Wolf Sanctuary Visit Sunday 20th March
Situated on the border of Shropshire and Powys counties is a Wolf sanctuary run by one of the members of Region 13.
We were very fortunate to be invited by the sanctuary owner, Tony Haighway, to visit on Sunday 20th March. Due to the limited parking space and the constraints of not too many visitors at any one time, we were restricted to a maximum number of 16 visitors.
As expected, there were more applicants than spaces for this rather unusual event and unfortunately names had to be drawn out of a hat with more than a few members being disappointed.
We arrived at the sanctuary in convoy and were given a brief presentation by Tony, accompanied by light refreshments including homemade scones. Tony explained that the sanctuary had come about as the result of a hobby that had got out of hand. Whilst the sanctuary was first set up in Warwickshire near Atherstone, it had moved to Shropshire some 20 years ago in order to acquire a more expansive site. The sanctuary currently occupies approximately 90 acres of ground, partly wooded and partly open but nestling in a steep sided valley. The wolves are contained in large fenced paddocks with anything from 1 to 20 acres to roam in freely.
After refreshments and a presentation on how the sanctuary had started and now offers visits for university students, schools and natural history film crews to visit, Tony gave a guided tour of the site explaining all aspects of site management, how the sanctuary has developed with ponds being created to encourage additional wild life to the area and even tracking badger sets using ferrets with radio collars fitted. On one area of the sanctuary there is a small herd of deer which help to keep the grazing in check.
In the first enclosure we were introduced to two wolves which, whilst they were used to human visitors, they would not come close enough to be touched or fed from the hand but we were able to enter the enclosure in small groups and get a close up view.
We then moved on to another enclosure where there were 2 Black Canadian wolves, brother and sister of 17 years. These had come to the sanctuary as virtual new borns and had been hand reared. They had even slept with Tony in a sleeping bag to keep them warm at night for the first few weeks of their lives. We all entered this enclosure and were given a handful of small dog biscuit food, which these wolves came up and ate, very gently from our hands. It was fascinating to see the look on the members’ faces as they enjoyed this intimate moment with an animal that has a serious reputation in the wild.
I think we could all have stayed for considerably longer feeding, stroking and discussing the animals and everything about them with Tony, but we had also included Sunday lunch into the itinerary at a local hostelry and it was time to move on. Further discussion took place with Tony over lunch.
Tony is obviously very passionate about his work with the wolves and has spent time in America working with similar sanctuaries and has welcomed celebrities such as Virginia McKenna (Born Free Foundation) to his site here in Shropshire. We are extremely grateful to him for offering our region this once in a lifetime opportunity to 16 of our members and maybe those who were unlucky on this occasion will get the opportunity to also visit the sanctuary possibly in the future.