Wildwood is celebrating a generous donation of £21,000 towards a new wetland wildlife discovery centre at the park. The funds have been donated by the W.G. Harvey Discretionary Trust, a charitable trust dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to animals and the preservation of wild animal and bird life. The donation will help the Wildwood Trust create a new area at the park which will be centred around a new otter enclosure, with a water shrew enclosure, water vole viewing area and simple aquariums for British aquatic creatures. Also Work has begun on a new aviary (next to the fallow deer). The new enclosure will feature a range of British birdlife.
The new Ken West aviary is now open and looking at the photo tagged here, it looks pretty good to me, first new arrivals for the aviary are groups of redshank, little egret and night heron Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More Another fairly new arrival is a female European brown hare rarely seen in captivity in this country. The red squirrel have recently bred too.
I was confused by that. I thought they'd be moving their existing otters to the new enclosure but obviously not
A new nocturnal house has opened at Wildwood, housing species including wood mice, hedgehogs and edible and hazel dormice. Wildwood Trust
Yesterday evening (September 10th), the first of two European elk were released into two new woodland enclosures. I'm guessing these could have come from Alladale.
According to Facebook, another new species arrived recently in the form of a mother and daughter pair of reindeer.
Wildwood are looking to rescue a pair of European brown bears from a canned hunting breeding facility in Bulgaria. They are looking for £50,000 to make the first part of the enclosure, with the second phase being to keep the bears mixed with the park's pack of Eurasian wolves. http://www.wildwoodtrust.org/bearappeal.html News report (and several other videos related to the bear appeal) on the park's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB0miCCoWqQ&list=UUqwJ2ORXiEAKesoyCi4fitw&index=1
They are hoping to establish a "rescue centre for Brown Bears" in co-operation with the bear charity "Alertis", there were 14 bears in the abandoned pits in Bulgaria, but four bears have since moved to two other zoos in Europe. The pits are derelict and dangerous not to mention awful conditions for bears to live in. They are of a similar style to those awful bear enclosures at Limburgse , if anyone can remember those.
Here is a video about the plans for the bears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfZyOvvkejc&list=UUqwJ2ORXiEAKesoyCi4fitw
The two brown bears arrived from Bulgaria last Wednesday, and are in an off-show area for four months of quarantine while their main enclosure is finished. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRn3jds-j4s&feature=youtu.be
The bears seem to be doing really well. They're far more comfortable around people than I expected but they haven't been introduced to each other properly yet. Their main enclosure is coming along. They'll be a raised walkway (mostly built and looking good) going through (apparently the view is stunning) and the bears will have a pond and a waterfall.
Been watching a video conference by Wildwood and one thing mentioned a couple of times (around ten minutes in) is that there are plans for there to be several Wildwoods, including one in Scotland, in a similar vein to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. The video conference can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9nFa0RGuMA&feature=youtu.be
Just seen some pictures from Wildwood Trust that appears to confirm the arrival of at least one arctic fox - judging by the enclosure in the picture I guess it is still off-show. The gallery these pictures are included in is here: https://www.facebook.com/StudentEnv...530460852614/1025529877519339/?type=3&theater
