Wolves get new home at Winnipeg zoo

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This article was published 14/06/2018 (2861 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pack of grey wolves has been so popular with visitors to the Assiniboine Park Zoo it has been awarded a new home.

Gambit, the alpha male of the pack (also known as timber wolves), along with males Slate, Bear and Jack, and female Onyx, moved into their new enclosure earlier this week in the Winnipeg zoo’s boreal forest section.

Johanna Soto, the zoo’s curator, said the wolves had been living in part of the Journey to Churchill exhibit since summer 2014, after arriving from a facility in Ontario.

“They were so popular, we wanted to design a habitat for them,” Soto said Thursday, during a media sneak peek of the new facility. It opens to the public Saturday.

“It was done for them. We wanted to use the natural landscape over here… Tuesday, we brought them here and they were very curious. They walked the perimeter several times.”

The half-acre habitat features mature trees, a hill, pool and waterfall, and heated rocks for the animals to lie on during winter and cool weather.

“There is also a heated rock (outside the enclosure) for visitors to try, so they can feel what it is like,” Soto said.

There will not be, however, any pups produced by the pack.

“Three of them are closely related and the four males are neutered,” Soto said. “We won’t be breeding these wolves.”

The zoo area previously occupied by the wolves will be taken over by the polar bears.

Archie Pronger, Assiniboine Park Conservancy head of facilities and capital projects, said the wolf facility was budgeted at $2.5 million, including the open fenced-in area, a building enclosure, and roofed area with large glass windows for visitors to view the animals.

“The rocks are meant to mimic a rock outcropping in nature where the sun warms it up,” he said. “The enclosure allowed the wolves to be up high or low and visitors can see them almost everywhere they happen to be.

“They’re just so amazing — you can’t help but want to give them a really great space.”

The exhibit will open to the public for the first time Saturday, with the zoo offering a Father’s Day special of 25 per cent off the regular admission fee for dads on Saturday and Sunday.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca