Out & About January 2017

Walking with WOLVES

If you want to try something new, then why not visit the Wolf Conservation Trust. Sarah Bosley met up with Tsa Palmer, who, along with her late husband Roger, set up the trust, which is not only home to 10 wolves, but also funds conservation projects worldwide and runs education sessions and open days at the trust’s headquarters, in Beenham

Roger knew that the key was getting them young and bottle-feeding them. “You have a window of around two to three months where you can socialise them and they won’t have picked up the fear of humans from their parents. “Tame is not a word I would use to describe the wolves, because they are not tame animals, but they are wonderful.”

was a good location,” she explains. “We had six acres and the wolves lived right by the house at first. “My three children were brought up with the wolves. They were always in the house when they were being hand-raised.” Despite Tsa and Roger’s family welcoming the wolves into their lives, some locals initially had misgivings. In the ensuing years, however, the family and the wolves have cemented themselves into the heart and soul of the village and the people who live there. Beenham Primary School now proudly displays a wolf on its logo and Tsa says she doesn’t think the howling bothers people too much. The first time some locals were aware of the wolves was when they set off on a trek to uncover what was responsible for the bright lights in the surrounding countryside one night. “The BBC were filming with the wolves at night behind our house and people, in Bradfield Southend in particular, saw the lights and thought it was UFOs,” says Tsa.

The couple acquired more wolves to keep as pets in the early days of their marriage and they were used in a number of films and TV shows, including An American Werewolf in London . “The wolves really enjoyed it,” says Tsa. “They really surprised me how well they soaked up everything that was being asked of them. You never expect them to actually jump out of a well when they [the film crew] want them to, but they did.” In the summer of 1983 the family, including the wolves, all moved to Beenham and, with the “reasonable amount of money” that was paid for the wolves’ starring roles, Tsa says they were able to build them a bigger and better enclosure. “When we moved, we were looking for somewhere without close neighbours, so this

W hen she was introduced to a three- month-old wolf cub on a first date, Tsa Palmer had no idea how intertwined her life would become with the animals. The cub, named My Lady, was being hand- reared by Tsa’s future husband, Roger Palmer, after he fell in love with the animals on a trip to Alaska in the 1970s. From that first encounter has grown an international organisation – the UK Wolf Conservation Trust (UKWCT) – which is now ploughing hundreds of thousands of pounds into research and conservation projects across the globe. “In the early days, a lot of people still thought that all wolves were vicious,” explains Tsa. “But

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