Lobo Wolf Park and Sanctuary

As we wanted to just take it easy for a few days, we went for a short walkabout to get a feel of a Saturday in Antequera and to figure out the layout of the city. Chris got a visitors’ map from the tourist office and we checked out what things were available for us to see. And we found the perfect thing to do for a couple of hours and in nature - the Lobo or Wolf Park. It’s not considered a zoo. It’s an educational centre for learning about the habits and behaviours of wolves.

Antequera’s Lobo Park was built with the idea of preserving the flora and fauna in a unique natural area. It’s a park that covers approximately 100,000 square kilometres and where wolves live in packs naturally without too much human intervention. The wolves are treated in a way so that they learn from their parents to tolerate the presence of humans but without having to give up their own animal hierarchy.

We booked an English tour on the park’s website and drove 6 km to the property. There was one other Spanish couple and their two young kids with us. The guide, a German, spoke Spanish and English fluently and was able to answer all of our questions as she works with the wolves and knows each one by name.

There were four types of wolves - Timber wolves from Canada, Tundra wolves from the Hudson Bay Area, European wolves from Russia, Poland and Romania and Iberian wolves from the Iberian Peninsula.

In addition to the wolves, Lobo Park is also home to other animals (mostly rescued) such as a fox family and domesticated farm animals. Several animals were ‘pets’ that the owners could not take care of when the animals matured.

Toward the end of our tour, we heard the wolves calling/howling to each other. It was pretty cool to hear the sound in the mountains. At the end, one of the guides started to howl and wouldn’t you know it, all the wolves started howling. What a cool experience for us!Read more