COMFORT IN THE COLD
As forestry farm buckles down for hibernation, it’s looking ahead to big changes during next decade
For most animals in the province, Saskatchewan’s sub-zero winters usually mean hunkering down and hibernating. It’s not quite so simple for some creatures at the Saskatoon Forestry Farm.
The Forestry Farm remains open year-round for visitors — and it’s free of charge in the winter months. While some of the animals might be fast asleep, others are wide-awake.
“A lot of the time, the animals are a lot more active in the cold,” park manager Tim Sinclair-smith said. “In the more heated months, things like the cougars will go into the back areas to ... cool down.”
The “winterization” process at the forestry farm has to take place for the care of certain animals as temperatures nosedive.
Winter work at the park is a fairly labour-intensive process, Sinclair-smith said, because all of the tasks the park workers would normally complete now have to be done in frigid temperatures.
Walking through the thin layer of snow up to the elk pen with a visitor, he said jobs like feeding and watering the animals that stay outside — and less savoury tasks, like picking up their droppings — have to happen regardless of the amount of snow on the ground.
“In the summer it’s quite easy,” he said. “The difference is you’ve got that climate impacting you ... and you have to work through that.”
Many of the exhibits, from the elk to swift foxes to the fenced-in dugout for the prairie dogs, are open-air enclosures.
It’s one of the reasons most of the animals living in those pens are native to Saskatchewan or Canadian wilderness areas, and that the forestry farm doesn’t have a lot of “exotic” animals.
Some go into hibernation for the winter. The two grizzly bears, Koda and Mistaya, have already gone to sleep for the cold months — there’s even a live stream on the City of Saskatoon’s website where people can watch them snooze.
According to Sinclair-smith, the bears are started on a specially prepared diet to ensure they are fed and comfortable leading up to hibernation.
Most of the animals that wouldn’t survive outside in the winter, like the meerkats, don’t normally live outside, so adding some insulation and keeping the heat running is enough to maintain their health.
Sinclair-smith also noted an alarm is connected to the temperature controls in most enclosures, so employees can respond quickly to a loss of heat or power.
Since Sinclair-smith took over as manager in 2016, he has pushed for the park to take a more active role as an animal conservatory and not just a place for animals to be displayed. One of the considerations that’s gone into that process is having fewer animals that would be out of place in a cold climate.
“It depends on the species,” he said. “That’s one of the joys of most of our animals being the native species ... they’re adapted to this climate, so there’s less preparation that you have to do.
“For example, our goats might be OK up to minus 30 ... but once you start getting any colder than that, we have to start looking at some type of housing for them to get a reprieve from the cold.”
This is a time of exciting transitions for Sinclair-smith and the forestry farm.
The City of Saskatoon made the new Park and Zoo Master Plan available to the public at the end of November.
The two options differ in terms of parking and infrastructure, but the major projects Sinclair-smith is spearheading remain the same.
Some of the biggest additions he hopes to make include bigger outdoor areas for animals that can host safari-style trips for visitors, and a giant “beehive” building where the public can observe bees and get honey straight from the source.
The 10-year plan is just getting to its feet, and not much more can be done until the spring.
The overall goal is to turn the forestry farm into a world-class facility as a zoo and a research conservation centre, so Sinclair-smith is looking past the Saskatchewan winter to what’s coming next.
“We are making more of a move to a sanctuary facility than a display facility,” he said. “If we’re creating large, natural habitats ... we don’t have to lock (animals) away in the winter.”