US : Florida preserve brings wolves, people together

Owners of Seacrest Wolf Preserve in northern Florida have been raising their wolves to become accustomed to humans – and for a $25 fee, visitors can mingle with a pack.

Cynthia and Wayne Watkins’ preserve is billed as the largest such facility in the Southeast.

It lets wolves become ambassadors for their species, they say, and helps people become advocates for wolves.

‘We offer one of the rarest opportunities in the world for humans to see wolves up close and personal,’ Cynthia told The Associated Press (AP).

But some experts are debating how close is too close, writes Nature World News.

‘They are still unpredictable because they are wild animals,’ Dave Mech, a senior research assistant with the US Geological Survey who has spent decades studying wolves, said in a statement.

‘Wolves are not like dogs. Dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years and that unpredictability and wildness is taken out of them because of the breeding.’

The AP reports that in 2012 a worker was attacked and killed by a pack of wolves at a wildlife park in Sweden, writes Nature World News.

Wolves also were responsible for killing a Canadian biologist at the Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Preserve in 1996.

While experts believe that this kind of close contact isn’t safe for humans, Seacrest has taken some precautionary measures.

The facility requires visitors to watch an educational video before they interact with the wolves, they have trained wolf handlers on hand during every tour and children under age six are not allowed to take the tour, Cynthia said.

‘We are not some little roadside zoo,’ she told the AP.

Agencies/Canadajournal