November 10, 2001 ~ Face to Face with Wolves
It was clear and warm this afternoon. Morgan and I volunteered at the
Nature Center (where Li is doing an internship) today, taking pictures
of some of the animals. A volunteer vest gives one clearance to stray
from the path and come right up to the animals, a fact I was happy to
take advantage of.
The otters, of course, were little show-offs. Frisky, here, perked up as soon as we headed over:
Before we knew it, he was running circles about the little rock island,
stretching out to sniff at us. He would run up onto the tip of this
log, stand on his hind legs, sniffing at us expectantly, do a graceful
dive off of the end, run a circle around the island, and come back and
do it all over again:
Frisky was such a hyper, friendly, eager little guy. I felt bad, not
giving him a treat (that was the intended result of his fiascoes, I'm
sure). As soon as a crowd gathered, he didn't quite know what to do
with himself. That little ball of energy shot around from side to side,
greeting everyone in turns, standing and "begging" to each group of
people.
We continued on to the fox pen,
which was sadly quite tiny for the one lonely fox. He was stoic,
reserved, and cautiously curious from a distance:
The raccoons, however, were incredibly friendly. I had a hard time
taking a picture, of them, actually, because they kept coming right up
to the fence:
Li went up and one of them kept giving her kisses through the fence. I
didn't get a picture of it, but, I assure you, it was adorable.
Then came a skunk, some red wolves (who were laying low), and then the grey wolves:
There were three of them. The alpha female is in the back, you can't
really see her, behind the male, and the one in front is the other
female. Here is a close up of the sleepy alpha female:
Wolves are Morgan's most loved animal (we have pictures of wolves all
about our room), so we spent quite a while watching them run about. The
male had his hackles raised, and he kept pacing back and forth from a
little distance off:
The other female turned out to be the most curious of the bunch. She came right down next to the edge of the enclosure:
At one point I was standing right next to the fence and she was only
about a foot away, sniffing at me, very curious. If there weren't a
fence between us, I could have reached out and petted her (not that
that would have been a particularly good idea... She is a wolf, after all):
They are such majestic creatures. I have never seen wolves in the wild.
I've seen coyotes, grizzly bears, cougars, and the like, back in
Oregon, and black bears here, but I've never seen wolves. I've only
heard them from afar, or seen them in captivity. The pen also takes
away some of the thrill of running into them by surprise. It's somewhat
melancholy to see such an intelligent creature in a pen, no matter how
large that pen may be.
Next was the cougars, and then the bobcats:
And then the birds of prey. The owl had only one eye, and the eagles
each had something wrong with a wing. Most of the birds at the Nature
Center are rehabilitating from bad accidents, so they are often
obviously injured in one way or another. Most of their cages were too
dark to get a good picture, but here's the hawk:
The black bear was a sleepy lump at the far end of his pen.
Sometimes, volunteering feels like cheating. I'm getting more out of it
than the people I am volunteering for are. Shh! Don't tell...
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