Gray Wolves will be part of the New "Jack Hanna's Wild Reserve" at Busch Gardens, which opens it 2000 season today. An Aviary also is part of the nature area.

Children fro James City and Williamsburg schools get a closeiup look friday at 3 month old Bengal Tiger Tu at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. The tiger was brought in for ust two days.

Wild life Exhibit joins Busch Gardens lineup in Virginia.

Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Hampton Roads, opens its 2000 season today (March 25, 2000) with a new, permanent exhibit feathering endangered gray wolves pawing around a make shift British castle. See Athena, the eldest of the four captive raised wolves, climb stairs.  Watch Saber; her peppy brother tear up the sod in their new pen and carry it around proudly like a big juicy bone.  The latest addition to the Anheuser Busch theme park, heretofore known for its myriad roller coasters, covers 1.5 acres, cost "in the millions," and carries the name of a famous TV naturalist Jack Hanna.

Hanna, a frequent guest on  "The Late Show with David Letterman" and the wildlife correspondent on ABC's "Good MOrning America," was in Williamsburg Friday to christen his name sake preserve and drum up interest in the parks latest  family entertainment venture.  He told a crowd of local school children invited to the event that showcasing the wolves in a zoo like setting is to restore their populations in the wild.  Gray wolves are classified as an endangered species by the federal; government , except in Minnesota, where more than 2,500 live in northern woods. "If you don't get to know them, see them and love them, you can't save them." said Hanna, dressed in his usual khaki safari garb and Florida suntan.

The kids seem more interested , however, in how, what and when the wolves eat. (For the record, they eat fresh beef and chicken each day.) "Are we going to se them eat?" one fourth grader asked hopefully.  Hanna replied that the wolves prefer to dine in private, in their "habitat," a large, screened sanctuary behind the mock castle exhibit area.  Wolves are not the only attractions in "Jack Hanna's Wild Reserve."  Up a hill stands an interactive aviary," where visitors enter a netted garden and stroll among 27 brightly colored parrots and lorikeets.  The birds often will fly onto a visitors arms, shoulders or head.  People also can feed the lorikeets a cup of nectar, which the Polynesian birds will lap up with their long, black tongues.  The nature preserve does not come without some objections. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an international animal rights group based in NOrfolk Va, plans to boycott the park, a spokeswoman said this week.  "It sends a chill down my spine when I think of a pack animal like the gray wolf stuck in the middle of ta theme park'", said Jennifer O'Conner, a PETA case worker.  "How do you help wild animals by imprisoning them'?"

Jeff Flocken, an endangered species manager with the national Wildlife Federation, which supports the Busch Gardens preserve, answered that the question with one word: EDUCATION.  "If people didn't see wolves, they wouldn't care about them'" Flocken said, "And the myths that wolves are bad and mean and all that would just continue."  These wolves have never lived in the wild, Flocken said.  Their keeper, Michelle Waardenburg, said the parents were exotic pets that were eventually rescuced; their offspring were raised in hand ruin sanctuaries.  Busch Gardens attracted about 2.3 million visitors last year, according to industry estimates, and marketing officials say the park must add a major attraction each year to keep locals and out of town visitors coming.

Last year, BUsch Gardens added Apollo's Chariot, a roller coaster that drops nines times for a total of 825 feet and reaches a speed of 73 miles per hour.  But officials said there will not be the same al our public relations blitz for the wolves and surrounding nature area.  Instead, the park will mostly go through its normal educational channels to get the word out.  "This is mainly an educational project, so we'll contact the schools who are usually interested in the park," said John Gillespie, director of sales.  Construction in the park is expected to be completed for opening day today.  But work on a new bypass rom interstate 64 to Busch Gardens is not done. Park officials said , though, that the road construction should not effect traffic to the entrance.  Officials expect as many as 15,000 visitors today.