We also welcome five lambs to our Soay sheep gang. They're doing well and bouncing around. We can't wait for you to seem them all gambolling!
Newsletter May 2020
11th May 2020
Normally at this time of year, we would be welcoming thousands of visitors to the park and sharing our wonderful British species with you all. The coronavirus has forced the closures of both of our Kent and Devon parks, but we’re still working hard behind the scenes caring for the animals and pushing on with our conservation projects.
Welcome to our May newsletter for a round-up of the past month at Wildwood, and don’t forget that you can keep in touch with us on a daily basis by following our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
We’re hopeful to be able to open in the not too distant future and are already planning how best to do this for the safety of our visitors, staff and animals. We’ll keep you updated and will see you soon! Keep safe!
Thank you for your ongoing support
These are unprecedented times for the country and for Wildwood. Our gates have been closed to the public since March to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
Without ticket sales, which are a huge part of our income, we rely on memberships and donations to keep Wildwood going and help us to continue in our mission to protect and conserve British wildlife.
We want to thank the wonderful people who have already donated and to the members who are continuing to contribute to Wildwood.
Top Forest Development
Wildwood Kent is continuing to transform a large area of our Kent wildlife park, in particular the area containing our boar, bison and Konik horses. This transformation will enhance the standards of our conservation work and improve the park’s woodland habitats with hundreds of native species being planted to regenerate the area and replace dead/non-native trees.
We're proud to announce the near completion of our Konik horse enclosure which includes a new stable area and fencing. We can't wait for you all to see it when we re-open!
Thank you Lewis!
A huge thank you to Wildwood fundraiser, Lewis Mcauley-Jones who has just climbed and descended the equivalent height of Mount Everest using his home stairs.
In ‘normal’ conditions, the ascent of Mount Everest takes approximately 2 months. Lewis managed to climb and descend the equivalent height in just 1 week! He also managed to raise over £1,500 for Wildwood...what an achievement! Thank you Lewis.
Thank you Noah!
7-year old Noah is no ordinary guy. He wanted to make sure he is doing his part to keep the animals at his favourite wildlife park safe during lockdown.
A huge animal lover, Noah decided to do a virtual walk to Wildwood Kent in support of the park. Starting on May 1st, Noah walked every day, until he reached 24 miles, the same distance of his usual car journey to see the animals.
Noah wanted to raise £100 for Wildwood, but instead has managed to smash his target by raising £846 so far. Thank you so much Noah!
Supporting Wildwood
Everyone at Wildwood would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who have donated already and to everyone who continues to support us with your memberships and adoptions, or even by simply liking and sharing our posts on social media. For those of you that would still like to help, but are unsure how, please check out some of the many different ways you can do this:
Donate your commute for those of you working from home, join online as a member, adopt an animal, get the kids to have fun during lockdown dressing up or creating their own masks with the Wildwood Animal Kids Challenge. You could do anything you want to take part in the #TwoPointSixChallenge, but don’t forget to let us know if you take part, we’d love to support you along the way and to get the chance to say thank you too.
If you don’t want to take part in an existing challenge, why not organise your own? Create your own online fundraising page on Facebook or Just Giving, this will make it quicker and easier for you to share the details of your event and to collect donations online.
Whichever way you are supporting us right now, thank you, it means so much and we couldn't keep doing what we do, without your support!
Adorable new reindeer
Welcome to Holly the reindeer's new calf, born at the start of the month. Both mother and calf are doing very well and we're hoping to find out the gender of calf soon before we name our beautiful new addition to the herd.
Spring lambs
Red-billed chough chicks
Beaver news
In addition to our beaver enclosure area being expanded and upgraded, we have three new beavers, all with a clean bill of health, at Wildwood Kent joining Bertha, our existing beaver.
Stefanie, a rescued female is in the new enclosure and is already felling trees. We have a young male beaver called Wally in our conservation yard, and another rescued female called Bonnie, currently in quarantine.
We'll be filming them being industrious over the coming weeks and will be posting on our social media pages. We're excited to open so that you can see them for yourselves!
Wolf cub birthday
It seems like only yesterday that Odin and Nuna became first-time parents to Maximus, Minimus, Augustus and Tiberius.
It is in fact two years since our 'cubs' were born and they are now officially classed as adults.
Happy birthday boys!!