HANNA CITY, Ill. – Wildlife Prairie Park will be bringing some new four-legged friends to the park in the spring.
The park announced on Monday that they have raised around $250,000 total for a new cougar exhibit. The exhibit will feature three new female cougar cubs that were born in August. The funding will go towards the cubs, improvements to the den that they will be staying in, and construcing a 12-foot fence.
Executive Director Roberta English said the original plan was to only bring in two new cougar cubs.
“We just have an opportunity to get three because they’re in the same litter and they’re all three sisters and they’re all together, so we didn’t want to separate them,” English said.
English said the park hasn’t had cougars since 2020 when theirs passed away.
English said the cougar addition is part of a $3.8 million capital funding campaign that began last year.
“Last year we focused on improving a lot of the buildings, a lot of the infrastructure problems we were having,” English said. “And we did also bring in many animals last year. But this year, we’re working on our key animal exhibits.”
English said that also included a $50,000 wolf enclosure project that includes retirement dens for some of the older wolves, and bringing in four six-month-old wolves.
She said the new wolves should arrive any day, while the cougar exhibit is expected to open no later than May.
