Article Contributed on: 6/29/2008 10:03:55 PM
The question read, "Have you seen Eddy?"
Eddy, you see, is a black panther with jade-green eyes, and he had been staring at me for over a year now from a scrolling advertisement in King Soopers. I decided it was time to visit The Wild Animal Sanctuary.
We first visited the website, where my daughter and I watched a short video about the sanctuary and where the animals came from before ending up there. I had some notion that the animals had been rescued, but I had no idea how many inhabitants there were.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that was unaware that there is a streak of tigers, 75 strong, living in Hudson, Colorado. Along with gray wolves, mountain lions, Black bears, leopards, and Coati Mundi (a member of the raccoon family) for that matter.
The stories are varied, and heartbreaking, but we went ahead with our visit. (Don't trust Mapquest on this one - call and get precise directions.)
The large sign at the entrance is worded carefully, I'm guessing by an English major, to induce some shame in human lust for entertainment at an animal's expense, but not so much that you turn away at the entrance fees.
My four-year-old's favorite animal is a Serval, one of the smaller wild cats. I doubted there would be any, but when she asked, the teen at the desk replied there were two, and took us out onto the aerial walkway.
Diva, the one visible in her enclosure, had been rescued from a New York City apartment. Her owner had tried to remove her claws with pliers. The sad thing is she wasn't the only animal there whose owner had such a brilliant idea.
Phala, the white tiger, was saved from a white tiger "mill", where she was near death. In the 1980s, the Cincinnati Zoo sold white tiger cubs to the private sector for up to $60,000, and it is estimated Phala was born during this time. She is now comfortably living out her old age at the sanctuary after a miraculous recovery.
The stories go on to include Kobu, an African Lion, who was rescued from a concrete pit somewhere in Mexico. Two black bears were rescued from a circus where they had been trained by getting them addicted to nicotine. Tigger, the tiger, was saved from the basement of a house in Centennial where he had come down with ringworm.
Wild animals are wild animals. I'm not sure what is so difficult to understand about this. I know when I was a kid I thought a tiger would be a cool pet, but apparently I was gifted with enough IQ points to not follow through with the notion.
I can only speculate that it's the draw of money somehow, or the novelty of having an unusual pet. The irony is that these creatures can never be pets in the true sense of the word.
When the big cats get out of hand, some owners simply turn them loose. Seven people have been killed and 31 injured by tiger attacks in the US since 1998, and several incidents have been in Texas.
The park's newsletter estimates 30,000 large carnivores are being kept by private owners in the US, and 15,000 of those are tigers. That is actually more than are currently in the wild.
We left the compound speechless, and contemplative. Staff suggested we return for sunset sometime as that is when the wolves start howling. Though none of these animals can ever be rehabilitated, at least some instincts remain.
The Sanctuary is always in need of donations for these four-legged victims of human ignorance. From food to toys, to funds for healthcare, the Sanctuary can even design donation insert cards for wedding invitations.
www.WildAnimalSanctuary.org, or 303-536-0118