Reviews of Big Run Wolf Ranch (Zoo)

Jose Hernandez

Great experience, you really get to see the animals very close. Learn a lot, the staff is great.

Spooky Meow

Such a fun place for family outings. My family visited this weekend and we had such a great time. They do raffles, interactive and educational does with some of the animals and have a gift shop and concession stand. We loved it and are planning on going back sometime this summer.

Michael Kuhn

So me and my wife decided to have a fun day at big run wolf ranch so let's start off with waiting to get in we stood in line at Walmart for over a hour to hour an half to get on a bus to get to big run wolf to again stand in line after getting off the bus for another 30 to 40 mins after finally getting in to see what this place is all about we start to look at all the animals they have. So let's see there animals look like they are not to well taken care of. There pins are very small and all of the animals look like they were stressed depressed and are very dirty. I would highy not recommend going here someone needs to check this place and make sure there animals are doing ok.

Tisha T

Loved this place. Rescued animals are very well taken care of.

Harry Klein

A must visit

Bob Ehrler

Great atmosphere! Fun for the whole family. Truly special being so close to these beautiful animals. You don't get that close at the zoo.

GARY WONG

Lots of fun for kids & adults. Only $6 for adults. Kids under 3 Free. Located in Lockport. Next Open House is May 5.

Scott Essex

The wolves are absolutely stunning. Definitely worth the trip.

Cee Jay

Doing the right thing. Public education and well tended animals

Emily Payne

Good place to take kids that haven't seen much wildlife. Part of wolf breeding and conservation

Laura Barnett

Absolutely love this place. Wonderful people and very knowledgeable. It was a great experience.

Dan Martin

Great place to see animals, usually everyday ones, up close

Brian Duncan

It's a way to see wildlife up close

Jazzman Rivers

Sad animals, small cages.

Shelby Brown

Amazing place.

Dennis D

Many wild animals..... My friends rented it for their wedding .....good times!!!

Miranda Poston

The animals here are amazing and are soo taking care of. Warms my heart that these animals are treated as family

Dave Kruse

Interesting discussion of the wolf and other assorted animals. Get to experience wolves and a dozen other animals in their natural environment. Pet several animals up close and children love chasing the chicken's.

Judith Rusch

Fun place to learn and bring the family.

Wade Gebhardt

Very informative people there

Tara Kosing

Went with our scouts and they had an amazing time .

Cheryl Plecki

Is a great place to experience wolves and other wild animals

Pam B

Love this place, fun and very educational.

Mike Woods

Something different, fun for the kids

Katy Brennan

It was great! I loved all the animals, especially that sweet skunk!!! The wolves are awesome and beautiful!!! I hope to visit again sometime.

Keith McMaster

A small ranch in the South suburbs with some exotic animals much more accessible than at the zoo. Check out their website for open house dates.

Christine Costa

These animals are miserable, please don't patronize this hellish existence for these animals. The animals have suffered neglect and fines have been given on numerous occasions for lack of veterinary care for injuries and illness, inadequate enclosures and other violations. Animals who need to roam can not be confined to a cage permanently and live healthy lives. Their behaviors show how distressed they are. There are sanctuaries in which these animals would have proper space in a more natural habitat. This place sickened and saddened me. When they stop receiving funding from their family days perhaps the right thing will be done to get them to a more appropriate sanctuary.

Chris & Christine Kuczynski

Always a GREAT TIME. A MUST SEE.

Kelly Sluis

Came here for an open house. The staff are all amazing and super knowledgeable. They had a few critters out that we could pet and they were careful about telling kids not to touch others. Def would recommend coming here.

Random Films

Beautiful place. Friendly family.

Lisa Maguire

Really nice informative staff and great fun interactions with the huge variety of very cool animals!

Angie Ng

Great place to see some animals up close. Very friendly and informative owners. Minimal entrance fee (to feed the animals). Open house on Nov 24th, check them out! Kids will definitely have a great time.

Sheryl Tarulis

Great time on a nice day

Annabelle

So much fun!!!!!! If you like wolf's this is the place to go.

TimeGamingBros Offical

Even though it was cold it was still beutiful

Olivia Ozawa

My 6 year old son loved it there. A cute small family friendly spot.

Mike Marek

Was a great place very knowledgeable and friendly people will definitely be going back when I can

Debra Conti

This is a good day trip for mom, dad and the kids, a fun date for adults and animal lovers. The sanctuary is small and intimate with a gift shop, covered picnic table and burgers. Volunteers give small group talks about wolves.

Sandra Word

Have beautiful animals. Worth the time.

Patricia Heuer

Wonderful family place! Beautiful animals and great stuff! We will go back!

Mariann Homerding

Our family was here on an open house day the end of August 2019. Some things we loved were the talks about the animals. The kids and we adults learned some interesting things. We also loved the opportunities to get up close to skunks, opossum, chameleons, and sugar gliders. The prices for the water was reasonable and my daughter loved the face paint. The thing that bothered me and even my 11 year old was the size of the enclosures. I guess it meets standards, but it made me feel bad to see the wolves walking in circles in cages smaller than my living room. Everyone there working was nice and patient. The shuttle was really a nonissue for us. I'd pay extra admission if that helped them increase the size of those cages.

John Sweeney

Family had a great time. Thinkung about recommending this to our cub scout troop for a camping trip. Everyone was very friendly and informative. Thanks fir a great afternoon.

Leonard Harootunian

Great place they take great care of the animals very nice owners.

Julio To

It used to nicer and they had more animals. People that work there are rude.

Kimberly Bryant

Great place for kids and adults

Megan E Jones

Friendly staff and great "show" about the animals. Camped here and it was very pleasant, the wolves howling at night was lots of fun as well!

Susan Howe

It was wonderful. Very informative and educational. Enjoyed my time there.

Aaron-Catof9Lives

We had a great time today at the season opener and will definitely be back again.

Linda Price

Bear is in a cage that is way too small for him. Animals do get out and end up in my yard sometimes. I am a neighbor.

Debbie Brown

They were beautiful animals, but I found it all to be very sad. The wolves were just pacing back and forth in their way to small cages, with their tails between their legs, literally, scared looking. There is a coyote there that does the same in his little cage in a crazy 8 over and over and over....... looking petrified. The cougar, tiger and bear just lay there, sleeping in their cages, way way to small also. When do these animals ever get to run?! Like they were born to do. And where? So yes, beautiful animals, but sad. If they are rescued, can't they be rescued and looked after until they can find a different sanctuary that would have the room for them to roam like they should. Instead of living in such confined spaces forever like they are now and have been for years already. Wild animals need more room.

Deb Foley

Staff is friendly, informative and passionate.

Elizabeth Wilkison

All it was was a money thing

Nancy Garbrecht

Very cool and kid friendly.

Kathleen Koremenos

Wolves pacing seems stressed and restless in their enclosures. So much land here didn't expect animals to be kept in such confined areas. Also would be nice if they let the bear go to a sanctuary.

Greg Arata

The presentation was extremely interesting and the young lady who was speaking was extremely personable and knowledgeable. Some younger children in our camp group lost focus, but most of the older campers were extremely interested and engaged.

Anna DuMontelle

At frist I thought I was going to have fun because I thought that the animals were going to have a large area to live in but what I saw today made my heart die a little in side. I am only a kid and what I saw today made me sick. The space the wolves had to roam was very small compared to how much space they really have. Wolves roam 10 to 30miles in just one day and what the wolves had at the big run wolf ranch was just a small circle that not even a human could live in. I saw almost all the animals there run in circles. I feel so bad form those animals and who even is reading this thinking oh your over reacting the people there know what there doing the animals are fine well there not and you need to learn more about those animals to realise how much pain there in just imagine if you were an anmial in the wild dining for miles then you are taken away to a smkall space like that just imagine them realise not to support that place plz.

Casey Jones

They take in injured and weak wild animals and return them back to good health and back to the environment, sooo... :)

Russell Little

What they do here is amazing!

Chet Strzelczyk

Fantastic Open House today with Jim and Bubba the aligator. Such a hidden gem for Lockport! Plus walking distance from the house to boot.

jonathan koziol

Amazing place. Very educational.

Samantha Williams

They say to bring strollers but it's not really stroller friendly unless their is no one else there

Monica Iasillo

Loved all the information. They are beautiful animals!

J. K. Kent

Quite crowded but worth it. A great family place, fun and educational for all ages!

Abby Elliott

Amazing place. Great conservation education. up close and personal

Jen Kang

This place is a roadside zoo. I am not mad at the people who highly regard it - I simply think they are uneducated. The animals don’t even have room to run in the cages they are in. The staff says they are USDA sized cages, but we all know the government doesn’t care to treat animals the way they should, that’s no secret. USDA approved does NOT equal humane. There are dog parks that have ACRES more land than these animals have. I can’t imagine being cooped up in such a small area & not being able to do something as simple as RUN. I am not an anti-zoo person, I love Brookfield, especially their wolf program. But Big Run Wolf Ranch, they are unfit for these animals. It’s behind a suburban neighborhood with a bunch of large animals crammed into small spaces. These animals deserve to be in a sanctuary, which I have explicitly been told that Big Run Wolf Ranch is not, by them. Do not go here.

Christina Karpowicz

I went to an open house and it was really sad. The wolves were kept in cages way to small and were clearly distraught(pacing back and forth etc)Also they had skunks in a pen who were being manhandled to the point of stress (they started having diarrhea). It was really sad to see

Laurie Cryan

The ranch is amazing! We were lucky enough to get to play with the baby wolves, pet the skunk, feel the opossum! The staff was very informative on all the animals! From porcupines to tigers the kids could not me more impressed with this ranch! The family who runs the ranch are so accommodating! This ranch was also so clean, literally odor free!

Anthony Cordero

Many predators.

Matthew Kempker

This place is AMAZING! The animals are spectacular! Tigers, and wolfs, and bears, Oh, My

Kathryn Christensen

We had an awesome time!! The post stated that we would be able to hold one of the baby raccoons. When we went to where they were I had to really let the girl let me hold one. We came all the from where we live to be able for me to do this an hours drive. I really love raccoons very much. I was so very very happy to be able to fullfill a lifetime dream!!!! I only wish I was able to hold that precious little baby a bit longer.

Tina Butcher

Educational for the whole family

Amanda

I really though this was a wild sanctuary... I was expecting the wolf’s to at least be in nice enclosures. Was not expecting to see tiny cages, no grass ,these animals are pacing on stone, nothing like a natural environment for them. Tigers in small cages.... these animals would be better off at Brookfield zoo. At least they can run and be on grass! It’s great to teach the kids about the animals and conservation, however this looks like a glorified pet collection in tiny cages. I really thought they just brought them up to these cages for the day for all to see up close, and they had a big enclosure for them to run and be normal wolfs in. When I realized that was their enclosure it was, I was depressed for them.

Brian Wright

I loved it better then zoo

Jason Nicholson

Fun little gem for the family to visit

Sam Puglisi

Small cages for all the animals, wolves, coyotes, and the bear just pacing back and forth on gravel. Pretty depressing to see

Shannon DeLaurentis

This was one of the worst experiences ever. My son and I were mortified at how dirty this place was. There were too many people for the small space and the enclosures were TOO small for the animals. Wolf running in cirlces. Cougar had rotting meat in tiny cage Two artic white wolves in a small enclosure.This place is horrific!!! We watched a duck drink out of black water. I took pictures and plan to see how I can go further with getting this place shut down. It's horrid!!!! My son is 10 and even knew right away that the animals looked stressed. The bridge has nails sticking out and loose boards. This will give me nightmares.

Doug Arellano

Pretty cool place. Kids loved it. May of been better if there was more coordination while at the facility but it was well worth the money and the people were very friendly

Victoria Garcia

Im surprised this place isnt shut down. Its close to animal cruelty. These animals are all confined to small cages and you can see they are miserable. The little fox runs in circles non stop in a little 5x8 or so the size Im not sure. Horse was full of mud and dirt. Its really sad. The place is not child friendly. To walk around the cages w a stroller was close to impossible trying not to fall into the little ditch. No where to change a diaper. Lady at food area was rude. I think she was the wife. She wasnt a volunteer. Dont waste your money even though isnt wasnt much, then maybe theyll shut down and the animals will have a better place to live. Definately not big enough for any of these animals. It was sad.

Luke Schmeltzer

Absolutely amazing

Terry Lane

Great cause fun for the family. Open only limited days

Shannon Gharst

Great place, tons of info given for the animals. They are loved and taken care of. They were all rescued from people who bought wild animals and had no business doing such a thing!

Mitchell Dziak

I pet a baby wolf, and my mom held one and cleaned up it's poop. The best place to volunteer, too.

Margaret Doubek

I'm a huge fan of wolves and this was a great experience!

Lorenzo Quintana

It was a wonderful place,and the staff was so nice,

Patricia Gustafson

Take your children here. They will love it. The animals are great!

Ann Marie Cusack

We will be back. We had a wonderful time. Everyone is so friendly and informative.

andrian rafael

Awesome place

Tammy Harris

Inexperienced with young children, not very patient with them.

Nancy Kim

Good for the family and the animals are all great

Umang Doshi

The variety of wolves and the wolf show was fantastic..

LuLaRoe with Danny & Nicole Johnsen Molinaro

Amazing place, a must visit!!!!

Joseph Girten

Great place. A lot of fun for all ages. Beautiful animals.

Joe Lauletta

Great place to go open house today go and take the kids. They'll love it

Trapper Nick

Always a pleasure

Sil Gomez

Good cause

Newey Kearney

Awesome hands on with animals experience! Kids exspecially

tom adams

Busy. Great for kids

Jennifer Wachholz-bero

Friendly staff and owners, clean, knowledgeable, animals all look healthy and you can tell they care for them well and with love. Many presentations that keep kid's attention.

Jillian Jaakkola

Awesome learning experience

stacy howard

Was awesome and awesome presentations

Brooklyn flores

If you love wolves, coyotes, tigers, pumas and cougars, bears, and more this is ur place.

Thunder Ruthven

A very educational place. It was our first time here. The level of care and affection between the animals and handlers was amazing. Any critics of the work done here, clearly do not understand the nature and the purpose of this place. Great work, fantastic presentation, I'd love to volunteer.

hot rod

great staff

Mikayla Machlet

At first I was really excited to see these beautiful animals. They are truely beautiful! However seeing how small the cages were and the smell from the rotting meat was very sad. There was no way their food was put out that morning or even yesterday, it had the smell of rot and decay. The cages they are in are NOT big enough at all. These animals need space to roam, they are not meant to be caged. Looking at these animals you could see how stressed and sad they were. The little coyote was running in a figure eight the whole time, very unsettled. The bears left paw was cracked and very bloody, the poor bear looked like he was in pain. He was just holding his paw to his head. The poor artic wolfs looked very hot and stressed. The skunk was chased around the pen and pinned to his house to pick him up. The horse was full of mud and kicking himself in the stomach. As for the birds and ducks, children where picking up the eggs! That's not okay! The staff wasn't doing anything about it. Overall I am very heartbroken over how these animals are living.

Frank Sutkus

Loved it!!!!!!

Faye Segert

The educational classes were wonderful. Lots of interesting facts on all the animals. Would like to see them have more space . Cages seemed small for them. But well cared for.

Matt Townsend

Out of this world AWESOME!! The animals are beautiful, well cared for and great to see. The owner was so friendly and extremely knowledgeable. If you want to see a bear, a tiger, a cougar, wolves, foxes and other animals up close and personal, this is where you need to be! Can't wait to go back!

Ryan Zimmerman

Really neat little wild animal reserve. You are able to get quite close to the animals and the staff was all very knowledgeable. A bit crowded but not too bad. Would be interesting to go on a day without an open house. Good makes of reptiles, bats, cats and dogs.

Chris Chelmecki

Neat to see tiger and wolves, but fairly small. Since it's a rescue I was expecting a little more than a few cages. Also requires offsite parking (shuttle bus provided).

Anthony Seiler

Absolutely amazing facility, home to many wonderful native and exotic species of animals. Extremely informative and the animals are so playful and happy and are in great hands.

Stain Dog

It's only open once a month to the public so look it up online. You can't park were it is located so you have to take a shuttle bus. Other than that it's good to kill a few hours with the kids. They have wolves, tigers and bears. Other smaller animals too. My daughter really liked the ducks swimming around.

Samuel Hough

I loved the hedgehog

Sherry Mosley

this is a great place the animals are very loved and cared for i worked at the vet he would bring the animals in after hours for check up and shots . greats place !!

John Bicek

Loved it, although parking was annoying. They need a bigger sign when they have family days so everyone knows where to park

Teah Foster

Very educational!! The people are friendly and the animals are beautiful!

Lorraine Zielinski

Thanks so much for the wonderful program and tour. We loved it. Kimberly Heights School

Jenny Vlazny

My 12 year old granddaughter and I thought attending Big Run Wolf Ranch's open house would be a great way to spend the day. Instead, we both left feeling angered, disgusted and saddened. I preface my comments by saying I have worked in the animal welfare field for 32 years and am very knowledgeable about animal behavior and body language. I was first appalled by the small cages the animals were housed in with no attempt whatsover to even try to mimic their natural habitat. Rather than grass, their footing was stones. In addition, the wolves were obviously very stressed as demonstrated by their continual pacing and repetitive circling their enclosures. During the "educational" presentation, it was very disheartening to learn that they purposely breed the wolves so that they can sell the pups to other organizations. Pups are weaned from their mothers at only 13 days of age and bottle fed so they can be humanized. They admit it is traumatic for the mothers, but "they get over it". A four month old pup was brought out during their presentation so that everyone could pet her. She was clearly very stressed and fearful as demonstrated by her body language, but "the show must go on", so she was dragged and forced to interact with a crowd full of noisey children even though she pulled back with tail tucked to avoid their advances. The wolf park representative responded to my email voicing my concern saying that "she was afraid of the strollers". Even if that was the case, the handler should've explained to the visitors that she was nervous and that spectators would only be able to watch her instead of petting her. We left feeling that rather than watching an educational demonstration, we had just witnessed a carnival side show where there was little regard for the well-being of the animals.

James Schloz

Was wonderful to see the care these animals were given and the staff were so wonderful.

Danny Johnsen

Love this place, the amazing work they do there and the care for the animals is awesome, Rainah is so knowledgeable and has so much passion, I hope to return soon to hear her talk about all the animals again.

Alexis Wiesner

i went around easter and it was awful the animals were panting and out of breath from the hot sun, i didn't see any water bowls and there were bones and dried meat all thru out the cages, along with big puddles of urine and fesis it looked as if the cages had not been cleaned in a while. And probally the most shocking was that one of their bears was hitting itself in the face over and over again and biting its own paws and people who didnt know what was going on where laughing at the bear

Sheri Wilson

What a wonderful day we had! I love this place. We really we're excited to see the wolves, but I have to admit, the turkey and skunk stole my heart.

Jim Brand

We stopped in on and open house day out of the blue. Did not know much about it. Parked at the local walmart and they bused us over. No wait. Quick trip. Great place for kids, and grownups too. And they are doing good work so help suppot them. Petted a skunk, a turkey, a bat. A tarantula (if that is your thing). Butterflies. Saw several varitals of wolf, also bear, tiger, cougar. The run a grill so you could get some tho ear (very affordable, if simple). I think well be back with kids in tow.

Connor Craig

If you like animals you will love this place they have animal presentations letting you pet the animals and the also have a place where you can hold a opossum or a skunk

A Ungar

Not too much to see. Could not get close to enough to see many of the animals. The highlight of the trip was a people friendly roaming turkey that liked to be petted.

Terry Nero

This place if fantastic.

Gail P

I would rate it better if the animals had more room. They just go around in circles. Wolves are not meant to be in such close quarters. And that poor bear.

Steven Ashton

Good value for money, and fun learning for the whole family. Well worth a visit.

Michael Choquette

It's OK, kinda on the lame side, cages are way too small for the animals.

Ellen Mardula

Cool wolf sanctuary to visit. Educational and entertaining. It is small but they offer camping and outings for groups. Gift shop is super reasonable. Overall a good time.

John M

Great place. Will post pictures.

Lisa Quintana

We went for the last open house. What a cool place. Family picture with Santa holding a skunk. How cool is that. The owner of Big Run Wolf Ranch is obviously passionate about his animals

Joseph Powell

During the open house they had some great presentations. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable.

Stephanie walsh

this place is depressing. beautiful wolves and a bear don't belong in cages and such small ones! it's horrible! I'm surprised this place hasn't been shut down.

Dave Straub

Didn't really know what to expect, but really didn't expect it to be right at the very edge of a subdivision either.. animals all appear to be well taken care of. We went to see the wolf & raccoon pups.

Anna Summers

The animals are loved and well cared for. This is a great place for kids to learn about wildlife. In the spring they have a raffle, where kids have a chance to feed a wolf pup. Supervised of course. The kids talked about it for weeks. This place is so important in a time when ALEC owned media is trying to end people's love of animals for big oil, for mining, for trophy killers. We get in their way.. I can't think of a more important place.

Joci 97

Great place the animals do love the owners as during a presentation of one of the larger wolves licked a helper in the face multiple times

Tonya Olson

I have been to the ranch more than a few times. I enjoyed these times. This time I went and it was a warmer day. The flies were literally eating on the wolves ears. They kept trying to shake them off with no success. I kept telling myself, possibly there was no way to treat their ears, however I never saw this severe condition before at the ranch. It saddened me.

Lee Basile

Absolutely an awesome Place. Highly recommended

jack ashcraft

Great family outing

vanessa ruiz

Animals look happy and active, only problem was that it was overcrowded with people. We saw wolves, a horse, donkey, chickens, a porcupine, and a tiger. Well kept area, and there was free shuttle buses. There is no parking in the facility.

Jenny Massie

The whole getting into the place was kinda a fiasco since they don't have hardly any parking there we had to be shuttled in on bus after standing in a line forever to get on one. But, once we were there the staff was all really nice, very informative, the place and animal enclosures were very clean. The kids had a good time. They LOVED getting to pet a skunk!

Emilie Becq

Awesome educational place!

Rudy Rodriguez

Really cool kids loved it turkeys are really friendly they like to be petted

natalie hartnett

If you are an animal lover steer clear of this place. Cramped rusted cages and stressed animals. We came at 11am for an exhibit that ended up being the owner telling is life story for about thirty minutes while an employee walked around with wolf straining on a chain. This place should be shut down.

Beth T

Great rescue refuge for animals in need & wonderful place to contribute to their care & attention.

Liz Cline

Grandsons loved it.

Yasmine Abed

So much fun and educational!

Scott Styles

Animals obviously sick and neurotic. Insufficient cage space. Not a place for kids!

carrie guilfoil

Love this place!