Not a pet

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Originally uploaded by Soluta

This lovely fox is named Renard. We took pictures of him on Thursday when we were up at the Muskoka Wildlife Centre. We were allowed to go into the enclosure with him for photographs—and when I say we, I mean our small group of photographers: Bob, Joe, Anna, Edwin and I. Many thanks to Joe for driving us all the way to north of Severn Bridge !

All the animals at the Centre are native to Ontario and have unique stories. They are typically abandoned pets—abandoned because they got sick, too dangerous for their owners, or too dependent on humans to survive in the wild. Renard was ordered by a zoo, but when he was born the zoo decided it didn’t want him. He was one of the animals with whom we were allowed to go into the enclosure, since he is fairly tame. The same could not be said for Kokanee the cougar!

The Centre is north of Severn Bridge on Highway 11, so we drove through Orillia to get there, and had lunch at the Harvey’s while we watched the police recruits jogging outside in the snow. Luckily the weather wasn’t too bad ! The centre is closed in February, but it’s open for special tours (like ours). It opens full time in the summer on the May long weekend.

Dale, our guide, was amazingly chatty, knowledgeable, and good with the animals. Fortunately Kootenay the bear was in hibernation, so we have an excuse to go back in the summertime.

When we are not visiting zoos, it's work as usual. My very rough material for chapter 3 is up to 9200 words and I'm still editing chapter 1. Edwin has been at work, though he took Thursday off for our wildlife field trip, and he’s been processing photos too. I have tons of marking coming up this week, and a relief print-making workshop on Saturday, and Edwin is out today taking photos of birds at the Leslie Street Spit.