On my way back from Calgary the other week, I decided to stop at the Discovery Wildlife Park located in the small town of Innisfail, Alberta. The DWP is a small privately owned zoo, that whilst not a member of the CAZA, still is a registered and official zoo in Alberta (one of seven). It's main claim to fame is the fact that several of its animals (notably bears and beavers) have been featured in various movies and commercials, and the staff are never hesitant to include that fact when you talk to them. The facility, while occupying a fairly large expanse of space, is rather "small", and maintains a fairly humble collection of species. When first entering, one has to cross a small creek using a bridge, before coming up to the first (and only) building of the zoo. It is a combined admission office/gift shop/restaurant/washroom/small animal viewing area. Overall the initial walk up to the zoo is rather nice and leaves the impression of a well kept and family owned operation, and combined with the nature beauty of the place and abundant bird song, makes for a very pleasant first impression. Upon entering the building, one is immediately presented with the gift shop, along with various pictures of people poising with bears and beavers (you can take a picture with the animals for 15-20 dollars). This is where you also pay for admission(ranging from 14-18 dollars, if I recall correctly). Going past that you enter a large room that houses the restaurant, with rooms off to the side for reptiles and small mammals. These two rooms are similar, housing animals that can be found in pet stores, in rather plain displays that could also been seen/bought from pet stores. It certainly drives in the family owned feel of the place. Overall, the building is nice, but some work could go into the initial "exhibits" to give the place a more professional feel. From the building to the first major exhibits is a fair walk, and placed between them are two enclosures, one for a pair of young rescued racoon's and the other for a reeve's muntjac (which was not in the enclosure) The racoon's were in an average chain link cage filled with branches and various enrichment. The muntjac is in a large circular pen (thing corn crib cage about 4 feet high and without a roof). This one is rather bland, with merely a small hut, a pallet shade-like structure and a small tree. These two cages one again serve to enforce the family owned feel of the place. They're not bad by any means, but not exceptional, either. Finally, we come up to the first major exhibits. It is a series of 6 very similar exhibits arranged in a circle housing a variety of carnivores. The first cage you come upon contains a pair of Cheetahs, some of the only in Western Canada. They are a temporary exhibit, and the owners of the animals are present in the enclosure with the animals throughout the day. The next two (going in a clockwise direction) contain a sibling pair of regular and melanistic Jaguars, and a pair of "Siberian" Tigers. Snuggled between the tigers and the next enclosure is a strangely placed small cage (think covered dog kennel) containing a plastic dog house, a water tub, and a single (as far as I could see) Red Eared Slider. The next enclosure contained a pair of black bears, and much to my surprise, one was a white individual! As it turns out, these two are on loan from Assiniboine Park Zoo, while the bears enclosure at their home zoo is under construction. They have been there since 2010. The next two contain black bears, I saw 1-2 bears in each, with one of the bears being a brown animal (a fact the zoo is quite proud about, they have all four colors of black bear, Black, White, Brown, and Black with white patch) As mentioned above, all the exhibits are very similar. Large chain link pens with a small winter/shift area at the back of the enclosure. The shift/winter pens are constructed out of retrofitted train car boxes (with the exception of the cheetah pen, which is a specifically constructed building) The main enclosures are flat, grassy things. In all six, there is a small hill in the center that also serves as large shady den. There are various logs and other small things strewn about to serve as enrichment of sorts. The bear enclosures also contain large dug out ponds, which seem to get frequent use. There is another small walk to the next major set of enclosures, and between these two are another series of smaller cages. One is similar to the racoon's and contains a single serval. The other is similar to the Muntjacs (but with solid fencing) and houses 3 North American Porcupines. There are two other exhibits, both somewhat unique from the others. One is a series of large-ish covered chain link cages for a small family of Snow Macaques. These are, adequate, I suppose, but hardly anything noteworthy. I didn't take any pictures of these, but think average family owned zoo monkey cage and that's what they look like. There was also a coin operated feeder (like those you commonly see for ducks/fish) filled with chex-mix to throw at the Macaques. The last of these enclosures, in my opinion the high point of the zoo, is a newer, sturdily constructed exhibit for European Red Squirrels. The zoo boasts these are the only European Red Squirrels in Canada, and as far as I can tell that is true, so I was rather excited to see them. This is also one of the best furnished exhibits at the zoo. With a large tree in the middle, and a series of rock work and branches and small dens on the ground, it certainly offers a fair degree of different things for the squirrels to do and is something one could imagine seeing in a CAZA registered institution. There are also several large nest boxes at the top of the exhibit, and if the zoos facebook page is anything to go by, they have regular breeding within their population of squirrels. I counted five at any one time, and there could have very well been other adults and possibly babies in the nest boxes. The next 12 enclosure are all very similar, so once again I shall spare the details of them until the end. They are situated so that there is a single path, with enclosures on either side and at the end. On one side, there are more bears. Mainly black bears, however there are two or three Grizzly Bears as well. Across from the bears, the herbivores of zoo live. From front to back there are: Bactrian Camels 4 Greater Rhea 2 female Ostrich Llamas White Tailed Deer Mule Deer (and rather unusually a pair of eagles both missing wings. Being in such a large enclosure made viewing the birds rather difficult, and there was very limited perching opportunities offered to the birds) Reindeer Elk At the end of this series of large paddocks is another large pen, containing a trio of grey wolves. As said above, all of these pens are very similarly adorned. Large, flat, and grassy. The majority have small hills in them, that hold dens or culverts or some other form of weather protection, as these pens do not have winter/off exhibit spaces like the initial carnivore pens. Most of them also have large dugout ponds, although the ones in the herbivore pens seemed to be empty and dry for the most part. A good way to summarise it would be "what they have in size they lack in terrain" or something similar to that. There is one last exhibit kind of out of the way (but closest to the serval) that contains a single american alligator. It was actually decent for the animal it house, being similar in size and construction to the muntjac cage, but with a reasonably sized (albeit half dried out) dug out pond and a large low den, and some rocks around the pond. Sadly the Alligator was not on display, however I suspect that is due to the fact is still gets rather cold at night here in Alberta, and there was no indoors (or any apparent heating, for the matter) in the cage. Overall, this was a pleasant little place to visit that took about 2 hours to completely go through, and although you can definitely tell it was family owned and operated, it was far better than many zoos of a similar "ilk" (I wouldn't classify it as a road side zoo, but not as a proper zoo either. Wildlife Park describes it well). Although its slogan "Alberta's Best Zoo" isn't entirely fitting (Both Calgary and Edmonton(especially with its refurbishment and new exhibits)) are quite a level above the DWP, it was certainly better than I was expecting and I would probably rank it as Alberta's 3rd or 4th best "zoo".
I've heard about this little zoo before (small in scope but situated on 90 acres of land) but I've never had the opportunity to read a full-length review of the establishment and so for that I'm very appreciative. I've always been under the impression that the exhibits at this zoo were all fairly rudimentary and your review summarizes that thought nicely. At one point there were plans to build a massive replica of Noah's Ark and have a restaurant inside the gigantic ship, but that idea fell by the wayside due to a lack of funding.
What are the 7 registered zoos in Alberta? After Calgary Zoo it is a very steep drop in quality. Calgary Zoo Edmonton's Valley Zoo Discovery Wildlife Park Sea Life Caverns (West Edmonton Mall) GuZoo Animal Farm (roadside atrocity) Reptile World (Drumheller) Are you including a facility like the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre, Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, John Jansen Nature Centre or Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary?
It's always a pleasure to offer a detailed review Honestly I'm glad the funding failed, a big Noah's Ark replica would be very tacky. The park is quite nice without something like that. As for the 7 zoos of Alberta, they are as follows: Alberta Birds of Prey Centre – Coaldale, Alberta Calgary Zoological Society–commonly called the Calgary Zoo–Calgary, Alberta Discovery Wildlife Park – Innisfail, Alberta Kneehill Animal Control and Rehabilitation Centre–commonly called Guzoo-Three Hills, Alberta Reptile World–Drumheller, Alberta Valley Zoo–Edmonton, Alberta West Edmonton Mall – Edmonton, Alberta Also I am classing them by whether they have Zoo Permits or not I've been to all of them except for the ABoPC and Guzoo (and I intend to visit Guzoo at some point this summer) I was at Calgary and DWP less than a week ago, and plan to head to the Valley Zoo this week (probably this monday), and I have been to the WEM aquarium recently as well. Its been a few years since I was last at Reptile World, however I know there has been very little from my last visit there. So give me a week or so, and I can give you a fairly good idea of how the different "zoos" in Alberta all rank up to each other
Two of those zoos are now closed to the public: Reptile World & GuZoo Animal Farm. That leaves the Province of Alberta with only 5 recognized zoos.
Well another year has passed, and the number of zoo's in Alberta still hovers at a mere five. At Discovery Wildlife Park, few things have changed since my initial review. They have a new pair of female rescue wolves that have replaced the Rhea's and are now some of the parks main program animals, doing frequent interaction programs with the public. One of their old trio of wolves has also passed away. Additionally, the Cheetahs have been replaced with a sibling pair of African Lions which the zoo was doing free contact interaction programs with the public for the first year of their lives, however the zoo now deems them to large for that (although they are still managed free contact). Additionally, the muntjac has passed away and is replaced by a Sulcata Tortoise. Other than that, everything is virtually the exact same from my review back in 2014.
For the very first time I visited this small zoo today and it did not take long to tour. Even with taking loads of photos and having my troop of 4 young kids dawdling along we managed to be finished within an hour and a half. There is a big push from staff to have a photo taken with a bear ($25), a beaver ($10) or reprints of the same photo for $6 each. Many of the exhibits look identical, almost to the point where I felt that I could have exchanged some of the animals and no one would have noticed. There really is nothing of note in this rather threadbare and nondescript facility other than the fact that outside of the main zoo building (with its handful of terrariums) there are only about 50 animals in the entire zoo. "Hyak_II" already provided an effective summary of the establishment. * One concern that I did have was in regards to the barrier for the Amur Tigers. There is an 11-foot fence (approximation) surrounding the exhibit with electric wire along the bottom and one strand of electric wire just below the top of the fence. However, there is not an overhang and the height of the barrier left me feeling a tad uneasy, especially with two tables that the tigers could leap onto and gain traction to clear the top of their exhibit. Probably unlikely...but privately-run zoos without fencing overhangs for their large carnivores always worry me.
Kind of for the bear, and no for the beaver. For the bear photo, it is essentially free contact with the bear. You are separated from the bear by a few strands of hotwire, and that is it. You come to the perimeter of the exhibit, but do not actually enter it. For the beaver, you simply kneel beside it/have it placed on your lap sitting on a stump in a public photo area. Both the beavers are currently housed off show, I believe.
"Hyak_II" summarized it well, although here are a few images that will also give a sense of what occurs. The proximity of bear to visitor is very close indeed! https://www.google.ca/search?q=disc...ved=0ahUKEwjKh7vmmJHOAhWs7oMKHXADBMsQ_AUIBigB
Wow, that is very close, I looked up the beaver too, that would be an interesting experience also, and rather less scary.
Discovery Wildlife park is in a bit of hot water. They claim it was done for a conservation message but I cannot figure out what message was intended. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ry-queen-alberta-drive-thru-berkley-1.4494087
The bear in a car eating ice cream from a chain restaurant drive-through window looks like an ill-conceived corporate tie-in run amok!
DWP is now charged: Alberta zoo charged over video of bear eating ice cream at Dairy Queen | CBC News
That’s a new first I’ve ever seen. The article states that the zoos permit has been revised to forcing the zoo to how have guests have physical contact with carnivores, providing more details on where their animals were received and are going, and that they essentially can’t put animals on display outside zoo grounds.
2022 News: On April 21st, the zoo announced that a (0.1) domestic yak was born. She was later named Boop. 登录 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3129449894050409 On April 27th, the zoo announced that their (0.1) Amur tiger named Sheera passed away at age 20. 登录 Facebook On April 29th, the zoo announced that (2.0) timber wolves named Thor and Loki were born. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=481678720419208 On October 11th, the zoo announced that (2.1) American black bears named Buster, Barney, and Honey passed away. 登录 Facebook
On July 12th, 2023, the zoo announced that they acquired a (1.0) North American porcupine named Velcro after its mom was hit by a car. Discovery Wildlife Park was live. | By Discovery Wildlife Park | Facebook On August 17th, the zoo announced that a (1.0) cougar named Koorah was born on July 18th INTRODUCING KOORAH, VELCROS NEW... - Discovery Wildlife Park Discovery Wildlife Park was live. | By Discovery Wildlife Park | Facebook On September 18th, the zoo announced that a (0.0.1) elk (species not specified) named Autumn was born and is now on exhibit. We are looking for Alfalfa grass... - Discovery Wildlife Park
