Wildwood Trust: July Newsletter

Newsletter - July 2017

Welcome to the July edition of our monthly newsletter. We have our line-up for the summer holidays, some new animals and are upgrading one of our enclosures.

If you wish to know more about any of our stories or The Wildwood Trust in general, then please feel free to email us at info@wildwoodtrust.org

Thanks for reading and for your continued support. We'll see you again in August!

Summer at Wildwood

Looking for the perfect family day out this summer? Put a smile on everyone's face with a trip to Wildwood. We've added the exciting new Pine Marten Towers to the play park with climbing walls, rope bridges and slides PLUS we have our usual selection of great British animals in our 40 acre woodland and plenty of activities to keep everyone entertained throughout the summer holidays!

Find out more

Wolves out for summer...

Phase 1 of our monumental upgrade to the wolf enclosure has finished and our two young wolves, Nuna and Odin, have been exploring their new extension.

With a dedicated wolf keeper team behind the scenes and the new huge enclosure to be completed later this year, it is hoped that romance will soon blossom between the pair and we will soon hear the pitter patter of tiny paws...and the start of Wildwood's exciting new wolf pack.

Pine Marten Towers

Our Pine Marten Towers opened recently and the combination of rope bridges, slides and climbing walls is going down a storm with our young visitors.

As well as playing, the kiddies get the chance to learn about this magnificant animal with engaging facts and information on the towers.

New otters

It's been a long time coming after a deluge of paperwork, but our new otters are finally in their enclosure at the Wildwood otter pond. They're getting used to their new surroundings and should be out and playing in the pond soon.

For now, it's enough for us to see them sleeping in their holt!

New baby boar

This month saw the arrival of some adorable hoglets to the park. The boy and girl took no time at all to settle in, and are already rooting around doing boar things!

They absolutely beautiful and very inquisitive.

Poppy the red fox

We have a new red fox to join Ellie. The young scamp has finished her quarantine period and is already bonding with the much older Ellie. Welcome to Poppy!

Water vole release

After the successful release of 47 water voles back to Tilbury, a second water vole release was completed at the end of June. The 20 water voles that were bred in captivity from wild stock, went out to Sawbridgeworth Marsh, Essex wildlife trust conservation reserve. The release day went well, and all the voles had left the soft release pens within 2 weeks.

BIAZA Awards

We are celebrating!! Wildwood has won 4 prestigious national BIAZA Awards. One was a Gold Award, one was Silver and two Bronze! This builds upon our success in 2016 of three Bronze awards. Congratulations to our Education and Research teams who are already putting new initiatives in place for next year, when we'll be aiming even higher.

BIAZA conference

Two conservation staff members and a previous conservation placement student from UWE presented work that had been conducted by Wildwood Trust or in collaboration with the UKC Biosciences department. Wildwood was well represented alongside the larger BIAZA members with a poster on a unique strain of Blastocysts that have only been found in the grounds of Wildwood, a poster on Eurasian water shrew habitat preference, and a presentation on improving welfare for breeding Harvest mice in captivity.

Rewilding Britain

Rewilding aims to restore natural ecosystems using keystone species in a way that benefits wildlife and people. Can rewilding really be win-win for wildlife and landowners? What are the practical, political and economic risks? How can it be planned and implemented to maximise the benefits? These questions and more will be tackled during a one day conference jointly hosted by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology - DICE and Wildwood Trust.

If you have an interest in seeing animals like the lynx, pine marten and wolf in the British countryside or have reservations about their reintroduction, then join us and a host of expert speakers at the University of Kent on Tuesday 12th September, 2017.

Find out more

Harvest mouse anniversary

This year marks the 250th anniversary since the discovery of the Harvest mouse in the UK . Events to celebrate the occasion will be happening later in the year and we will be promoting the Kent Harvest mouse survey and celebrating the hard work all the volunteers have put into building a better picture of the distribution of Harvest mice across Kent.

Desmond

We just wanted to post a picture of his antlers. He's looking particularly majestic at the moment!

Wild birds

Nesting up in the bison shed, we spotted this red-listed spotted flycatcher. There have also been sighting of a lesser-spotted woodpecker and a whole menagerie of wild birds! Come down and see what you can spot in our woodland.

Thank to our volunteers

Thank you to Kent County Council's 'Planning and enforcement team' who volunteered at Wildwood this month. They worked really hard to weed the Wallaby Walk Through, painted the inside of the new Pine Marten Towers, weeded an area by the bear enclosure and painted/tidied up the Bat Flight Centre.

Another big thanks to West Kent Housing Association who came in to use our education room for a conference and then stayed to help us build a new bug hotel. It might be the best bug hotel that we've ever had at Wildwood!