140 wild animals may lose home
Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
Published August 15, 2006 at midnight
Operators of the Wild Animal Sanctuary near Keensburg, Colorado's largest refuge for big cats and bears, is closing due to financial difficulties.
Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters may have physically missed Colorado last year, but the need for donations to help humans affected by them has diverted donations that once went to save unwanted tigers, lions and bears.
"We simply ran out of time and money," said Toni Scalera, director of public affairs for the sanctuary.
Financial straits are nothing new for the Wild Animal Sanctuary, and the two other Colorado facilities for large cats, which rely on donations and never seem far from closing. In fact, operators of the Keensburg sanctuary said in December they were near closing without more donations.
At stake at the Keensburg operation are more than 150 wild animals, who consume more than $15,000 a week in feed and care.
Many of the big cats came from individuals who purchased them as cubs for pets, but quickly learned they didn’t have the room, money or ability to care for them when they grew to 300, 400 or 500 pound adult animals.
So they looked for somewhere to dump them so they wouldn’t have to be killed and Pat Craig, executive director of Wild Animal Sanctuary, did his best to take them in.
Over the last 27 years, he built a 140-acre sanctuary to showcase them in a natural habitat.
"As it now stands, we’ll only be able to operate a couple of weeks more," Scalera said.
"We really have nowhere to place them. Zoos and other sanctuaries already have a serious surplus problem, and even those that can take a few don’t have the means to transport them."
The sanctuary houses 75 tigers, 30 bears, 20 mountain lions and dozens of leopards, African lions and other big cats.
Information on the facility can be found on the web at: www.wildanimalsanctuary.org.
To read more about this story, go to YourHub.com.
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