At one of the enclosures visitors will see the
nameplates “Boomer” and “Bob Leo.” Boomer
is a self-professed “big old nasty housecat” who
plays the role of companion animal to Bob Leo,
a bobcat.
“Bob Leo was a true housecat
but was crated most of the
time,” Pat said. “At night he
would come out and sit
on the couch with the
family, but when it was
time for bed, he would
be crated and would
stay in the crate through
the day when everyone
was away. The family eventually
brought him here and
when they did, Nancy went to
the Humane Society and asked for
the biggest unadoptable cat they had to keep
him company. Boomer was the one they
chose.”
Morgan the coyote is a very watchable
animal who can’t decide if he wants to smile or
snap at visitors. He was raised by the facility as
a puppy, with the hope that one day he would
be an animal ambassador for Shy Wolf. That, as
it turns out, was not to be the case. While he is
a truly beautiful coyote, his disdain for humans
is more than obvious. He may be entertaining,
but he is definitely not pettable.
“We all loved him and held him
for hours,” Pat said. “We thought
he would be able to visit with
people, but ‘nature vs.
nurture’ didn’t work with
this one.”
Then there are the
wolves and wolf hybrids.
Each enclosure is marked
with the name of the animal
that lives there, what
Cimarron the
body mist-loving
panther
their handling level is, and
what percent wolf they are. Pat
explained the level system, with
one being the tamest and five being the
most dangerous, was started when they had to
evacuate all the animals during the wildfires of
2017.
“We spent about 18 hours getting them all
out of here, and by the time we were done
they were spread out over three counties,” she
said. “It was quite the undertaking, and we only
had to sedate two animals - the panther, Cimarron,
and one of the wolf dogs that is very shy. It
took us about five hours to catch her.”
Pat said they stayed during Hurricane
Irma. Nancy and other
volunteers stayed on the
grounds and walked the
enclosures every 15 minutes
to make sure there
were no trees down or
fencing compromises.
Prior to the storm they
had to cut down a lot of
vegetation to let the winds
move through the dense
overgrowth, and now shade
cloths are prevalent on the grounds.
Pat said they were thrilled to get a grant for
DNA breakdown funding on their wolves and
wolf dogs, and all but one has been tested.
“It was very interesting for us to see the
results,” Pat said. “Before that we used to use
phenotyping, which is noting the variations in
their characteristics, wolf vs. dog. We could
guess their content as high, medium or low
with that, but once we got the test results back,
we were amazed to see that some of the
animals we thought were low content were
actually high, and some that we thought we
high were actually medium to low
content.
Harley is a low-content
wolf dog that is actually up
for adoption. She is 3
years old and looks like a
malamute/husky mix.
Right now she’s the only
wolf hybrid up for adoption.
A very interesting pair at
Shy Wolf is Sable and Phantom.
Sable is a white wolf mix,
and her life partner Phantom is a
Labrador retriever. Both are well into
their teens, showing signs of age in their hobbling
gaits and the white on their muzzles. They
have been together for quite some time, and
are only temporary guests. They belong to one
of Shy Wolf ’s directors, who had a baby at the
46GASPARILLA ISLAND July/August 2019
Bob Leo