About this holiday
Few people have ever seen a wolf in the wild in Canada’s Ontario province, even though there are several packs within Algonquin Provincial Park. They’re naturally shy animals – they can smell humans six kilometres away and keep well clear.
However, you will be able to watch them at the Haliburton Wolf Research Centre. The wolves at the centre lead a semi-wild existence within a 15 acre natural enclosure. They have minimal contact with people so their pack behaviour is typical of wild wolves – and you’ll see them through one-way glass so they’re unaware they’re being watched. The centre is entirely funded by visitor fees and is within a 70,000 acre sustainably managed hardwood forest.
How you can help
DO visit the Haliburton Wolf Research Centre – money raised helps fund their wildlife conservation work and raise awareness of the need to protect these amazing animals – haliburtonforest.com
DO support for a ban on the hunting of grey/timber wolves. Hunting is outlawed in 48 US States but allowed in Alaska, in Canada, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe – wolf.org
DO Howl in Algonquin – it helps rangers count wolves – algonquinpark.on.ca
About this holiday
Few people have ever seen a wolf in the wild in Canada’s Ontario province, even though there are several packs within Algonquin Provincial Park. They’re naturally shy animals – they can smell humans six kilometres away and keep well clear.
However, you will be able to watch them at the Haliburton Wolf Research Centre. The wolves at the centre lead a semi-wild existence within a 15 acre natural enclosure. They have minimal contact with people so their pack behaviour is typical of wild wolves – and you’ll see them through one-way glass so they’re unaware they’re being watched. The centre is entirely funded by visitor fees and is within a 70,000 acre sustainably managed hardwood forest.
How you can help
DO visit the Haliburton Wolf Research Centre – money raised helps fund their wildlife conservation work and raise awareness of the need to protect these amazing animals – haliburtonforest.com
DO support for a ban on the hunting of grey/timber wolves. Hunting is outlawed in 48 US States but allowed in Alaska, in Canada, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe – wolf.org
DO Howl in Algonquin – it helps rangers count wolves – algonquinpark.on.ca
Algonquin Provincial Park
But to really get a feel for these animals, you need to visit Haliburton’s big neighbour Algonquin and start to howl.The sound of the wild wolves echoes back from deep within the maple forest inside Algonquin Provincial Park. A second wolf joins in the chorus, baying from a distant peak. This is the cry of the timber wolf, the sound of packs calling to one another across Ontario’s largest wilderness. Kevin Costner danced with wolves, today visitors come here to sing.
Howling is the only contact most people will ever have with wild packs, even though there are now about about 9,000 wolves in Ontario and 50,000 across Canada.
People have been howling with wolves in Algonquin since the ‘fifties when rangers discovered the animals would respond to the human voice. Now howling has become one of the ways scientists track packs through this dense forest that sprawls 7,725 square kilometres. Algonquin naturalists take visitors howling in the park during summer – yet this is not the best time to howl. Wolves are at their most vocal and boisterous during winter when the weather suits their thick pelts and humans – mostly – stay away.
