that particular occasion the humans outclassed the wolves!

Pumpkins stuffed with lamb steaks, chicken, tripe and fish were strategically placed into the pens. When the shutter was raised the wolves came hurtling through and had a delightful time smashing the pumpkins to bits to get the food out. Cheza could not resist a victory lap and ran around the pens with a pumpkin in his mouth delighting the crowds. You can see some of the visitors below trying to start a howl.

Sponsored walk

To commemorate wolf awareness week seven of our volunteers arranged a sponsored walk. A lot of fun was had trekking around the designated course and the walk culminated with a celebratory play on the swings.A staggering £1405.00 was raised for wolf conservation. A huge thank you those who took part in the walk and to everyone who was kind enough to sponsor us. We hope to make it a bigger event next year and anybody who is interested in this valuable work would be most welcome to join us.

The work party

It had rained hard the previous week and as the ground was a little softer than usual we decided to cover the wolves' tunnels with soil. This exercise had been attempted several times previously and the wolves as usual had an enormous amount of fun demolishing all of our hard work.
Yet again, three of our volunteers spent several hours digging out a huge mound of earth situated elsewhere on our site and then wheel barrowing the soil into the enclosure.
When the job was completed we let the wolves back into their pen and stood back and waited. There was a lot of investigating but other than a small amount of digging by Aiyana there was very little damage done. Only time will tell…...
 

Winner

The winner of silver bracelet for the jelly beans competition we've been running this year is Mike Fearn from Bedford.

Aug 1'st 2010

Open day

On Sunday 1st August we held an open day (pre-booking and invitation only) and our visitors got to enjoy an afternoon of special entertainment.

We'd like to express our sincere thanks and gratitude to all who helped to make this a great success. I guess we should also thank all the wonderful animals and birds that came along to support us as well - the birds of prey, the golden eagle, the snakes, the pigmy hedgehogs, the snapping turtles, the ferrets, the bats and of course the wolves.

The ferret racing proved very popular, especially when you could watch a wriggly ferret disappearing down a long tube and then run to other end to cheer it on to win!

Everybody was overwhelmingly supportive and generous, even the weather was kind. A great day made greater by those who really care.

Fundrasising

Despite the recession we have still managed to send another £1000 to the Balkan Wildlife Society in Bulgaria today. Thanks to everyone who supported us by attending the fundraiser Barn Dance back in May. I wasn't there personally but everyone I've met said it was totally spanking and they can't wait for the next one. (Memo to self: must ask someone exactly what on earth went on).

Workshops & Work Experience

Last Friday's visit by a group of students from the ABEAST group at Lincoln University was - like any other visit - successful and enjoyed by all but discussions with the participants afterwards have led us to start investigating the possibility of planning a workshop later in the year specifically for animal behaviour and care students. One of the facts of life many of us are aware of is the difficulty animal students often have in obtaining practical experience with animals and animal facilities; We can certainly do a bit to remedy this problem although (please note) we don't do work experience (mostly because of the mountains of bureaucracy and paperwork which we are not prepared to indulge in). 

Neutering

After the sad loss of Sefka it soon became apparent that Aiyana was going to follow in her mother’s paw steps. Unfortunately this meant Kaya being bullied quite badly and we were very concerned for Kaya’s welfare during the next breeding season. After much consideration, advice and research we made the decision to have both females neutered. The vets arrived on 21st of May at 9.00 AM on a gloriously hot and most importantly dry day and having been introduced to our wolves set up their operating area in our visitor’s centre. The door to the hard standing was opened and with the help of some tuna juice spread on the ground (food could not be used prior to the operation) Aiyana came in to investigate. She was darted and soon asleep. The operation went without a hitch and soon Aiyana was ready to be returned to the hard standing, we then went through exactly the same process with Kaya which again went smoothly. Both wolves were put in separate hard standings to recover in peace. During the whole process Cheza & Peyto wandered around their pen looking interested at the goings on but appeared to be untroubled by the proceedings. We would like to offer our heartfelt thanks to the vets from Scotts Veterinary practice and a special thanks to Susannah who happily answered an endless stream of questions prior to and after the day. Both wolves recovered at remarkable speed and within a few days were tearing round the pen as if nothing had happened.
 

We kept the females separated from Peyto and Cheza for a full 2 weeks just to be on the safe side and while Kaya did not mind Aiyana showed her displeasure by digging a big hole in our grass mound. On the day the pack were reunited we held our breath while the dividing shutter was lifted. Peyto and Cheza strolled through and went to look around the pen to see what the females had been up to. Peyto then got into the bath (which had been left empty ) and started to scent mark the bottom of it. Suddenly, up came his paw and a large toad was hurled in the air and subsequently fell to the floor. Peyto then started to roll on the toad flattening it into the ground. Unfortunately all the other wolves then decided to join in and this caused some disagreement between them. We called them up to the other end of the pen and the flattened toad was removed. All clear, or so we thought. Two seconds later Peyto found himself another one so we had to go through the whole process again. Aiyana & Kaya had their first walk with the public on the 5th of June and we are pleased to say nothing at all has changed. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and delighted our visitors by showing off their" war" wounds whilst rolling in sheep poo.