Wolf Parks Jump on the Twilight: New Moon Bandwagon

Wolf at Longleat Captivated by Twilight New Moon

The wolves at Longleat Safari Park in England were impressed with the realism of Twilight: New Moon. At a special showing in the their park west of London, they paid attention to the wolf scenes and howled back, the Telegraph reports. They're just the latest tie-in wolf parks are making with the vampire movie.

Sure, the whole "World Wolf Premiere" thing is a ploy for the DVD release. “Whilst we're used to deafening screams for Robert Pattinson, it's a nice change to hear howls of approval for the rest of the cast, including the screen wolves themselves," one movie promoter said. 

But at least the wolves were entertained. Or enriched, as animal care people say. They circled the giant screen pulled by a semi, making sure it wasn't a predator about to attack. Then they started watching and sometimes howling. "They seem to be really keen on the wolf bits," Ian Turner, the park’s deputy head warden said.



The folks at Indiana's Wolf Park were way ahead of the Brits. In January they hosted a special night for Twilight fans, who learned the differences between real wolves and those hunks in the film.

As every hack journalist knows, you need three events to make a trend, so here you go. Turns out the animators for the movie got their accuracy on by hanging out at Wolf Mountain Sanctuary in California. "They all climbed into a 40ft pen with the wolves and spent the afternoon feeding, touching and walking around with the wolves, observing wolf behaviour first hand," Digital Media World reports. The wolves at this sanctuary outside San Beradino aren't wild of course; the sanctuary, founded in 1980, has 17 wolves rescued from private homes or the movie industry. The center allows some very close contact with wolves. If you want to see the wolves Twilight makers learned from and help out a sanctuary in financial distress--you can visit. It's $20 for an hour tour, $120 for an all-day visit. Now that would be the ultimate Twilight fan experience.


See if there's a wolf preserve near you

A Whale Wars Horror Flick: Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre

We've seen the battle between whalers and whale-watchers turned into a reality TV hit in Whale Wars; now it's moving to the horror film genre. Iceland's Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre features whale watchers cast adrift at sea who are preyed upon by rogue whalers.

You'd think Iceland--where whaling and defying international opinion--are considered almost a patriotic duty, would produce a film with  the Sea Shepherd crew on the rampage. But this film seems to be, dare I say it, more subtle. The family of whalers has gone mad--after they aren't allowed to hunt whales anymore. The trailer shows the whalers shooting harpoons at someone in the water. And the tourist cries out, "No! Please! I'm a friend of nature! No! Argghh!" So, the tourists pretty much had it coming. I'd want to harpoon anybody who said that.

I haven't had access to the film, which played at the Glasgow Film Festival in February and is set to be released in the UK on DVD soon. The MonstersandCritics blog horror fan pans it as "just another average horror film with various characters being pitted against a family of psychotic whale hunters." But I'm glad to see the whale issue now playing out in pop culture. Hey, every movie can't be The Cove.

Where to Go to See Whales

Where to Watch Animals in Europe

The Cove: By Seeing the Movie, You're Participating in the Effort

The Cove is a movie about dolphin slaughter in Japan, but the filmmakers have the sense to know that an hour of dolphins being harpooned, flailing and bleeding to death would be unwatchable. Instead they tell the fascinating, adventure story of trying to get footage of a slaughter of dolphins that Taiji, Japan tries desperately to keep secret.

Spoiler alert: they get the footage. And here's where the audience feels like they're participating. The point of the effort is to get the word (and video) out on how horrific and unnecessary the process of killing 23,000 dolphins a year is. It's an act of faith by the filmmakers that once the world knows this will have to stop. And just by witnessing The Cove, you fee like you're part of their journey.

They also list things you can do to help. You can write President Obama and the Japanese. You can donate. You can carefully choose your seafood--for your own health and for the fish's sake.

One of the actions they suggest is that you pledge not to go see dolphins in captivity. (The sale of show dolphins supports dolphin slaughter.)

Here are some places you can go see dolphins in the wild instead.