Experiencing a Northwest Trek Virtual Field Trip   You could almost touch the anticipation. Twenty first-graders from Tacoma’s Roosevelt Elementary waved excitedly to the face on the big screen in the front of their room – and as teacher Kaylin Gasparach toggled with the screen windows, the face waved back. It was Wendi Mello, keeper at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, and as the class gasped, the owl on her arm slowly turned its head and blinked. Mello – and the owl – were taking the class on a raptor adventure full of science, learning and animals – a Northwest Trek …

The look on Tymbre Green’s face was irreplaceable. As she stared out into the wet green woods of the Northwest Trek gray wolf habitat, two wolves loped up and nosed around a fallen log. With swift precision, one snapped up something in her jaws and began to munch. It was a pumpkin – one that Tymbre herself had just hidden in the log with a keeper, while the wolves were safely behind the scenes. Even more impressive? It was a pumpkin that one of Tymbre’s classmates – now third-graders at the local Weyerhaeuser Elementary School in Eatonville – had planted …

When you’re nine months old – and a grizzly bear – the world is a pretty exciting place. It was 10am on his first day out in public, and Hawthorne the grizzly cub was having a wonderful adventure – every ten seconds. First he sniffed around his habitat a little, checking out what was new this morning. He nosed logs, flipped over a small branch, then picked it up and shook it. Then he galloped a complete lap of the space, backside jiggling, and ran right up his favorite perch – a log cantilevered over the small pool. “He can …

Hawthorne prefers fruit and meat. Huckleberry loves lettuce and butternut squash. But when you’re caring for two growing 125-pound grizzly cubs, the biggest challenge is just keeping them fed. Play, eat, repeat “They play hard and eat a lot,” says Angela Gibson, carnivore keeper, who’s been looking after the cubs nearly full-time since they arrived in August, along with fellow keeper Haley Withers. The cubs eat first thing in the morning, last thing at night and a midday snack – but they also forage during their outside public times on lettuce and fruit that Gibson hides around their habitat in …

Who could resist a buff-colored grizzly bear cub named Huckleberry? Or a chocolate-colored “brother” bear named Hawthorne? They’re the names chosen for our energetic, engaging cubs, who are ready to make their public debut on Thursday, Sept. 20. The two will be out in their forested habitat – one at a time – beginning at 9:30 a.m. Look for Hawthorne from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and Huckleberry from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. daily in their newly renovated – and cub-proofed – exhibit space. A bit of patience might be needed, though: The active, playful cubs run hard and …

We welcomed a second orphaned grizzly bear cub to Northwest Trek Wildlife Park over the weekend. He arrived from Montana, where he was rescued on the Blackfeet Nation lands after his mother was legally killed. She had been attacking pigs on a farm, wildlife officials said.   Staff at Montana Wild, where he was cared for since the end of June, estimate him to be a yearling cub, born in the winter of 2017.   He joins a 6-month-old cub from Alaska in our recently renovated grizzly bear habitat. That cub flew in last week from Anchorage. He was rescued …

Bison grunt and snort. A caribou calf nurses noisily, its mother calmly munching on grass. The sweet scents of the meadow mingle with more earthy smells as herds of animals pass by. And Northwest Trek Wildlife Park guests are amazingly in the middle of the action, getting closer to the animals of the Free-Roaming Area than ever before aboard a specially equipped Jeep. They’re on a brand new Keeper Adventure Tour. This intimate experience, which takes wildlife park guests on the paved roads rarely traveled, on gravel tracks and occasionally even off-road, opens to the public on Thursday, July 26. …

Just a few weeks ago, they were orphaned near Ellensburg. Their mother was killed by a car. And the two young badgers were being fed by a kindly landowner who worked to keep the foundlings alive until rescuers from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife could arrive. Today, badger sisters Poppy and Lavender, named for flowering Northwest plants, are at home in a new habitat at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. “They likely could not have survived in the wild and were in need of care and feeding when they were rescued,” Northwest Trek Zoological Curator Marc Heinzman said. “We …

It’s baby animal season here at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. The first two bison calves of the season were born a few days ago, a perfectly timed entrance with Mother’s Day just around the corner. Animal caretakers at the wildlife park near Eatonville expect more calves among herds of American bison, Roosevelt Elk, woodland caribou, and Columbian black-tailed deer in the next few weeks, and one lamb is already getting nurture from its bighorn sheep mother on one of the wildlife park’s hillsides. Spring and early summer are traditionally a great time to visit the wildlife park, take a narrated …

There’s a new cat in town at Northwest Trek. Nuka, a young Canada lynx who recently arrived at the wildlife park, has just made her public debut and will move on and off exhibit as she settles into her new home here. She’s also playful – and a delight to care for, say Northwest Trek staff. “She’s so spunky,” said keeper Haley Withers, who helps care for Nuka. “When she knows we’re there, she runs over. And she loves birds – stalking them, chasing them.” She also likes stalking keepers, said fellow keeper Angela Gibson. “She hides behind things and …