"And God took a handful of Northern Wind, blew his breath over it and created Wolf.'
This wolf's name is "Spirit". I photographed her a few years back when we visited the Big Bear Alpine Zoo. This is the story of their rescue. I saw my photos again and thought this beautiful animal deserved to be on my blog again.
The facility had a breeding permit for the wolves for many years. Every year, our one female wolf Wakiza (who passed in 2014) went through a false pregnancy but in 2009, when we checked her during what we assumed was another false pregnancy, we felt movement! On April 9th, 2009, our 9 year old female Wakiza had 9 wolf pups by cesarean section. It was just too hard for her to deliver them naturally at her age. She was really out of it for two days, and wolves have to bond with their offspring within the first 24 hours or they do not recognize them as their pups. Zoo staff had to hand raise the 9 wolf pups from day one, an extremely exhausting process, but an experience they would not have wanted to miss despite the very long tiring hours. All nine wolf pups survived, and now all of our wolves are fixed. We did have to separate two of the female pups because they were getting too aggressive with the other wolf pups, so they now have their own enclosure. The other seven pups share another enclosure. Females Pups born 4-9-2009: Logan, Noelle, Bayou, Spirit Males born 4-9-2009: Blair, Legend (deceased) Lucien, Sedona (deceased), Truck
The Zoo owners have been in the process of building a new and bigger area to move the Zoo and I'm hoping it's done sometime next year. We will get an annual pass again and enjoy a visit every time we go up to Big Bear - which is a couple times a month. Alpine Zoo is a place where rescued animals can be rehabilitated and sent back into the wild or a forever home if for any reason they can't be released - after being too imprinted by humans at a young age. I always thought if we were to move to Big Bear I would love to volunteer at the zoo.
