Days of Wolves

Elisabeth Bittermann (intern)

04.09.2018

Early in the morning on my way from the WSC office house to the test-house, when I pass the pot-bellied pigs, they are still lying under the archway of their enclosure, tenderly snoozing. It is wonderfully quiet, wolf Wamblee lies curled up in the grass, a bit further above Geronimo and Yukon are standing at the fence to take a glance at the appearing person. These early morning hours are simply beautiful, not only because it is still quite cool, because at the end of July and the beginning of August, heat and dryness bothered human beings, as well as animals and nature, but also because there lies a nearly contemplative silence above the WSC. Although no one would say, that I’m a morning person, this atmosphere is worth getting up early!

Days pass by fast here at the WSC, no matter if you are part of the trainers’ team or a student on a scientific internship or a non-scientific internship like me. Once you are assigned for enclosure cleaning, another time you get some food out of the cooling house or you cut sausage or meat for the enrichment, small pieces of food that gets spread in the enclosures. So that dogs and wolves don’t miss out on fun either!

Part of my work is also guiding tours. Before I could start as a tour guide, I listened to several tours of some experienced tour guides and studied the tour guidelines very well. When I did my first tour, I was extremely nervous and really afraid of losing my thread or not being able to answer visitors’ questions properly. But I had good luck, and the tour-group consisted of people in good mood, they were interested and really friendly as most of our visitors are. Meanwhile guiding tours is one of my favourite tasks and I will be at the WSC’s disposal as a tour guide also in the future.

The last days of my internship will for sure pass fast, but I’m looking forward to coming back and seeing the human and animal members of the WSC-team again!