Tigers and a lion!

[Miss Lily]

Recently visited our local zoo. They do a lot of work rescuing tigers and we saw the 5 new tigers that had recently been rescued from a circus in Spain. They were kept in awful, cramped conditions and punished if they did anything wrong. It's so sad that people treat these magnificent creatures in such a harsh way. The lion is called Casper and has been resident at the zoo for quite a few years now. He is such a hansdome, majestic creature!

First up, Casper, he's just awesome! He was thoroughly enjoying the morning sunshine!

 

[Miss Lily]

Some of the tigers. You can see in the second photo where her canines had been cut whilst at the circus. Their new enclosures at the zoo must be like heaven for them, having not seen grass for a long long time. They are settling in nicely.

 

[absolutbill]

I love stories like this! What's the name of your local zoo? I watched a series on Netflix that was filmed at Heathrow at their ARK (I think it's what they called it). They talked about how all animals big and small who pass through or end up at Heathrow have to be inspected to make sure they are healthy, can complete their journey, should be allowed into England, and are the correct animal according to their paperwork. It was truly fascinating and I was jealous that I don't live closer to a major airport to work at a facility such as this. One place they worked with was on the Isle of Wright, so I thought of you and Twitchet. I think the name of the show was Animal Airport (word of warning, the first episode has a box of chameleons going from Africa to Japan, and it's not the best of endings for some of the chameleons).

 

[Decadancin]

We have a place here in Florida called Big Cat Rescue bigcatrescue.org that takes all types of exotic cats in and lets them live out their days in better conditions with enrichment and vet care. I have heard so many terrible stories about roadside attractions with exotics, collectors that can no longer take care of them, etc...

Sounds like a similar place!

 

[Tucklander]

They are really awesome creatures, glad they found a great home

 

[Miss Lily]

I love stories like this! What's the name of your local zoo? I watched a series on Netflix that was filmed at Heathrow at their ARK (I think it's what they called it). They talked about how all animals big and small who pass through or end up at Heathrow have to be inspected to make sure they are healthy, can complete their journey, should be allowed into England, and are the correct animal according to their paperwork. It was truly fascinating and I was jealous that I don't live closer to a major airport to work at a facility such as this. One place they worked with was on the Isle of Wright, so I thought of you and Twitchet. I think the name of the show was Animal Airport (word of warning, the first episode has a box of chameleons going from Africa to Japan, and it's not the best of endings for some of the chameleons).

It's the Isle of Wight zoo
https://isleofwightzoo.com/
I watched that series about Heathrow too! It was really good, but sad too.

 

[absolutbill]

I just visited a Sanctuary in Keensberg, Colorado (about 45 minutes northeast of Denver), and it was hands down the best sanctuary I've ever seen. They have HUGE enclosures for their re-homed animals, most also from zoos and circuses, but their enclosures are measured in acres. They built a 1 1/2 mile long elevated boardwalk, about 30' in the air, so you walk above the enclosures looking down on the animals. According to the staff there it's much less stressful on the animals if you are in the air above them because they don't consider that "their" space, and therefore don't pace their enclosures. When they get a new animal in, it goes into a much smaller enclosure until it gets used to the sights and smells of the sanctuary. Then, when it's ready they move the animal into an enclosure inside the enclosure where they will live. So, if it's a bear for example, the other bears can sniff the newcomer, and they get used to each other, before being allowed out to join the other bears. It's called The Wild Animal Sanctuary, and is worth a visit if you are in the area!

 

[absolutbill]

The one thing I forgot to mention, which made me giggle for some reason, is that they neuter all of their male animals (not why I was laughing). However, with a lion you can't neuter him, or he will lose his mane. So, they give the lionesses an IUD, similar to a human woman. I just found the mental picture funny of that VERY specialized level of exotic vet care. Can you imagine being the vet tech coming to work that day? "Ok, so what's on the agenda? Oh, I get to give 25 lionesses IUDs? Fantastic."