As the leaves begin to turn colors and old man winter comes
down from his perch to plunge our landscape into a deep freeze, we are now
making preparations to close our park to the public and prepare ourselves for
the winter. This season has been a great one for us as we opened two major
attractions.
The first one was the Parakeet encounter. This has been a
great experience for our guests. Most people have only experienced parakeets
that were kept as pets. In our parakeet encounter, you get to join our feathery
friends in their enclosure. It has been a big hit with our guests.
Our second large addition this year was the Spider Monkey
Encounter. The encounter gave us a chance to experience primates with
prehensile tails (Tails that can grab). The Spider Monkey Exhibit has given us
a great upgrade as we continue our conversion from a Water Park to a WildlifePark.
On our last weekend in operation (Our last day is Sunday
November 1st) we want to extend a thank you to all of our friends,
visitors and supporters. We sincerely want to thank you all for your continued
friendship as we prepare ourselves for 2016 and what the future has in store.
We will be upgrading the park and updating our pages
throughout the winter. Please stay tuned to our social networks and feeds as we
will be updating them regularly.
This story begins with the end of another. For years Timbavati Wildlife Park was an attraction within Storybook Gardens
which some of you might remember as being a staple in the Wisconsin Dells since
1957. With an infrastructure that was beyond its time and our need to expand
our offerings, we took over the Riverview Waterpark in 2011 and moved our Timbavati
family.
To that point I ask you? What is the cost of ambition? What
does a visionary endure during transition and growth? It is an interesting
query for me as a writer because history is full of the successes and failures
of those who dared to dream. That is a precursor to my understanding of what it
takes to transform a water park into a Wildlife Park.
As an independent and family business, devoid of corporate politics
and budgets (fortunately and un), making this vision a reality takes time,
patience, perseverance and fortitude. Here are a couple of pictures of what the
place used to look like as Riverview Park.
We began diligently working on the 55-acre property in 2011
and opened our doors to start off the 2013 tourist season. The first major
construction project was erecting the rock wall. I don’t know how many people
actually consider the wall and the efforts that it takes to put a structure
like this up, but to do that through a winter season was it's own adventure.
Please allow me to remind you that Timbavati Wildlife Park
is a labor of lifestyle that the Schoebel Family subscribes to. This isn’t a
government or corporate funded project. This is a family from the mid-west with
a can-do attitude, a personal financial commitment and a Patriarch in Mark Schoebel that believes in
doing things now.
In addition to building the landmark rock wall, the water
slides had to be dismantled, a barn was erected for the giraffe encounter, and
a feline house was constructed. Rockwork, flowerbeds, grass lay out, we EVEN
bent steel for the railroad track that goes through the park. There’s a lot of
work that went into our efforts for that first season that we are proud of and
happy to bring to life.
That is a construction discussion; let’s consider the most
important denizens of Timbavati Wildlife Park, the animals.
I asked Mark how he
came into raising exotic animals and he told me it was something he was born
into. When I met his son Matt, I could see that same reverence for the animals, most notably the camels that he is very close to. It’s funny, because you also
see Matt’s kids bouncing around the park that they will look back on as adults
and refer to as “The place they were raised in”. I can’t stress enough that a
place most people look at as a tourist destination or an attraction is a home
to both this family and their animals.
Matt Schoebel astride his camels on World Camel Day
The animals also live with the family on their farm. There
are nurseries and facilities in both locations. Before a lot of the animals are
presented to the public for interaction, they are reared on the farm. Alice
Schoebel, the Matriarch of the Schoebel family personally tends to the young
animals as they are born or brought in as infants.
The level of trust between the Schoebels, Timbavati staff
and animals is apparent when you see the interactions between them. Penguins
who are typically timid, run toward Alice at break neck speed when they hear
her voice. I personally have seen both Lions and Tigers purr and lick Mark’s
hands when he approached them. This is a testament to how much time they have
spent with their animals and the lifelong relationships that they have with
each other. Here are videos of both Alice and the Penguins and Mark with the Clouded Leopards.
Timbavati’s animal population is not only made up of animals
that have been raised from babies but is also a home for animal rescues. Most
people who visit the park wouldn’t consider that but the Schoebels provide a home for
animals that might otherwise not survived.
This not only details the level of care that the
Schoebel family gives animals, but also how complex the world of Timbavati
Wildlife Park can be. If an animal is in crisis, construction projects, P.R.,
and human problems are put on hold. I think about that if I see a crooked sign
or when someone makes mention of not seeing enough staff members when they are
in the park. You never know what need has an immediate bearing on the staff at
any given time.
This year Timbavati Wildlife Park again took on some very
aggressive construction projects. Two very notable projects have been the
Spider Monkey and Parakeet Encounters. The Spider Monkey encounter gives us a
great look at the primates swinging to and fro while the Parakeet Encounter
allows you to interact with our feathery friends on their terms.
We have created new pond enclosures in the park and if you
climb to the top of our observation tower, you can get a great overview of our
layout and room for growth. Growth and vision take time. Sometimes there are
bumps in the road and honestly a lot of times there are just potholes that you
can’t avoid. You do your best to accommodate every obstacle with all of the preparation and experience that you have available to you and live with that as your comfort.
Nothing will be better than the look of wonder and
excitement that you experience when you see the childish expressions of a grand
parent that is more excited to see an animal than the child is. We see people
imagine, they wonder, they forget the outside and
remember just how marvelous this world we live in can be through the experience that
we provide them. That is our motivation and why we will continue to grow and build. Thank you for support!
It’s that time of year again where the birds begin to pack
up and fly south. When the animals hibernate and our kids select the goblin and
super hero costumes that they want to be for Trick or Treating. This time of year in
the Wisconsin Dells also yields an event called the Fall
Festival Weekend.
It also serves as a great reminder that even though the
summer season is behind us, our community is still very active and full of
events to attend. Timbavati
Wildlife Park is still open and running through the entire month of October
as are many other attractions.
While you’re here for Fall Festival Weekend, swing by our park, take a train ride, feed the giraffe and spend some time with our animals.
It sounds like a rock band right? You have The Beatles, The
Turtles, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Alice and The Penguins. In a sense,
there is a song here. It’s a song of humans and animals communing in harmony.
The first time I witnessed Alice interact with the Penguins
at Timbavati Wildlife Park, it was abundantly evident to me that she shared a
special bond with them that I hadn’t witnessed since Danny DeVito took on thecaped crusader in Gotham. That of course was staged in Hollywood and this was
not. Plus there are no little rockets attached to the birds in Timbavati. J
When Alice walked up to the penguin encounter and said her
first hello, Mama and Papa (as she refers to them) snapped to attention and
immediately swam right for her for petting and attention. I have seen people
have relationships with birds and animals before but never with penguins and
never to this level. Once I saw that, I knew there was a story there.
Alice had cared for them as small chicks and when baby
animals get to Timbavati, she puts a lot of time into nurturing them and seeing
that they transition well into the environment. We set a camera up in the
penguin house that they retreat to in the evenings and what the camera caught
was even more incredible than what I saw when Alice walked up to the encounter.
Mama and Papa immediately jumped out of their little bed and
came to Alice for feeding and petting. She has a very soothing and calm voice;
it is quite distinct as well so I can see why they remember her so well. They
do the cutest thing where they pop in and out of their box, go over to Alice
and just go back and fourth the entire time.
One thing that most people don’t know about the Penguins at
Timbavati Wildlife Park is that they are warm weather penguins found off the
coast of South Africa. Right I had no clue that there was such a thing either.
These penguins love warm weather and basking in the sunshine. Sure there are
places in the enclosure that Mama and Papa can defer to if they would like
shade, but they quite honestly rarely seek it.
Check out the video of Alice interacting with Mama and Papa.
We have had a question brought up by one of our guests about our big cats lying on the sand. Here at Timbavati Wildlife
Park, we’re always happy to educate and share information about the care and
health of our lions and tigers.
At Timbavati, we provide our big cats with natural substrate. This specialty sand, which is very fine and white, was brought in from over 100 miles away, (near Waupaca) specifically for our big cat’s comfort and health. We find sand provides cleaner, happier, and more sanitary conditions. It is also more comfortable than lying on a hard surface throughout the day.
The enclosures were designed specifically for the comfort and
safety of our animals as well as our guests. The 19-foot walls, with the double
roof overhangs on the inside and outside provides our big cats with at least
one side of shady comfort all day long. At the center of both big cat
enclosures, there is a pond that the cats can bathe and drink in at their
leisure.
The large cats are surrounded by beautiful flower gardens that are open to the woods behind and rock gardens on multiple sides. They also enjoy a lot of TLC from our Animal Care Staff.
We encourage you to both learn about and enjoy our big cats, and hope you will appreciate the work and care we’ve put into our displays and enclosures so far. See you on your next visit to Timbavati!
