Piggy Pics of the Day: Home grown mini watermelon (YUM)

Here are a few older pigtures featuring (from left to right) Coppy, Cinnamon and Sharky posing with a watermelon from the slaves veggie garden. Our humans particularly like this pigture because whee are all still bigger than the watermelon, which is oddly small (or so we thought at the time). This didn't last for long though, because the watermelon ended up growing bigger faster than whee did, although whee certainly did our best to keep up!

Okinawa Rail

True Wild Life | Okinawa Rail | The Okinawa Rail is a flightless bird that only lives on the main island of Okinawa. It is endemic to Okinawa Island in Japan where it is known as the Yanbaru Kuina. Its existence was only confirmed in 1978 and it was formally described in 1981 although unidentified rails had been recorded on the island since at least 1973 and local stories of a bird known as the agachi kumira may refer to this species.

It is a medium-sized and almost flightless rail with short wings and tail, olive-brown upperparts, black underparts with white bars and a red bill and legs. It occurs in subtropical moist forests and in neighbouring habitats. It nests and feeds on the ground but usually roosts in trees. It is classified as an endangered species and is threatened by habitat loss and introduced predators.

The Okinawa Rail  is a poor flyer but it can run rapidly. It spends most of its time on the ground but usually roosts in trees, climbing up to sleep on a branch or sloping trunk. In the morning, it preens and stretches before dropping straight to the ground. It is usually found in dense cover but comes into the open to bathe. It bathes for short bouts of 2-4 minutes before preening for 4-20 minutes. It feeds on lizards, amphibians, snails and large insects such as locusts. Food is mainly taken from the forest floor but may also be taken from shallow water.

The Okinawa Rail is in great danger of disappearing for other reasons: forests clearing and traffic accidents. But the conservation activities have not progressed much. One reason is that nobody really understands how the Okinawa Rail lives. Without knowing well about the creature, like where the Okinawa Rail lives, what it eats, or how it raises its children, and how far it travels, people cannot move forward with the conservation activities. Besides the Okinawa Rail, there are many other kinds of flightless birds that are suffering from the outside animals in which human have brought in.

Out of cage time!

Here's a video of us playing around during our out of cage time! Whee enjoy getting a chance to stretch our legs and run around during out of cage time. In our enclosure whee have boxes and paper bags to hide in and tunnels to run through. Our slaves also gave us this box that they filled with hay, so when we feel like a nibble we hop right in and proceed to produce poops as we eat. The only problem with that is that not all of us will fit in there at once, but usually not all of us want to eat at the same time anyways.

In this video, one of our slaves has distracted us from our explorations with wheatgrass! She sprinkles some in our hay box. Truffle gets startled by her sneezing so Poof hops in first, then Truffle makes a much less graceful entrance than usual as Belka is in her way. Belka then stands up on her hind legs to inquire for more, hmm whee do admire her trim tummy, especially as some of us are a bit chubbier and have more fat there ahem Peaches! Peaches takes the easy (and lazy) way out and goes after whatever Belka drops, while Truffle leaps out of the box in search of greener pastures. Having finished the remainder of the grass in the box, Poof reaches up for more.

Parakeet Budgie Encounter: Wildwood's Newest Attraction Is A Hit With Our Guests! Opens May 30th

These cute and popular birds are instantly recognizable as parakeets or budgies. Their formal name is the Budgerigar or Shell Parakeet. Whatever you call them, we know them as one of the park's many popular residents.

These small, long-tailed parrots are seed eaters. Wild parakeets are found living throughout the drier parts of Australia and are noticeably smaller than those found in captivity. Naturally green and yellow with black, scalloped markings on the nape, back and wings, breeders have created a rainbow of blues, whites, violets and yellows, grays and even some with small crests. Budgies are popular pets around the world due to their small size, playful nature and their ability to learn to whistle tunes, mimic human speech and learn to do tricks.

Budgies are closely related to the lories and fig parrots but here in America, we call them parakeets; a term that refers to any number of small parrots with long, flat tails.

Budgies are intelligent and very social animals; they enjoy playing with toys and interacting with humans as well as other parakeets.

It is usually easy to tell the difference between a male and a female budgie that is over six months old, mainly by the color of the area containing the nostrils called the cere. Behavior and head shape will also help you tell the difference.

A mature males' cere is usually light to dark blue but can be purplish to pink in some birds. Males generally have a rounder head and are very vocal.

Females' ceres are pink as immature birds; becoming beige to white when they are not in the breeding season, brown during mating season. Typically female parakeets have a flattened back of the head, right above the region of the nape.

You won't want to miss our newest popular attraction, The  Parakeet Budgie Encounter, a walk-through aviary where you can experience up close and personal, the beauty of over 500 parakeets. You can buy a “bird feed stick” for $1 and have parakeets eating right out of your hand.

Visitors agree, the Parakeet Budgie Encounter is one of their new favorite experiences at the zoo!

Piggy Pic of the Day: Peaches coin purse

Peaches and her coin purse doppelganger

Peaches now has a matching coin purse! The rest of us are a whee bit jealous that nobody has made some featuring our likenesses, they should make one for each and every piggy hmph. Our slaves found it when they searched for "guinea pig coin purse" on ebay, as soon as they saw it they knew they had to buy it because the piggy looked so much like our Peaches. Personally, whee sincerely hope that whenever they take it out or look at it they will remember to buy us lots of yummy food. They had Peaches pose for some pigtures with it side by side, don't they look alike? Whee certainly think so!

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the prettiest piggy of them all?"

"Does it come with food attached?"

"You think I'm the cuter one, right?"

"RIGHT??"

Great Spotted Kiwi

True Wild Life | Great Spotted Kiwi | The Great Spotted Kiwi, is a species of kiwi endemic to the South Island of New Zealand.  It is the largest of the kiwi.  There are about 22,000 Great Spotted Kiwis in total, almost all in the more mountainous parts of northwest Nelson, the northwest coast, and the Southern Alps. A minority live on islands.

Great Spotted Kiwi are nocturnal, and will sleep during the day in burrows. At night, they feed on invertebrates and will also eat plants. Great Spotted Kiwi breed between June and March. The egg is the largest of all birds in proportion to the size of the bird. Chicks take 75 to 85 days to hatch, and after hatching, they are abandoned by their parents.

Because adult Great Spotted Kiwis are large and powerful, they are able to fend off most predators that attack them, such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, pigs, brushtails and cats, all of which are invasive species in New Zealand. However, dogs are able to kill even adults. Stoats, ferrets, possums, cats and dogs will feed on the eggs and chicks, meaning most chicks die within their first five months of life. Once the Great Spotted Kiwi was also preyed upon by the Haast's Eagle, which is now extinct.

More Piggyspeak with Coppy, Morry and Sharky!

Here's some more Piggyspeak, brought to you by Coppy, Morry and Sharky! Coppy is the one purring when being petted, while Sharky and Morry are the ones squeaking. This video was taken by the slaves when Morry was a baby, so he sounds particularly squeaky here. You can hear him starting from 0:22 in the video.

Piggy speak

Coppy and Morry being petted, hear them squeaking and purring!

White-tail Fawn Wildwood's Newest Park Addition

One of the park's most photographed residents are white-tail fawns. 


This buck-fawn arrived at the park on May 12th, the photograph was taken when he was less than one day old.


The white-tail deer, also known as the Virginia deer, is a medium-size deer native to the United States with the exception of Nevada, Utah, California, Hawaii and Alaska. They are also found in Canada, Mexico, Central America and in South America as far as Peru.


White-tail deer eat a wide variety of food including leaves, legumes, cacti, and grasses. They also eat acorns, fruit, hay, corn and other food found in neighborhoods and farm yards. Their special four-chambered stomach allows them to eat things such as mushrooms that are poisonous to humans and Red Sumac.


White-tail deer communicate in many different ways using sounds, scent, body language and marking. All white-tail deer are able to communicate by producing audible sounds that are unique to each animal. Fawns make an a high-pitched squeal, known as a bleat, to call out to their mothers. The mother deer, or doe, makes maternal grunting sounds when searching for her bedded fawns. Another way that white-tail deer communicate is by raising their white tail, sending an alarm to other deer in the area that can see it.

Black Leopard One Of The New Babies At The Park

We are pleased to announce the arrival of black leopard, Teeah, born on April 20th.


While she may not look like one of the 'big cats' everyone loves to visit, it won't be long before she'll be following in her parents paw-prints and will grown up to be a graceful animal.




Leopards are closely related to lions, tigers, and jaguars. They live in sub-Saharan Africa, northeast Africa, Central Asia, India and China. However, many of their populations are endangered, especially outside of Africa.


The leopard is so strong and comfortable in trees that it often hauls its kill into tree branches. By keeping it aloft, the leopard hopes to keep their meal safe from scavengers such as hyenas. Leopards often hunt from trees where their spotted coats allow them to blend into their surroundings.


Leopards are strong swimmers and are very much at home in the water. They are oftentimes seen eating fish or crabs.


Most leopards are light colored with distinctive dark spots that are called rosettes because they resemble the shape of a rose. Black leopards, which appear to be almost solid in color because their spots are hard to distinguish, are sometimes called black panthers.

Teeah's proud mother is Tenzin

and her father is Toby.

Birthday Piggy!

Happy belated birthday Poof! Poof turned one pretty recently - although unfortunately, since our humans were rather preoccupied with moving, they didn't get around celebrating Poof's birthday until now. Silly humans, they should really sort out their priorities one of these days. Nevertheless, she was not forgotten! Of course, since Poof was abandoned, nobody really knows her exact age, but the rescue estimated her to be around eight or nine months old when the slaves adopted her early last October. Oddly enough, she hasn't grown very much since then (unlike the rest of us), so whee guessed that she might be a bit older than originally thought. Still, she must be one year old by now, so happy birthday Poof!

Poof: "Yay, grasses!"

"Now this is what I call a proper birthday celebration!"

"Keep them coming please!"

Piggy Pics of the Day: Crop circles? Cropped grass!

♥ Coppy!

Everyone and everypig has heard of crop circles, right? Well, here is the cavy take on it, whee now present to you our day's work of cropped grass!

Editor-in-chief Coppy put us to work on our crop letters, which was an organized effort that involved forming letters while mowing (read: gobbling up) the grass. A while later, and voila! Here is our end result on the slaves backyard lawn. Not too shabby for our first try!

Piggy Pics of the Day: Gossiping by the log

Coppy and Morry hiding by the log chutting and talking. Coppy doesn't like the humans/paparazzi intruding on her gossip time with Morry and turns her butt towards the camera. Morry just got a haircut before this photo so he his head is all fuzzy looking!

Standing up to grab food from the treat ball

Peaches and Poof stand up on their hind legs to grab romaine lettuce from their hanging treat ball! They are quickly joined by Belka, then Truffle soon after. Although whee end up doing a bit more work to get our food, whee do enjoy getting our fresh veggies this way - its more fun for us! Our slaves swear that we are slightly less interested in our food when they just give it to us the normal way. Personally, whee just enjoy yanking it down, then arguing over choice bits amongst ourselves.

New Arrival: Red-Handed Tamarins

Wildwood Wildlife Park is pleased to welcome our newest residents, red‐handed tamarins.

Also known as the golden‐handed tamarin,  the red‐handed tamarin is a New World monkey named for contrasting reddish-orange hair on their feet and hands. They are native to wooded areas north of the Amazon River in Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, and Venezuela. 

They live in cooperative groups of 4 to 15 members with little competition among a group even between breeding males. A female will typically give birth to two offspring.

Young tamarins are cared for primarily by the father and turned over to the mother only to

nurse; however the entire group helps with the care of the young.

The red‐handed tamarin is an exceptional climber and spends most of its time among the vines and branches of the trees. They are quick and agile and superb jumpers know to jump distances of over 60 feet from a tree to the ground with no sign of injury.

The red‐handed tamarins body measures 12 ‐17 inches including the tail and they

weigh .88 ‐1.2 pounds. The tamarin's diet consists of fruit, flowers, insects, frogs, spiders, lizards, and nectar.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-handed_tamarin

Piggy Pics of the Day: Coppy and the baby pigs

Coppy wonders where all these little munchkins came from...

Today our humans wanted us to share these adorable pictures of Coppy with Belka, Peaches and Truffle as babies with you all! This was when they first came to live with us as part of the Cali Cavy Collective. Belka and Truffle were estimated to be around 6-8 weeks old, and Peaches maybe up to a month older than that. Here they are encountering grass for the first time, they haven't quite figured out that they can eat it yet... Coppy sure showed them! *snickers into food bowl

Coppy: "No, I am NOT your mommy piggy, stop poking and sniffing me so I can concentrate on eating!"

Coppy: "Okay, that's a little better..."

Summer Internships: No Vacancies for 2011

Thank you to everyone who has contacted Wildwood Wildlife Park concerning summer internships for 2001. We have filled all the internship positions for this year and regretfully will not be able to accept any new applications.


We will, however, we accepting applications beginning in September for the 2012 season.


Thank you to everyone who has inquired about our internship program and we look forward to receiving your application in September.

Piggy Pics of the Day: Tug of war!

Whee were all gallivanting around having fun during out of cage time until our slaves surprised us by bringing out the wheatgrass! Of course, whee all immediately had to drop whatever whee were doing and start competing for it. As you can see from the pigtures (all clickable), Peaches and Belka got into a tug-of-war battle over a large mouthful. Meanwhile, Poof and Truffle rather sneakily decided to gobble down whatever they could in the background.

Yellow-margined Box Turtle

True Wild Life | Yellow-margined Box Turtle | The Chinese box turtle is a species of Asian box turtle with several names. Its common names include Chinese box turtle, 食蛇龜 Snake-eating turtle, Yellow-margined box turtle, and Golden-headed turtle. Taxonomically, it has been called Cistoclemmys flavomarginata, Cuora flavomarginata, and Cyclemys flavomarginata. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System uses Cuora flavomarginata.

Yellow-margined Box Turtle has a highly domed shell, the carapace and plastron of which are a dark brown, excepting a cream-yellow stripe on the vertebral keel. The edge of the plastron is lightly pigmented due to the marginal scutes' and plastral scutes' lighter pigmentation near their edges. The skin on the limbs is brown in color while the top of the head is a pale green. Each side of the head has a yellow line extending from behind the eye backward. The skin beneath the head and between the limbs is a lighter pink-ish color.

The name box turtle refers to C. flavomarginata's ability to bring the plastron to the edges of the carapace. This is enabled by a hinge on the plastron and ligaments connecting the carapace and plastron, which allows for limited movement. The forefeet have five claws, while the rear have four.

The external difference between male and female Yellow-margined Box Turtle is slight. Males have a broader tail than females; it is almost triangular in shape.

Painted Batagur

True Wild Life | Painted Batagur | The Painted Batagur is the largest turtle living in fresh water. They are in danger of extinction because people take them as pets or to eat, and because of the deteriorating environments in and around the rivers they live in. Painted Batagurs live on the Malaysian peninsula, Sumatra Island, and Kalimantan Island.

Painted Batagurs live in rivers and sometimes go near the ocean where the seawater mixes with the fresh water. They also lay eggs in sandy beaches like Green Turtles. Young Painted Batagurs eat other animals and plants. Once they become adults, their diet changes to mainly leaves and other plants.

The number of Painted Batagurs is declining because people capture them to eat, in addition to river water pollution and deteriorating surrounding environments. In Thailand, where the Painted Batagur is on the brink of extinction, there are strict restrictions against their capture, sale, or purchase. Additionally, there are efforts to increase their number by breeding. Although there are international restrictions against the sale and purchase of Painted Batagurs, there are still many efforts that need to be made to recover their numbers, such as making river environments safe for living in.