Arty bug

As promised I did manage to get back into some more painting... I decided to brave some canvas work, and so painted a couple of gifts for birthday presents. The recipients were thankfully very pleased! It's getting a little addictive now. The two lions are from personal photos of lions in zoos/reserves, sadly not from WHF this time, but I intend to continue painting some of the cats from there soon. 

 

 

 

Lioness (acrylic on canvas)

 

Lion (acrylic on canvas)

Sad news

A bit of sad news from WHF. 

"It is with the deepest regret that we announce that on 19th July Padmini our Bengal tiger passed away. Over the last week her general condition gradually deteriorated and on 19th July in collaboration with both of our vets we reached the decision it was in her best interests to put her to sleep.

Padmini was 21 years of age and a great ambassador for WHF & PWP, and will be sadly missed. We have waited to announce the sad news so that all staff and adopters of Pads could be contacted by WHF first. Thank you for your support.

Thank you Jackie T for the lovely picture, there will be an album created for Pads on our FB page after the weekend."

 

Padmini taken by Jackie T.

Padmini was loved by so many. Since the announcement on Facebook only 24hours ago there have already been well over a hundred messages of condolence, for which we are all grateful.

 She will be missed by us all.

Busy times

Stall holder artist Robbie Graham

The Family Days have finally been and gone - four days of complete mayhem! We spent most of last week frantically preparing the site and getting everything ship-shape for the thousands of people soon to descend on us. This meant more painting, carting woodchip from one side of the site to the other to re-do stand-offs and dreaded marquees (Not the most enticing jobs when its 30 degrees outside! The variety of stall-holders made the heat worthwhile at least. Some amazing photographers and artists and noteable charities all involved.

Main shop in the big marquee

We had to kit out 3 shop outlets across the site, which involved carting cuddly toys, key-rings, bags and other such gift items across the site. This was a task that somehow took all day, but by the end of the day the shops were looking pretty good and full to the brim with stuff to buy. The heat inside the marquees was overwhelming, and I have no idea how the guys manning them would survive over the coming 4 days - but somehow they did! 

Jack the jungle cat

The Family Days themselves were a lot of fun. We all had our roles on the days - I was in charge of the area around pumas and jungle cat, so spent the night before frantically researching all I could about jungle cats. Unfortunately I didn't really get to put my new found knowledge to use as Jack our jungle cat spent most of the day in bed and avoided all visitors - typical. The days themselves were packed - we had around 2500 people on each of the four days, not including staff, volunteers, and stall holders and of course the roaming mascots: a bear and tiger costume character which all the cats found a little bit too interesting. 

All the money raised is going to the upkeep of the centre and the cats, so it was important to have a successful, popular day, and I think we did rather well. So a big thank you goes out to everyone that came and helped to make it a success. 

Open day visitors watching the lions (photo WHF facebook)

 

New arrival!

It's been pretty hectic the last week or so at WHF, mainly preparing for the imminent open days - painting stand off fences, weeding etc amongst the usual hustle and bustle of daily life at the site. I've been away for two weeks (returning last Saturday) and came back to some exciting news... the new snow leopard was due to arrive the following week!

Yarko's arrival

This snow leopard has been a bit of a mystery cat. He was due to arrive in January 2013 - it's now June 2013. He's a little bit late bless him. Laila, our resident female, has been awaiting his arrival and slowly becoming more reclusive in the meantime so his arrival was much anticipated. Since I've been at WHF it's very much been "he's coming but who knows when!", so hearing this news was very exciting. 

Unloading to the den

So on Wednesday we were all waiting and hoping, getting regular updates throughout the day and finally heard that he'd been cleared through Heathrow Airport and was on his way! After much waiting he finally arrived at WHF at around 7pm to a small crowd of people able to stay and help unload him. He was quite active in his crate, obviously keen to get out after his long journey from Russia. After some rearranging of the crate to the den door he finally emerged into his new home. 

First day outside

Safely arrived in his new home

His name is Yarko, he's 2 years old and amazingly handsome (for a snow leopard). He'll now be in quarantine for 4months, but in the meantime he'll be getting used to his new home (inside and out) and the other residents on site - especially the two hooligan Sumatran tiger boys opposite. He was out today for the first time in a rather precarious position underneath a platform for most of the day watching the world go by. It has to be quite a shock to be in the Kent countryside after living in Russia, but hopefully he'll settle in quickly and get to meet Laila in a few months time!  

Yarko's arrival takes us back up to 57 cats with the departure of Little Khan the Pallas Cat (to Cotswold) a few weeks ago

Streak for tigers

WHF is lucky to have a huge bunch of people willing to do crazy things to raise money for conservation and big cats. The latest is raising money through a ZSL (Zoological Society of London) organised event: "Streak for Tigers". 300 brave (or crazy) people will be running around London Zoo in nothing but a pair of tiger ears to raise money for Sumatran Tiger conservation. The 300 people will represent the estimated 300 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and what an amazing (daring) way to raise awareness and money for such a great appeal. 

Mike and Andy have already entered and are getting some practice in to raise awareness before the big day. You can read more about their challenge and support them here.  As the money total increases more "preview" photos will be uploaded on the site, so they can get a little more courage for the big day. We shall all be cheering them on, although perhaps not on the side lines doing so!

Touring

One of the most popular experiences offered by WHF is the "Big Cat Experience," a two hour personal tour of the site followed by the chance to hand feed one of the cats. It is park policy for volunteers to shadow several of these tours with a keeper prior to let loose on the general public ourselves. These were hugely enjoyable to follow and going around with lots of different people gives a huge variety of information and styles that I found largely interesting and educational.

Now two months into my internship at WHF I officially completed my first solo tour last week, and have now been doing them regularly throughout the week. The enthusiasm of the visitors makes the tours a pretty relaxed affair, and the cats usually behave themselves and come to see me/them. I'm not so keen on the obligatory "tour guide photo" that a lot of people seem to want but I guess that's all part of the experience!

I love being able to have the chance to tell people all about the cats at WHF and I feel I know enough about them now to give an entertaining and information tour. It's always nice to spend a few hours just watching the cats and seeing the delight on people's faces as we do so, especially when it's one of the little known species they've never heard of before.

I'm really looking forward to meeting more people and doing more of these tours, especially if I find the elusive cheetah lover who wants to desperately hand feed Mia or Murphy.

Tamair saying "HI!"

Incoming open day!

The dates for the WHF Open Days were finally announced last week. As WHF isn't open to the general public in the traditional zoo sense, we instead open the doors once a year for a few days over the Summer. I've never been to one before, let alone work it! So it should be an interesting experience. 

It was quite a success last year with over 7500 people turning up on one day! Needless to say this was not expected and the roads around the site were overwhelmed with tailbacks of 10miles or so (not the best for country lanes). As a result this years event will be a pre-booked over four days this year. Thursday July 18th - Sunday 21st. Tickets are on sale via the WHF website here.

It's bound to be a great day out, and one I highly recommend. It's only £10 (suggested donation) with all the money going towards building the cats a better, more comfortable life at WHF and a lot going towards conservation charities. If the cats weren't enough there will be fun activities like face painting for the kids (and young at heart), arts and craft stalls and much more!

I'll be there on Saturday 20th, and possibly some of the other days (work dependent), so hopefully see lots of people there :)