Boy the year just flew by!! February hit us with some bad snow and ice storms and we had to close for a while for safety but we made it through and were soon back up and running. As the world is getting back to being a little more normal, business is picking up again. The tours are filling up with visitors. Timber wolf River is 14yrs old this year and had to have some dental work done. Wolves in the wild dont live to 14 so for his first dental work that is pretty good. Spring came and the wolves had a great time on Easter, we hard boiled 5 dozen Easter eggs and they got their Easter treat during one of the tours. We were soon under a sever drought this year and were very concerned about forest fires. Luckily with fire bans in place at the state park next to us all went well. But with the heat the wolves were uncomfortable, even though we built ponds in tehir encosures we added larger 50 gallon water tubls for them to get into and cool off. We even bought Kiddy pools and put them in the fox and bobcat/lynx encpsure. The cats loved them and were often seen playing in the water. On the down side with the drough it brough ou the rattle snakes looking for water. Sadly in August everyone was fine in the evenong at feeding time, but in the morning 5yr old Cyrus did nit come for the tour. I seached the encosure for him and found him passes. we were devastated! we took him to the vet for a necropsey and a snake bite was found on his muzzle right next to a nerve bundle and artery. We put out a post on socail media and the response was overwhelming. the sorty went viral and was picked up by many online news organizations and tv stations. Our great followers on socail media responded to a requst for help in obtaining snake repellent to put around the enclosures to try and help prevent this from happening again. We have enough to last a whole year and will try it out this spring. We worked with a local brewery Czig Meisters for a fundraiser at their facility and we had some great news coverage by Nj.com and channel 12 news with stories on the preserve. The wolves enjoyed their fall treat on pumpkin day and the visitors all got the see the wolves playing with and eating their pumpkins. Fall clean up has begun and with the influx of invasive bugs killing the trees we have a big task of tree cutting. We have already taken doen about 20 trees with about another 50 to go. But the more serious ones threatening the fence are under control. Sadly the hunting of wolves in the united states continues after theri delisting. We have joined a coailition relistwolves.org and have joined the fight to educate and protect the wolves on a national level. They are doing great work and we ask all the visitors and followers to check them out. The Chrismas rush is here and new to our webstore is a limited edition print done by our friend Jeff Echevarria of Cyrus, now avail in the store.
