Annual Report for 2020-21

Dear members, supporters, and all those passionate about the wilds of the Yukon:

This year, the Yukon Wildlife Preserve celebrated 17 years of exceptional animal care and visitor experience, and none of it would be possible without our dedicated staff and the support of you – our members, our partners, our sponsors, and our generous donors. On behalf of the Board of Directors, a huge thank you to you all!

Yukon wildlife and ecology is unique and worthy of deep understanding and appreciation, with conservation and management supported by passionate voices and based on sound science that respects Indigenous rights and knowledge. To help coming generations be those educated and respectful voices, the dedicated staff at the Preserve have worked tirelessly this past year (and every year!) to ensure all our visitors have those up-close and personal experiences to inspire and infuse that passion while keeping our animals and visitors, safe.

To continue giving you exceptional experiences and provide our animals with exceptional care, we are embarking on discrete projects as envisioned through our 10-year Master Plan to grow our educational programs, interpretive experiences, and research capabilities. This will require some changes in landscape and infrastructure, where we are also excited to better integrate traditional knowledge in our programming and our interpretive experiences. None of these projects and necessary growth, continued dedication to the health and wellbeing of our animals and that of the wildlife requiring our rehabilitation services, could be possible without the continued support of you.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Staff, thank you again for your ongoing support, and we look forward to seeing you out in our new bus, on foot, on bike… or however you like to see the animals!

Warmest wishes for the summer,

Alexandra de Jong Westman
President, YWPOS Board of Directors

It’s probably safe to say: we didn’t see that coming. The global COVID pandemic errupted just as we started our 2020-21 year.

Adapt, Adapt, Adapt

I want to recognize three of the ways my team stepped up to meet this challenge head on.

First, we recognized right away that this had the potential to be financially devastating. Coming off of our best year ever, it was hard, depressing work to develop a series of ever more conservative scenarios. Those are hard conversations. But my team focused in on what mattered most – our animals and our people. I’m really proud to say that despite losing more than half of our regular visitation, we ended the year in a really strong financial position.

Second, as our on-site visitation plumetted, our visitor services and education teams pivoted to keep our community engaged. It’s not easy to have everything turned upside down and then to learn new skill sets. They did an incredible job, posting 20 videos (including immersive 360 videos) and more than 50 blog articles in the 2020-21 year. The stories our team told through those videos and articles showcase an awesome diversity of perspectives on Yukon’s wildlife and our work at the Preserve.

Third, was how our team managed near continuous change with so many unkonwns. My team compartmentalized to protect each other, reogranized buildings (like the front cabin), adapted work plans (when animals were fed, how teams worked together), sought out funding (the list is long), submitted many operational plans to the CMOH, put new systems into place (we started selling tickets and memberships online),  made dramatic shifts to keep programs running (like Nature Camps), and so much more. They just made it work.

I’m incredibly grateful to my team at the Preserve for their creativity, open-mindedness, resilience and focus!

Operations Report

Some of the highlights from the Outdoor Operations Department include:

Spring / Summer 2020

• Site clean-up, including cleaning up supplies, garbage disposal, etc
• Removed old fuel tank at green shop
• Assisting Animal Care with in the field medical procedures
• Re-deck and paint trailer
• Hauling water
• Running insulators for electric fence
• Lynx catchpen: clean pen, geotech and chips to mitigate future foxtail issues
• Cutting browse (assisting AC)
• Clearing fence lines
• Painting posts
• Fix flight pens
• Build alleyway to back pastures (per Master Plan animal handling diagrams – see green lines on the map)
• Finished cross fence in sheep pasture and removed old fence
• Removed old fence in deer pasture (females)
• Built alleyway from old facility/compound to dam (per Master Plan animal handling diagrams – see green lines on diagram below)

Fall / Winter

• Pushed up stick piles in back 40 to burn this winter
• Continuing clean up and dump runs
• Work on electric fence
• H&S Inspections and lots of follow-up on fixing deficiencies
• Changed bumper rail in male muskox habitat.
• Grinding carrots and apples
• Burnt the 4 large brush piles with support of Hootalinqua Fire Department
• Plowed snow, and more snow, and more snow and more snow…
• Burnt small stick piles
• Sourced year-end equipment purchases

Above: The green lines show the newly constructed animal handling chute for safely and easily moving animals from the central compound to the dam and lake roads.

Other Updates:

• Bison and Caribou bred in fall 2020 per collection plan
  • June 18 2021: 3 baby bison born so far! Still expecting baby caribout in spring 2021.
• Lynx bred in early 2021 per collection plan
  • June 18 2021: still expecting kittens in spring 2021.
• Planning to breed bison, muskox and caribou in summer/fall 2021 per collection plan.

Retail Operations

The Preserve was headed towards exponential growth in retail sales in the previous year until Covid forced a 2 month closure of the facility to the public. Upon reopening measures to ensure public and staff safety meant that the Preserve’s Little Gift Shop was not open to visitors to come in and browse gift items. Visitor Services got creative with the help of Outdoor Ops obtained a rolling display unit to help encourage shoppers. What we noted was a small increase in sales of which became greater when the border to BC opened. We see retail sales are not strong among our locals and members.

Visitation

Overall visitation in 2020-2021 decreased 56.9% from the previous year (2019-2020).

October and March visitation from this fiscal year to last fiscal year are the most comparable. While October is explained with the bubble traffic, the numbers for March correlate to the closure in 2020 March 23 and the fantastic winter conditions in March of 2021 along with March Break stays given travel restrictions in place at the time.

These monthly visitation numbers have very similar alignment with 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 numbers when territory-wide national and international visitation was low before it’s steady incline to immediately pre-covid.

Visitation Type

People like to walk – especially amid a pandemic and being outside is more than ever recommended! It’s also a great way to experience the Preserve. With incredible winter conditions we saw lots of fat bikers, skiers, and kick sledders within the 11,902 visitors under general admission. Other guided tours include charters, facility rentals and Step-on’s. The most popular were the 1 hour step-on tours with the retirement homes. These tours have been extremely positive for both YWP staff and the long term care home residents while options for outings were very limited.

The Preserve in 2021-22

Thank you.

We are forever grateful for your continued support. Our commitment to wildlife—and to you—our community—are at the heart of everything we do.

Here’s some of what we’ve been working on or have planned for 2021-22:

• Fencing security upgrades to caribou and moose habitats;
• Business Planning for the “Moose Cabin” phase of the Master Plan;
• Planning new public events to be added this summer (more on that coming soon);
• Negotiating new funding agreement with Department of Environment – and working with other YG departments;
• Revising governance policies;
• Developing new gift shop products in collaboration with local artists;

Leverage extra resources, services or expertice and make an in-kind contribution to the Preserve’s day-to-day operations.

Make a one-time or monthly tax-receiptable donation to education, wildlife rehabilitation, or general operations.