Jaguar animal welfare Videos

During the two years before this move, during the legal processes, a huge group of animal rescue volunteers from San Bernadino, San Diego, and Los Angeles areas converged on the “Tiger Rescue” acres and fed the animals and cleaned the flimsey enclosures. Not only were there tigers, there were also about 20 leopards, a mountain lion, an African lion, pot-bellied pigs, ostriches, a camel, a deer, donkeys, chicken and other farm and exotics. Farmers took the farm animals that summer.. Two weeks after the “sanctuary” was closed down, my husband and I joined the volunteers in lining up to feed the tigers with long tongs. A local meat supplier sold us raw chicken we used to feed the hungry leopards and tigers.. They were ravenous at first and fought each other for the food but after the first summer, they settled down and even started playing with their chicken quarters before eating them. Their wounds from fighting and sharp edges healed. Early on, we secured the cages with tie-wraps and chains. Under the guidance of Chuck Traisi of the Fund for Animals, we swabbed their wounds, cleaned away excrement and the broken glass that would rise up from the soil of the former trash landfill. Our hero was Chuck who spent two years overseeing the volunteers while sanctuaries could be found for the various species, Rick and I watched as a volunteer brought a bowling ball and put it in the African lion’s cage. The cat was like a kitten in charging it, rolling it around and finally lying on his back holding the ball in his paws. We got tears in our eyes as he played. During two holicay seasons, someone brought Christmas trees and rosemary branches that the tigers rolled on and sniffed as if they were catnip. One of the most frequent and dedicated volunteers, Beverly White, brought orange traffic cones that the tigers loved as much as their bowling balls. They also enjoyed heavy duty trash barrels that they ciould halfway hide in. What gave the tigers the most pleasure was the cattle watering troughs that volunteers patched. Everyday, we emptied, spray cleaned, and then filled them with fresh water. The cats loved to be hose-sprayed with water. We were impressed at how similar tigers are to our kitties at home, but we were also awed by their mass and strength and unpredictability. How people could keep wild cats as “pets” is beyond me. These animals deserve wide open spaces and the wonderful PAWS sanctuary is the nearest thing to the wild they will experience. It’s a real sanctuary where they can enjoy space, plants, ponds, and the occasional squirrel and rabbit.