UWSP museum to host party celebrating wolf’s return

Metro Wire Staff

Get ready for a howlin’ good time in celebration of the return of a local museum staple.

A popular gray wolf mount was stolen in May from the UW-Stevens Point Museum of Natural History and found two months later in Schmeeckle Reserve.

In celebration of the wolf’s return, the museum is holding a “Welcome Home, Wolf” open house on Oct. 13 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Wolf-themed games and crafts will be available, along with photo opportunities with the “guest of honor”. Wolf-related items will be available for purchase in the museum gift shop at a 15 percent discount.

There will be photos of the wolf in some of the destinations he visited while on his two-month “vacation” from the museum, according to a news release from UWSP.

“Every specimen the museum owns is significant, especially our gray wolf because we use him as an educational tool,” said Plover resident Jenna Miskowic, a student employee who planned the event. “We are overjoyed to have our gray wolf back and decided to throw him a homecoming party to stress how important each of the specimens is to the museum.”

The gray wolf was donated to UW-Stevens Point in 2011 by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources after it was killed in a Shawano Co. road accident. Mounted on a mobile base with community donations, the wolf has been a popular way to promote understanding of the natural world and research at the university.

The museum is located on the first floor of the Albertson Hall University Library, 900 Reserve St., and open to the public.