We arrived and paid our donation (tax deductible!) the kid at the gate (child labor laws? Maybe not at a volunteer facility.) Immediately we got to look at two Lynx. I mean, immediately. They're right there, in that cage, looking at you. Awesome! I've never been so close to such a large cat before, and they really are beautiful. And big. Look at the size of those paws. And claws. And teeth. Now, at a zoo you would find yourself safely behind a very deep moat with a gate and all kinds of security-type precautions keeping you far far away from all those pointy parts of a giant cat. At the animal rescue sanctuary, all that stands between you and giant cats is two layers of chain link fence. I don't want to go speaking bad about chain link fences or anything, but I'm pretty sure my brother and I knocked a fence or two over when we were kids, i.e. much smaller than a 450 pound tiger.
The lynx didn't seem much interested in us, so we moved on to the giant white tiger who was lazing in the sun. He seemed kind of sleepy, but mostly harmless, so we oohed and ahhed a bit before moving on to the "Tiger Country". As we approached tiger country to read about all the tigers living in the enclosure, the largest, scariest Siberian tiger I have ever seen came sweeping out from a tiger house and growling, hissing, and standing up on his hind legs against the chain link fence. Reasonably, E and I scurried backward from the fence and tried to catch our breath and make sure that we hadn't wet ourselves. One of the keepers came over and told us that "Oh, Mohan just gets spooked by large groups of people. Move along and come back later and it will probably be fine. Don't you Mow-hawn? Big gwuy just scared of big people..." Scared of people my patootie. You talk baby talk to him all you want lady, we'll be happy to move along.
Does he look mad? Well, he was.Anyway, after our scary run in with Mohan, we visited all the other tigers without incident. We looked at the two lions, visited the serval, hunted for the cougars (only spotted one), talked to the coatimundi, looked at the leopards, and even got chuffed at by a tiger named Nikolas. At first, we were quite sure we were going to be in trouble by tiger again, but a keeper informed us that chuffing is his way of telling us he likes us and to come on over. We were SOOO close to him and he looked really friendly, not like that Mohan guy. We talked to Nick for a while before ending our day by patting the friendly dog and horse (not part of the tour but on the property anyway) goodbye. It was a fun visit and really interesting. Just don't get to close to Mohan, and I'd highly recommend going. If you intend on getting close to Mohan, bring a change of pants.
Nick really likes us. He's super friendly and apparently the tallest cat there. He stands at over 11 feet when he gets up on his hind legs!
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