Badgers Win!

Greetings friends and welcome Tuesday! I know a lot of you had a blast this holiday weekend and some of you were even brave enough to go shopping in the mosh pit that we all know and love called Black Friday. Of course if you’re from Wisconsin you were probably cheering for Bucky Badger this weekend. In case you missed it, our beloved Badgers had an undefeated season this year.

The Wisconsin Badgers hadn’t gone undefeated since 1912. This got me to thinking, what was going on in the world in 1912? So I dug it up and wanted to share a few fun facts about what was going on the last time the Badgers sat undefeated in the college football world.

For starters the government of modern day China was established on January first. New Mexico became a state on the 6th of January. A guy named Fred Law parachuted from the Statue of Liberty LOL, that’s pretty rad. On February 14th Arizona became the 48th state.

Here’s a big one for you, on March 7th Roald Amundsen announced the discovery of the North Pole. The Girl Scouts were formed on March 12th, I wonder if they started with cookies and then decided to be a club or not? :) Hmmmmm. On march 15th, Cy Young retired from baseball.

On March 16th William Howard Taft’s wife planted the first cherry tree in Washington D.C. if you have never seen that site in the spring, it’s astonishing. The cherry blossoms are something to behold and there are hundreds of trees.

On April 15th and probably the biggest event of this year and decade was the sinking of the Titanic. Fenway Park and Tiger’s Stadium both opened on April 20th. On May 7th, the Pulitzer Prize was approved by Columbia University. Ahh and on May 8th, Paramount Pictures was founded. On May 15th Ty Cobb got suspended by Major League Baseball for attacking a heckler LOL.

Things seemed to get a little predictable after that, Taft and Roosevelt went at it for the Republican Nomination over the summer. Taft won and Roosevelt started the progressive Bull Moose Party. On August 27th “Tarzan of the Apes” was first published. One month later on September 27th, W.C. Handy published the first blues record.

On October 14th of that year while campaigning in Milwaukee for the Bull Moose Party Theodore Roosevelt was shot. He had a manuscript, glasses case and a heavy coat on, he only had a flesh wound. He gave his speech and said it would take more than that to kill his campaign LOL. After an hour speech he then went to the hospital. On November 5th, Wilson a democrat defeated both Taft and Roosevelt in the presidential election.

There are other things that happened in 1912, a lot of other things but I’d say that’s a pretty interesting year to look back on, here is a picture of what our Badgers looked like back then.

Then of course at Timbavati Wildlife Park, we have badgers too and here’s what they look like!

The Timbavati Wildlife Park Peng-Win Countdown

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post! Timbavati Wildlife Park has had the fortunate pleasure of having two of our very own starring in a Wisconsin State Lottery Commercial called "Peng-Win Countdown!" Here’s a toast to Mama and Papa. They are our South African penguin couple that inhabit the Waterfalls Area of Timbavati Wildlife Park.

Their debut on television and made me want to break down the commercial. Let's look at what it actually took to pull this feat off. The promotion that the Wisconsin State Lottery is running is called the Peng-Win Countdown. It’s basically a winter special edition high value scratch-off ticket.

But Where's The Snow

Since the Peng-Win is a play on penguin, the wintry thing to do would be to have real penguins work on the piece. Ok so for starters, this piece was shot in Wisconsin last month. Well there isn’t any snow on the ground in Wisconsin at this point. Just like the ski slopes that are already open, one can make snow and convince everyone that it’s winter when it’s fall. That’s Hollywood magic for you there.

The commercial opens with a bunch of penguins in an enclosure at Timbavati Wildlife Park. That’s actually our park and our enclosure. The Hollywood magic begins when you see six penguins in the enclosure just kind of hanging out. If you keep the camera really still and shoot two penguins 3 times and then overlay all 3 shots in one frame, abracadabra, you now have six penguins. The effect looks really cool too.

Next one of our penguins walks out of the enclosure and then out of the front gate of Timbavati Wildlife Park. Once it gets out of there, it goes to the nearest gas station via residential street and buys a Peng-Win ticket. It then returns to the enclosure where the ticket sits prominently with Mama and Papa with a big beautiful Christmas bow on it.

I talked with our General Manager about the shoot and it was filmed over the course of three days (with breaks of course).  Post production took two weeks before it was finished. This is a great look at how these commercials get made and it’s rewarding to see two of our very own grab the spotlight for our park.

Helping The South African Peng-Win

To celebrate the launch of Mama and Papa’s starring roles in this commercial we are making a donation to the Dyer Island Conservation Trust. They’re an organization that’s heavily involved in African penguin conservation. We encourage you to visit their website www.dict.org.za to learn more about this worthy cause.

Here is a look at the commercial and a toast to our local Wisconsin Dells celebrities, Mama and Papa! Don’t forget we’re open all winter long as well. Till next week!

Quick Facts: Bobcat

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post. It’s been awhile since we kicked some animal facts and I figured that this bobcat here looks interesting enough for us to talk about. Because who doesn’t enjoy bobcats? Of course at a distance, but still, we love them.

First let me open by saying bobcats look cute but don’t ever go try to pet them. They aren’t too keen on that. Matter of fact, if you see one you might want to just go the other way. Unless you’re at Timbavati Wildlife Park which of course we will keep you safe.

Bobcats get their name from the shortness of their tail. It’s a descriptor of the short tail, like a bob haircut, bob haircut cat tail thing, Bobcat! They are also referred to as bobtail cats and sometimes wildcats. A real wildcat though is a different thing.

Bobcats hunt in low light conditions. They will typically hunt at dawn and dusk. That seems to be a thing with a lot of large cats, life is a lot of sleeping and hunting. In the winter months they will hunt more during the day hours simply because their prey is far and fewer during those months.

A full grown bobcat can weigh up to 33 pounds. They are carnivores that hunt small mammals and birds. The crazy part about these cats which I guess are about the size of a medium sized dog is that they are capable of taking down a full grown deer. That’s incredible when you consider how big a whitetail actually is.

If a bobcat kills something that big it can’t eat it all and it’s too large to carry off. When this happens they will bury their kill and come back to it later. Mountain lions do this as well. This is referred to as caching.

If you’d like more bobcat facts, check out this video on them. Remember we’re open all winter long for daily tours at 11AM and 1PM. We also have private VIP tours available as well. Talk with you all next week!

We Specialize In Interactivity

Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post. I can remember the first time I visited Timbavati Wildlife Park. There was something going on here that I had never experienced at any zoo before. Timbavati has a next level experience when it comes to interactivity.

I mean look at the picture of the giraffe that caps this blog post. We all can identify that there’s a giraffe in the picture but take a look at the Safari Train Ride in the back of the picture on the left. That train is passing through one of our pastures and people are feeding all manners of grazing animals on the ride.

When the Safari Train leaves the pasture one of the next stops on its path is the giraffe and camel feeding encounter. Again, the interactivity is beyond what I have experienced anywhere else and it doesn’t end there.

We have Koi ponds and petting areas where you can feed pygmy goats and baby animals. We also have our renown parakeet encounter where you go inside the enclosure and the little budgies can land on you. From our wildlife presentations to the emu’s in the woodlands area, there are lots of opportunities for people to have an interactive experience.

This weeks video takes a look at some of our guests enjoying our giraffe encounter. Remember we’re now open all year round and are currently running guided tours at 11 am and 1pm. That’s all for now, talk with you next week.

The First Frost of The Year

We’re Still Open!

Even though the season has ended and the outdoor water parks have emptied their pools for the winter, we’re still open. We never actually completely close, we maintain a staff for the winter and we work with all of the animals all winter long. Their training, feeding and exercise regimens don’t change at all. We retain a full-time staff all winter to facilitate the care and nurturing of the animals.

We now have daily tours at 11am and 1pm. We also have VIP Behind The Scenes tours that allow guests to have an up close experience with the animals that you normally wouldn’t otherwise have. VIP tours require 24 Hours notice so please call the park in advance to schedule.

In other exciting news, we are looking at options for a Black Friday Weekend Sale so stay tuned and follow our feeds for more information about that. We are also going to be looking at winter projects for park improvements that we want to share with you, so the winter is going to be a really exciting time!

We will close this week’s blog with a look at the Safari Train Ride! Talk with you next week!

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