In Florida, It's Pay to Play - with Wolves
Similar to the 1990 Kevin Costner film "Dances With Wolves," there's a unique wildlife program in Floria that could be appropriately dubbed "Hanging With Wolves, For a Price."
The Seacrest Wolf Preserve, in the western part of the state's panhandle, raises wolves to be comfortable around humans, and, as a result, offers people the extraordinary chance to draw near to the resident wolves for a $25 fee.
"We offer one of the rarest opportunities in the world for humans to see wolves up close and personal," Cynthia Watkins said.
Seacrest was founded in 1999 with the belief that if people see and interact with wolves, they will develop an interest in helping wolves survive in the wild.
Watkins explained in a Tech Times story that many species of wolves are endangered, with the survival of wolves in the wild constantly under threat by humans.
Some experts, however, warn humans and wolves really shouldn't mix, because wolves are unpredictable and dangerous.
"They are still unpredictable because they are wild animals. Wolves are not like dogs. Dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years and that unpredictability and wildness is taken out of them because of the breeding," wolf researcher Dave Mech said in the Tech Times story.
In fact, there have been at least two instances over the last two decades in which people were killed by wolves in wolf preserves.
A worker was killed by wolves at a wildlife park in Sweden in 2013. As well, in 1996, a biologist was killed by wolves at the Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Preserve in Canada.
Those visiting Seacrest watch an educational video before being allowed to approach the wolves. The facility also includes trained workers during every tour.
Further, children younger than six are not allowed to enter the wolf preserve.
"We are not some little roadside zoo," said Watkins, whose own family regularly interacts with their wolves, including petting and kissing them.
With a total 30 wolves on-site, Seacrest is the country's largest wolf preserve in the Southeast.
"Little Red Riding Hood was wrong," Watkins added in the Tech Times story. "The wolf is not the bad guy but indeed a very important keystone species."
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