Howling With Wolves
In the foothills near Malaga there’s an animal park where you can have an unusual experience
BY HEIDI FULLER-LOVE
The air is fragrant with the odours of burning charcoal and barbecued meat, which mingle oddly with the hot, dog whiff given off by a pack of timber wolves pacing in the pen opposite. As the fiery sun slips behind the horizon and the moon peeks down on us from behind a laundry line of clouds, Daniel Weigend tosses away his battered cowboy hat and howls. Baring glittering fangs, the hungry wolves howl in reply. I huddle closer to the group of thrill-hungry tourists who, like me, have driven up from Malaga this evening to experience one of Lobo Park’s unique “Howl Nights”, beginning at sunset with an all-you-can-eat barbecue, followed by a torchlight guided tour of the park and culminating at midnight when Daniel enters the wolves’ den.
Passionate about the conservation of Canis lupus (wolves), Daniel quit a highly paid advertising job in Frankfurt and, with partner Alexandra Stieber, moved to Spain seven years ago to create Lobo Park (www.lobopark.com).
About an hour’s drive from Malaga and set on 40 hectares, the park’s aim is to provide an environment where timber, polar, Iberian and
Alaska wolves can live “almost as they would in the wild”. The wolves certainly seem convinced, because it was here that the first Spanish polar pup was born in 2005.
”Opening the park was a long-held dream of mine,” says Daniel over the barbecue supper. “I’d spent years working part-time for the German army, training dogs to seek drugs and bombs, but I wanted to work with an animal that was really untamed.”
Swallowing a last spicy slice of chorizo, he grabs a flaming torch and leads us out along a path meandering through olive groves for an hour-long tour of the park.
En route he tells us he is proud to be bringing the wolf back to a country in which the numbers have been vastly depleted thanks to centuries of legalised wolf hunting. “By the time hunting was finally banned in the late 70s, there were only about 400 left,” he says.
Each wolf pen at Lobo Park is huge, leaving the wolves free to roam in plenty of space. “That’s why I remove each cub from the pack just after it’s born and raise it by hand for several months, otherwise they’d just hide and our visitors wouldn’t see them. But we don’t domesticate them – they fight their own battles and decide their own pecking order, just as they would out in the wild,” Daniel explains.
As if to illustrate his point, a group of polar wolves break from the trees and romp together, their silver fur glittering gold in the moonlight.
Stopping next to the pen of the timber wolves, Daniel unbolts the massive gate and slips inside. Instantly, five of the fanged and shaggy beasts fall on him with boisterous nips. Spotlit by the full moon and surrounded by jostling wolves, Daniel – who seems completely relaxed – tells us that what he is doing is actually very dangerous.
“When we are playing together they give me tender kisses, but in a split second they can become incredibly aggressive. The alpha male [leader] of the Russian wolves has attacked me more than 200 times,” he says.
We watch, gobsmacked, as he rough and tumbles with the lithe beasts. After a final shaggy bear hug from the pack leader, Daniel leaves the pen. “You must never outstay your welcome and you must never try and dominate them,” he explains, “It’s a relationship based on respect.”
In a world where wildlife is largely limited to pictures on our TV screens, it’s a rare privilege to be here at Lobo Park watching these superb beasts roaming free and howling at the night.
ALL THINGS WOLF
ADOPT A WOLF
Help wolves in Spain and Portugal by adopting a wolf from the Grupo Lobo (www.lobo.fc.ul.pt), an independent, non-profit making trust which has been working to save wolves in the two countries since 1985.
SAVE A WOLF
A protected species in most European countries, wolves are still hunted for sport in many countries, including Russia, central Bohemia and Norway. Join other Canis lupus lovers and sign a petition to get hunting banned. Go to www.thepetitionsite.com and search for anti wolf-hunting.
SEE WOLVES IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT
Barcelona-based wildlife organisation, Galanthus (www.asgalanthus.org) organises wolf-watching trips leaving from Barcelona to visit the Sierra de la Culebra mountains near Zamora where more than a hundred wolves roam wild. During the four-day trip to this 65,000 hectare park on the Portuguese border participants learn to track wolves and other local wildlife.
GOING TO THE DOGS
Daniel runs much-acclaimed management seminars where he encourages business executives to observe the wolf pack in order to learn more about group dynamics.
“Wolves have the most evolved system of organisation in the animal kingdom,” he says. “Every animal has its place in the clan and each clan is governed by an alpha couple that maintains strict discipline. Wolves work together to catch their prey and I use them as examples to teach intelligent and efficient teamwork to help people find their place in their company, because organisations tend to function like a wolfpack. In the dog-eat-dog world of business, I think the wolf has a lot to teach the top players.”
For more information, log on to www.lobo.park.com
