Living on a lake amidst thousands of acres of forest allows so many different species of wildlife to call my property home. In the summer, I can take my morning coffee out on the deck and watch the wildlife for a couple of hours. Free entertainment!
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We have so many different animals, birds, reptiles and fish up here - Elk, whitetail deer, cougar, brown and black bear, fox, fishers, beaver, otter, wolves, lynx, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks, weasels, porcupines, badgers, bald eagles, hawks, blue heron, loons, pileated woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, robins, owls, bats, snakes, musky, walleye, bass, northern pike, crappie, bluegill, sunfish, perch...
My wildlife buddies
My favorite is a wild wolf that comes to visit me and allows me to walk right up to him. He seems to be the alpha of the pack and at night you can hear the pack howling across the lake.
My other visitors...
RED FOX THAT CROSSES MY PROPERTY IN THE EARLY MORNING TO HUNT.
PRETTY SURE IT'S A MALE AS I NEVER SEE ANY KITS WITH IT. HE'LL STOP WHEN I TALK TO
HIM BUT WON'T COME UP TO ME LIKE THE WOLF DOES.
This is my red squirrel, Sassy Pants on the right. The other squirrel was a newbie that showed up for feeding time. Sassy didn't take too kindly to sharing his sunflower seeds and the 2 of them got into it big time. I told them "You 2 knock if off or I'll take your seeds away and neither of you will get any!" I snapped this pic right after saying that...love the expression on the newbie's face! Can almost hear him saying "It's YOUR fault, YOU started it!"
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The 2 of them did quit fighting though. My family calls me the "Squirrel Whisperer" because I can tell the squirrels to do something and they'll do it. They're very intelligent.
Sassy Pants is a Mensa squirrel. He'd show up BEFORE the other squirrels did, he'd take peanuts and hide them on the outside of the deck rails where the other squirrels wouldn't see them.
He'd eat with the rest of the squirrels and when they left, he'd go gather up the peanuts he'd hoarded and stashed behind the deck rails. He'd cram 4 of them in his mouth, run off and bury them, come back for 4 more, run off and bury them...
One day I had a dentist appointment and they use conscious sedation on me. I was still pretty looped when I got home so crashed on the couch. Somehow Sassy got into the house and I woke up to him sitting on my chest, scolding me for being late for feeding time.
Told my dentist's surgical assistant about this and she assumed they'd over sedated me and I'd hallucinated the whole thing - until my sister told her "No, she really does have a squirrel named Sassy Pants and he really did this!"
​If you're an animal lover there's plenty to interest you in my area.
I got my love of bears from working at Weber's in Sayner, helping Mrs. Weber feed and care for the baby bear cubs - namely the cub triplets Peter, Paul and Mary. Peter developed a bond with me for some reason....we'd always have to pry him off of me to put him back in their playpen and he'd be bawling his head off. LOL
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Male bear cubs are crybabies, they bawl constantly unless they have a bottle in their mouth. The female cubs don't bawl.
Peter was eventually sold to a CA zoo and many years later when my husband and I traveled to CA I stopped at that zoo to see Peter. Would you believe that bear still recognized me after all those years?!! Of course, he'd grown quite a bit since I'd cared for him - probably weighing in at close to 500 pounds.
​Yes, Gentle Ben as well as the bear on the TV show, Grizzly Adams were both raised at Weber's.
Karen sold the wildlife park but there's still a wall in the pub showing the whole history of their wildlife park and raising bears.
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WILDWOOD WILDLIFE PARK
We also have a fantastic wildlife park in Minocqua called Wildwood Wildlife Park. It's home to over 1700 animals and kids love the place. There's a petting zoo, you can feed some of the animals and birds, there's a safari tram, a kiddie train, adventure paddle boats, a Koi/Trout pond, educational center and gift shop.
What's great about Wildwood is that some non dangerous animals roam free while the 'caged' more dangerous animals don't LOOK like they're in typical zoo cages. They use Suncatcher cages.
The park is extremely clean and the animals very well cared for.
Check out their Facebook page for lots of photos and videos!
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NORTHWOODS WILDLIFE CENTER
Northwoods Wildlife Center is a rehab facility for our sick, injured and/or orphaned wildlife.
Phone: (715) 356-7400
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Northwoods Wildlife Center provides the wildlife of the Northwoods with rescue, rehabilitation, and release services, covering roughly 25% of the state. As one of the most established wildlife rehabilitation centers in Northern Wisconsin, they admit 600-700 animals a year in need of medical treatment and care.
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Their wildlife rehabilitators are licensed through the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to provide professional care for over 100 species of Wisconsin wildlife. As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, they receive no government funding. All funding is provided through their members, sponsorships, and generous donations made by the public.
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I was really impressed with the Center. Interns and staff take so much care in not imprinting with the animals so that they can successfully be released back into the wild whenever possible.
Call ahead to arrange a tour...you'll find the center really interesting!
The Center is located across from Trig's grocery store, right off Hwy. 70 on Blumenstein Rd. in Minocqua. You can clearly see it to the left if you're at the stoplight on Hwy. 70.
Loon Rescue
If you live in the Northwoods, it's inevitable that you'll eventually get involved with some of the wildlife up here. Back when I owned my resort on Big Arb lake, we had a loon get trapped in the ice.
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If you're not familiar with loons, here you go...
Loons have a language all their own consisting of several different sounds, the most common being the wail and yodel. There's no mistaking the sound of a loon.
So at any rate, a loon gets trapped in the ice on our lake. Now loons are made for water and not so much for flying. They need the length of a football field to take off and get airborne. That winter it was -30 degreesF and the lake was freezing fast. If we didn't get the loon out, it would die.
I called the DNR (Damn Near Russian, Do Nothing Right as we call them) and told them we had a trapped loon. Their advice? "Just shoot it." Nope, not gonna happen on my watch.
So I recruited a group of 6 neighbors as well as my friends, Dave and Jacquie who were licensed bird rehabilitators. It took us a day just to get all the equipment needed together - flat bottom jon boat, rope, pet carrier to put the loon in, musky net, etc. And enough hot coffee to keep us from turning into human Popsicles. In the meantime, that hole was closing fast.
Capturing a loon is not for the faint of heart, especially in -30 degree weather. The loon does not want to be caught, being too dumb to realize it's going to die if it remains trapped. They can and will dive and can stay submerged for up to 5 minutes at a time and they will do this if they see a musky net headed in their direction. So basically Dave and Greg ended up chasing this diving loon around the hole for 2 full days while the rest of us waited on shore, freezing our bazoobies off.
(Those of us on shore passed the time making bets as to whether or not this loon was male or female, we women insisting only a male would be dumb enough to hang around fishing long enough to get itself trapped to begin with. We won the bet, it was a male...)
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The temperature dropped even further that night, closing the hole even more. If we didn't get the loon that day it would be a goner. Luckily, the hole closing gave it less room to escape in.
Dave netted the loon and using the rope we'd attached to the jon boat, we pulled Dave, Greg and the loon very quickly back to shore. The reason we had to move quickly is that loons are very easily traumatized and can actually die of shock in the span of 30 minutes or less.
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In the meantime, they have razor sharp beaks and will attack by going straight for your eyes.
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Dave gave the bird a quick exam to make sure nothing was injured and he and Jacquie rushed it back to their bird rehabilitation center.
On the third day of the rescue, TV crews had begun showing up and the story was aired in both Wisconsin and Illinois. Yes, I managed to get the fact the DNR had told me "Just shoot it" aired on TV. I wasn't about to let them off easy after they themselves passed the following:
"In 1972, Wisconsin passed a state endangered species law. Under the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the state created rules and regulations and identified which species to protect. Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973 with a purpose "to conserve the ecosystem upon which endangered and threatened species depend." The law incorporates the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 and the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969."
Loons are a non game bird and therefore, protected. Violators can be fined up to $5000, imprisoned for 9 months or both.
Our loon was able to be released back into the wild that spring when the lakes thawed.