Wild Wonders is home to one hundred and thirty unique animals all with their own backgrounds. You will soon discover is that no two animals are alike.
At Wild Wonders we love working with and training our animals! Every day, after the hard work is done, we spend time playing with the whole zoo! For example, one of our long-term volunteers Becky loves to train our serval, Siri. In this video, Becky convinces Siri to play and exercise! If you have a pet cat at home, you know how hard it can be to get your cat to exercise, especially in the summer! But Becky has a great relationship with Siri, and convinced her to move around and play…at least a little!
If you want to meet Siri or any of our animal at Wild Wonders, feel free to contact us! You can come to us for tours or camps, or we’ll come to your school, library, event, or even birthday party! Or if you want your wild experience to be a little longer, check out our volunteer and intern programs!
If you have a cat at home, you’re probably familiar with the affinity cats have toward boxes. If there is any sort of box laying around, or maybe even just one slab or cardboard, the cat will find a way to sit in or on it no matter what size it is. Why this is, I am not sure, but some theories suggest that the boxes provide a bit of a hiding place from which the cats can watch and ambush prey or simply provide a bit of insulation and warmth from the colder ground. Whatever the reason, they definitely enjoy boxes and seem to be quite comfortable in them, and guess what? Big cats like them too!
We give our servals, lynxes, and bobcat boxes for behavioral enrichment and they all seem to enjoy it. Check out Siri napping in her box:
To mix it up and make the boxes even more interesting for the cats, we will also put some different scents on them. It is important to keep a bit of variety in enrichment or else the animals will become so used to a stimulus that they will be bored by it. The whole point of enrichment is to engage an animal’s mind and encourage natural behavior. Although Siri is sleeping in this picture, she and the other cats, enjoy playing (and simply sitting) in the boxes as well. Today she also enjoyed playing from the inside of a bag with one of her trainers and a volunteer.
Some days our animals are very active and we are running around in order to keep them entertained. Today is not one of those days. Maybe they are taking a vacation for once because when I walked around the facility no one seemed to want to play or do anything that required a lot of movement. Meadow is usually up for some play time but even she was all about the relaxation. Once I realized that Meadow wasn’t up for anything highly active I tried Siri. Siri seemed to be on the same vacation as Meadow however and all I got out of her was a pose before she went back to sleep in her house. I guess it is clear that animals have days off just like people and they are just as stubborn about doing nothing on those days as we are. Though they seemed to be inactive, they certainly are still cute as ever. Who knew laziness could be so glamorous.
Meadow, our Grey Fox.
Siri, our Serval
Here at the facility a few of our animals are celebrating their first birthday.
Last summer we were luckily enough to get some new arrivals; a Serval, an Arctic Fox and a Gray Fox. Siri, Sitka and Meadow have made Zoofari/Wild Wonders even better with their fresh faces and vivacious personalities. Since they first arrived they stole our hearts with their timid nature and little paws.
Now, they have fully moved into their new home and have gotten used to having us around. Each day they surprise us with how remarkable they are and we look forward to celebrating with them many birthdays to come.
Here are some reminders of how different they looked when they first arrived.
Baby Siri
Baby Meadow and Sitka
A year later…
Meadow
Sitka
