For the second consecutive season critters at Discovery Wildlife Park have been chosen to be stars for the Canadian television show Pet Heroes.
On Aug. 2, six technical crew members from Corkscrew Media from Calgary were in town filming three local zoo animals for the show, which is aired on the CMT Network.
Pet Heroes, which will air the first of 12 half hour shows for its second season this September, is a documentary production that showcases “extraordinary” stories of animal heroism.
In each episode two stories are told through interviews with pet owners and family members involved. The show creates dramatic re-enactments detailing the accounts of bravery displayed by the featured animal heroes.
Director Blake Horobin said Gus Gus the beaver, last year’s star of the Energizer Bunny television commercials, was filmed for an upcoming episode where a beaver was stranded and then rescued from potentially lethal salt water just outside Stanley Park in Vancouver.
For another show, the crew filmed Brook the yearling mother moose and a separate scene with River, the baby moose that was rescued herself by provincial wildlife officers earlier this summer from the waters of the Red Deer River.
“This is a fun show to work on. It’s challenging,” said Horobin, noting his company was at the zoo last year to film grizzly and black bears. “The animals keep us on our toes. They always deliver the goods. They have been great for this production.”
During the film shoots of the moose, River was led to the outdoor set by Serena Bos, head zookeeper at Discovery Wildlife Park, who coaxed the young animal to the staged area with leafy tree branches and bottles of milk.
“She is still very skittish but the training is going very well,” she said, noting the baby moose is still cared for in a special enclosure outside the main grounds of the zoo. “This is the first time she has done this. She is still a baby. On set everybody has to be quiet. She is used to females but everybody here is male.”
Meanwhile, Discovery Wildlife Park enjoyed its best holiday weekend in its nine-year history in Innisfail. The news was especially satisfying for Zoo owner Doug Bos after the slow early months, particularly June, due to bad weather.
Bos said during for the three days on the August long weekend the park attracted 1,450 visitors.
“It was our record breaking weekend, with Saturday being our best,” said Bos, adding on that day (July 30) the zoo just missed hitting the 500 daily attendance mark for the first time by seven. “This year’s July was better than last year’s by a bit. We have a bit to catch up to June but hopefully we can do it through word of mouth.”
