Wildwood Discovery Park Wildwood news

A small piece on the Wildwood website, talking about a number of sightings of wild weasels on the park grounds recently, does mention that the last captive least weasel in the park (a hand-reared male called Smeagol) died last year.

More information can be found in the link below:
Wild weasel at Wildwood
 
Some updates from Wildwood's May newsletter:

- The large transformation of the top end of the park (containing the Konik horse, boar and bison enclosures) continues; the Konik horse paddock redevelopment has neared completion
- Three red-billed chough have hatched; the hope is that these chicks will be part of the future reintroduction to Kent
- The beaver area has been expanded and upgraded, with three new beavers (one male and two females) arriving to join the single female currently at the park
- One domestic reindeer and five Soay sheep have been born at the park

Wildwood Newsletter - May 2020

- Two Konik horses and three Soay sheep have also been transferred from Wildwood Kent to the sister site in Devon, where they will be used in a wetland conservation project

Ancient Breeds Return to the Devon Landscape | Wildwood Devon
 
Wildwood have recently announced that they have partnered with the Vincent Wildlife Trust and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust to try and reintroduce the European wildcat to suitable sites in England and Wales.

Durrell and VWT have already undertaken a scientific feasibility study to identify suitable areas (three areas were identified - two in Wales and one in southwest England) and will be carrying out more in-depth ecological and social feasibility studies to find out which areas are most suitable. Wildwood will be responsible for breeding the new wildcats; the plan is that later this year, a national appeal will be launched to raise funds for the breeding enclosures.

More information can be found in this link below:
New Partnership to Restore Native Wildcats to Britain

For interest's sake, I am including here the findings of the scientific feasibility study done by Durrell and VWT:
https://www.vwt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/WildcatFeasibilityReportFeb2020FinalCompressed.pdf
 
A couple of bits of news from Wildwood:

- A litter of four (two male, two female) hazel dormice has been born at the park. The young will be released into the wild next year. The father of this litter was a new founder male for the breeding programme, being a rescued animal from Suffolk. More information is included in the link below:
Dormice pups bring new hope for the species in the UK

- It has been announced that, due to successful fundraising, the two orphaned European brown bear cubs currently being kept in a Belgian rescue centre will arrive later this August. They will live at the Canterbury Wildwood site until their enclosure is finished, at Wildwood Escot in Devon, in 2021. More information can be found in this link:
Wildwood Kent prepares for a ‘beary’ special arrival
 
DesertRhino150 said:
A couple of bits of news from Wildwood:

- A litter of four (two male, two female) hazel dormice has been born at the park. The young will be released into the wild next year. The father of this litter was a new founder male for the breeding programme, being a rescued animal from Suffolk. More information is included in the link below:
Dormice pups bring new hope for the species in the UK

- It has been announced that, due to successful fundraising, the two orphaned European brown bear cubs currently being kept in a Belgian rescue centre will arrive later this August. They will live at the Canterbury Wildwood site until their enclosure is finished, at Wildwood Escot in Devon, in 2021. More information can be found in this link:
Wildwood Kent prepares for a ‘beary’ special arrival
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Good news for those little bears :)
 
On 14th September, a fire broke out in the off-show red squirrel breeding area in which two enclosures were badly damaged. One of the animals was able to be rescued and moved to the red squirrel walkthrough enclosure but unfortunately the second squirrel died.

More information in the two links below:
Wildwood Trust Fire

Tragic loss of a Red Squirrel
 
We had a trip to Wildwood last week to see the new young bears before they head off to their new home. Lovely day and biggest bit of news was that we saw lots of filming going on - about the bears but also at various other enclosures too. Presenter was Paul O'Grady. I'll pop a few photos of the filming in the gallery.
 
Zia said:
We had a trip to Wildwood last week to see the new young bears before they head off to their new home. Lovely day and biggest bit of news was that we saw lots of filming going on - about the bears but also at various other enclosures too. Presenter was Paul O'Grady. I'll pop a few photos of the filming in the gallery.
Click to expand...

Oh wow that's brilliant news, thanks for sharing! I always enjoy Paul's animal programmes and this should be a nice bit of exposure for Wildwood. Looking forward to seeing the results already!
 
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Following on from the above news, Wildwood will feature on Paul O'Grady's Great British Escape this Wednesday, 9th December on ITV 1 at 8:30pm. Looking forward to it!
 
A couple of bits of news that have been shared on Wildwood's Facebook page recently:

- The two younger brown bear cubs 'Mish' and 'Lucy' will be moving to their new home at Wildwood Escot in Devon some time in May (exact date to be confirmed)
- The two white storks have recently laid eggs
- A species that I have not seen mentioned here that is also not included either on Zootierliste or the official Wildwood website is a booted eagle (named Soloman) that is a participant in the bird of prey display.
 
I have just seen this news article about the plans for the wildcat breeding centre at Wildwood as part of a planned English reintroduction project.

There will be ten breeding enclosures split up between the two Wildwood parks in Kent and Devon. While a release will be several years away, breeding will begin as soon as the enclosures are completed. Kittens born before a release site is agreed will be transferred to Scotland to become part of the reintroduction project there.

The job of finding a suitable release site is being carried out by the University of Exeter, who are also researching the challenges a wildcat reintroduction may face.

The news article is included here:
Wildcats could return to England after 200 years
 
Wildwood have announced that their pair of white storks have successfully hatched five chicks. The birds are first-time parents and this is also the first time that Wildwood have bred this species.

Information comes from the Wildwood Facebook page.
 
Just had a look at zootierliste and realised it is quite out of date for the Park, here's a list of things that need updating that I know of and can talk about:

listed under current holdings but not currently held:
Common Mallard
Common pheasant ssp. colchicus
European Beaver-temporary situation, plans to reacquire the species
European Common Frog
European Green Lizard (Lacerta viridis)- this may be an error, and should maybe be bilineata?
European Magpie
European treefrog
European Turtle Dove- plans to reacquire the species
Four-lined Snake
Great White Egret
Grey Heron
Marsh Frog
Northern Shoveler
Pied Avocet
Red-crested Pochard
Reeves's Muntjac
Stoat
West African Pygmy Goat
Western Jackdaw
Western Sand Lizard

Currently held, but listed under former, or not listed:
American Mink
Barnacle Goose
Common Kestrel
Domestic Chicken- several breeds, unfortunately I don't know the specifics
Domestic Rabbit- again, I don't know the specifics of breeds
Eurasian Wigeon
European Ocellated Lizard
European Pond Turtle
Leopard Snake
Little Egret
Little Owl
Mandarin Duck
Polecat-Ferret
Rook
Russian Ratsnake
Short-eared Owl
Viperine Snake

There are several other off-display herps that I'm not sure if I can talk about, so I'll leave them off for now. Some exciting development plans coming up too!
 
Director Whitfield also alludes to difficulties due to Brexit from bringing in animals from the Continent. He mentions a figure of 1,000 and then quips only 57 transfers the next year....
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Director Whitfield also alludes to difficulties due to Brexit from bringing in animals from the Continent. He mentions a figure of 1,000 and then quips only 57 transfers the next year....
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Don't really understand your comment. 1000 what? Animal transfers? What zoo brought in that massive number of animals?

I'm no Brexit fan, but I do think the global pandemic over the last two years may have been a massive factor in the drop off in numbers!
 
GaryA said:
Don't really understand your comment. 1000 what? Animal transfers? What zoo brought in that massive number of animals?

I'm no Brexit fan, but I do think the global pandemic over the last two years may have been a massive factor in the drop off in numbers!
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1,000 transfers 2020, 57 2021 EU UK totals. It is actually mentioned by him in the feature article if you care to read it all.

We had CoVid in 2020 as well so that one does not hold water as an explanation.
 
Apologies, I didn't see the link in the post you were responding to.

I have no doubt that if we can't get basics on the shelves of Tesco, we can't transfer live animals over a short stretch of sea.
 
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