Wildwood Trust: The joy of wolves - tragic suicide story told

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The joy of wolves

In a shocking story, BBC panorama documents the tragic suicide of a young woman from Kent.

24-year-old Callie Lewis from Kent was an intelligent and promising young woman, but she suffered from autism, and struggled with mental health problems and thoughts of suicide.

Story is told by BBC Panorama on Monday February 10th.

Callie was passionate about Wildlife, particularly grey wolves, and she would spend hours studying them at the Kent Wildlife Park 'Wildwood Trust'.
Those close to her believe, that it was one of the only places where she felt at ease, free from her inner turmoil.

Wolves, much like dogs, are amazing at picking up body language and emotions and it is not unlikely, that Callie's sensitive nature awoke their curiosity.

Key to happiness

While Callie's story ended in tragedy, nature could potentially help thousands of people. Being in nature has massive positive effects on mental health and happiness.
Studies are showing that spending time in nature creates a significant increase in people's health, happiness and connection to nature.
It can also help create better self-esteem in children.

In Scotland doctors have, since October 2018, been authorised to prescribe nature to patients and in Japan so called 'Forest bathing' has been practiced for years.

Being in nature and moving around in it benefits your heart, lungs, and the whole musculoskeletal system, with positive effects on many lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cancer and obesity. Science also shows both blood pressure and the immune system improving after regularly exposure to nature.

There is a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that close experiences with nature lowers feelings of anxiety and depression. Many scientists believe that feeling connected to nature and feeling part of a greater ecosystem, is essential to life quality in all humans and is nothing less than a key to happiness.

Wildwood Trust Director General Paul Whitfield said:

"We feel deeply sorry for the family and for their loss of a bright young mind. We are comforted by the fact that Wildwood Trust had such a positive impact on Callie and that it gave her moments of peace and happiness. Nature has an innate ability to heal humans.

Wolves and dogs have a deep connection with humans – our ancestor probably hunted with them over the last 100,000 years, we evolved together with a deep connection that both affected the wolf's development and our own.

Many people grieve for our lost wildlife, an inner sorrow that understands the importance of nature for ourselves and our future. Without natural areas our future could be very bleak. Rewilding our land and seeing the wolf's return could help future generations tackle global climate change, provide clean water and protect us from pollution, floods and the loss of fertile soils to feed ourselves.

You can see in the eyes of children a deep love and fascination with nature and our mission at Wildwood is to rekindle our wild spirit and show all our visitors how we can rewild Britain and rewild ourselves.

Scientific sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180706102842.htm
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaax0903
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190521193735.htm

CONTACT

Wildwood Trust: +44(0)1227 712 111

Julie Luna Bayer: julie@wildwoodtrust.org or 01227 209618 or 07453 497086

Peter Smith: peter@wildwoodtrust.org or 07986 828229

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ABOUT WILDWOOD

Wildwood Trust opened in 1999 as a centre of excellence for the conservation of British wildlife, and was established as a registered charity in 2002.
Wildwood is Kent's best British wildlife park. Home to over 200 native animals, past and present and set in 40 acres of beautiful ancient woodland where visitors can see bears, wolves, bison, deer, owls, foxes, red squirrels, wild boar, lynx, wild horses, badgers and beavers plus many more.

As one of the leading British animal conservation charities in the UK, Wildwood Trust is dedicated to saving Britain's most threatened wildlife. Wildwood Trust have taken part in many ground-breaking conservation programmes to date, which include, saving the water vole, using wild horses to help restore Kent's most precious nature reserves, bringing the extinct European beaver back to Britain and returning the hazel dormouse & red squirrel to areas where they have been made extinct.