Seven Steps to Save the Ocean – Environmental art at the Wildlife Park

At Ranua Wildlife Park you have an opportunity to experience environmental art year-round. Seven Steps to Save the Ocean, by artist / architect Maija Kovari, is an interactive artwork encouraging the audience to do small everyday acts to fight climate change. The work is located in the middle of the park on a tor that used to be an ancient sea shore, thousands of years ago. The audience can walk through the artwork along a wooden walking bridge. Seven Steps to Save the Ocean changes with the seasons. It is a different experience in the summer and in the winter when the snow covers the ground.

Trained both as an architect and visual artist, Maija Kovari works in the fields of urban planning and contemporary art. As an architect she concentrates in planning and urban design. The guiding light of Seven Steps to Save the Ocean is the thought of choice. Over despair and apathy, one can choose hope, and in one’s everyday actions make choices that have a positive impact on future generations.

Name for the Pallas’ cat at the Ranua Wildlife Park

The Pallas’ Cat (manul), arrived to the Ranua Wildlife Park in June, has finally gotten its favourite name. Over 4 861 name suggestions arrived for the competition.

As expected, the most favourite name suggestion was Manu. The name was proposed 536 times, most obviously in honour of the former president of Finland, Mauno Koivisto, as Manu, was his nick-name.

The manul’s outer appearance, with its long, dense fur, inspired many a person suggesting names. The most favourite were Örmy, Mörri, Yrmy, Rölli and Mörkö.

Finally, the name selected for the Pallas’ cat, was Mortti, as, according to the animal attendants, the name describes awfully well the male cat -like character of the manul. The requirements for the name were that it would be short and pithy, starting with the letter m. The name Mortti was suggested 5 times, and therefore, we cast lots for the main prize. Taru Kivinen from Pori won the main prize. Taru Kivinen, with her family, will have the chance to come and stay overnight at the new Arctic Fox glass-igloos at the Ranua Wildlife Park, at the same time, also visiting the park and seeing the daily life of the polar bear family. Other people suggesting the winner name will be remembered with family gift-cards of the Wildlife Park.

In honour of the new name, Mortti-manul will offer Sisu -polar bear chocolates for the first one hundred visitors at the Ranua Wildlife Park on Saturday.

Crane

As their habitat cranes prefer wide-open swamp and wetland areas. They feed on green plants, roots and sprouts, insects and molluscs and frogs and berries. Cranes are found all over Finland, except the northernmost mountain areas of Lapland. A crane couple commits to a lifetime partnership, and returns to the same nesting area year after year. As their natural habitat has decreased due to the draining of swamps, cranes breed also on farm fields, gathering there especially during migration. Before the fall migration, cranes gather into flocks of hundreds, even thousands of individuals. They often gather on large cultivated pastures, like the Söderfjärd field south of the city of Vaasa. During the day they feed on crops on the fields, storing nutrition for the migration. If the farmers have not threshed their corn, cranes may cause some damage treading the ground, and soiling it with their excrement. At night-time cranes move out to the islets on the nearby sea, where they are safe from predators.