After the first refuge I was depressed and pretty burned out. I got help to understand what had happened and to let it go. Even though I wasn't physiologically addicted to alcohol, I was using it for unhealthy reasons, so I went to AA too. I didn't care what I had to do, I only knew I had to stop the downward spiral I was in. This was December of 1999.
In February of 2000 I'd heard of another refuge further away than the first. I didn't care about distances, I needed and wanted to hear, feel, smell and love big cats. Every time I heard a small car downshift I heard big cats. Tiger chuffs rang in my ears, and even though most can't stand the smell of a carnivore, trust me when I tell you it's an acquired taste. Once you've been loved by such a magnificent being, there's really no going back to living without it.
I can't remember how I found these people at the next refuge, but, they seemed nice and easy-going (which was paramount as far as I was concerned). They had 75 - 80 animals~Barbary Coast lions, tigers, leopards, mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, bears, raccoons, wolves, foxes, a little bit of just about everything. Abused big cats (or exotics) is a much bigger problem than most people realize. The cause is desperately underfunded and because most of these animals were illegal or confiscated in FBI raids, little is known about the problem.
The owner and his wife (his fourth or fifth one) invited me out to take a look. The wife and I hit if off right away, although I had some concerns about her emotional stability. She was chain smoking, shaking, telling me things about her marriage that I'd have been hard pressed to tell my best friend. I didn't mind listening, given her dedication to the animals, I wanted to put her at ease as much as I could. I'm actually not all that altruistic, I'm sure in the back of my mind was a little bird telling me that if I made friends with the wife, no one could accuse me of trying to get to the husband.
This refuge was a 2 1/2 hour drive to get there, and while the animals and I didn't bond like we did at the first refuge, I did fall in love with the Barbary Coast lions there and a few of their tigers. One tiger I'd befriended had been horribly abused by a guy that would wear a cowboy hat and sunglasses. Years later, one day a visitor showed up wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses. Innocent sounding, isn't it? When he got to this tiger's pen, this 500 pound gorgeous animal went inside his den, curled up and was shaking in terror. Although big cats can heal given the right environment, they never forget.
On with the story: The husband was lazy and I'm pretty sure the wife was an alcoholic, so when I got there, there was lots of work to do. Some of these cats had wounds on their feet and they were walking in their own feces...the only time the cages were cleaned was when I was there twice a week. Around March, the husband separated from his wife, and he took a serious fall off of a ladder and split his head open.
The wife sat by his side the whole time he was at the hospital and I came out to the refuge every day to take care of the animals. There was only one problem. The wife would forget to leave me the keys to the compound; my 2 1/2 hour drive there was wasted time, my 2 1/2 hour drive home really sucked. I didn't feel so badly for the owner and his wife, but I definitely felt for the animals. Yet, I could understand their hesitation at leaving me alone there.
Just a few months prior to my arrival, a volunteer had been showing a donor around the place and reached inside one of the tiger pens to scratch an adult male tiger in there. There were two tigers in that pen, they had been hand raised and taught that gnawing on arms was okay, but biting was not okay.
The volunteer was allowing this male to gnaw on her arm as she was talking with the donor. She turned her head away from the tiger to say something to the donor and suddenly she felt a pinch. Her reflex was to jump a little and the tiger's instincts kicked in.
The very next thing, there was screaming and running and blood everywhere, and the volunteer's dismembered arm twitching in the tiger's mouth as he tried to run away and hide from the screaming.
The owner came rushing into the compound and started hosing the tiger with water to get it to release the arm so they could try to retrieve it and hopefully have it reattached to what was left of the girl's arm.
They got her to the urgent care in the small town nearby, but they were unable to reattach the arm. The volunteer knew it was her own mistake, that the tiger was just being a tiger and convinced the state not to kill the animal. I've worked with that same tiger and all I could think was, "What an idiot." That tiger was aggressive to begin with, she had no business sticking her arms into its cage.
As it turned out, the volunteer wound up doing the talk show circuit for $10,000 a pop, the refuge had to relinquish its USDA license and was therefore unable to give tours. As expected, their donations dried up to nothing. To this day I still don't know how they managed to feed everyone. The volunteer didn't give one dime of her new found income to the refuge.
She did come to visit once in a while, she got a flat tire on the way there and changed it herself...with one arm. Pretty impressive, but she still should have tried to make up for what the refuge had lost in funds because of her.
So, the owner took to drinking, after the fall and brain surgery and everything. The wife left him. It got to a point where I would go there and he would be too hungover to work, and he would not allow me to go into the compound alone. I can't really blame him for that, but to have me drive a total of 5 hours for nothing was unreasonable (at best).
I wound up going out there less and less and eventually, stopped going.
But, I still missed my tigers, and as it turned out, all of this was leading me down a path I had yet to see.
The next and last refuge was interesting too, I'll get to that next time.
Writing this has been very therapeutic for me...finally telling my story as it was. Today, to celebrate my freedom and my tigers, I'm going to go to Skiatook Lake at dawn, do some Taiji on the beach and take a running jump into the ice cold lake. Heck, with that kind of start to the day, who needs donuts with their coffee???
Until next time,
Peace,
Tiger
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