The International Exotic Animal Sanctuary is a place I first heard about back in 1998. I was dating someone who lived in a town nearby where the place is located. It was established in 1988 as a home for big and small cats who came to them for a variety of reasons. (We would find out more about these reasons on our tour). We never ended up checking the place out, even though it was closer than we ever imagined to where he lived. Fast forward to about two years ago, when my friend Christi started sharing pics from their Facebook page. Now the place had added bears and a few other exotic animals, and the pictures were delightful. I finally "liked" them too, and realized I HAD to take a trip to see the place in person. But kids had to be at least 7 to go on the tour. Sighs and more waiting. Gabriel turned 7 last year, and then the perfect opportunity: I took my neice to see The Nutcracker for her Christmas present and needed somewhere special to take my nephew. IEAS, here we come!!!!
We waited until a weekend in January, after all the holiday hullabulloo. I drove Cade and Gabriel to Rhome, TX on a beautiful warmish and brightly sunny day. I signed us in, and our other tourmates arrived. A mother and daughter and a couple in their 60's. That was it! You are expected to make a donation if possible to take the tour. As our guide, a female volunteer of 10 years, told us the rules, I had a little pang of worry about having Gabriel with me. She told us to always follow her directions, there might be some habitats we would have to keep walking by based on the animals behavior. No squatting down to take pictures, because the smaller you are, the more you resemble prey to these animals. Here's my smallish 7-year-old looking up at me, and I realized he will look like a giant pork chop to most of them. But I shook this off when I heard their safety record (NO animal attacks, EVER), and the various things they have in place in case of an attack: fire extinguishers located all throughout the grounds to spray in an animal's face, and safe houses scattered everywhere for tour members in case of an escape during a tour. But I did stress to G the importance of remembering no yelling or loud noises, no running or squatting down, and no getting off the path.
Our guide opened the main gate and we all tensed up, immediately looking around for some life. Imagine our delight when this energetic guy, Popeye the lemur, bounded out of his house to sprawl on the fence and tell us hello! He LOVES people and tours, and about halfway through ours we heard him calling out for us to come back and see him some more, which we did on our way out. He is a wonderful ice-breaker and eased the tension. The guide said they think he needs a companion lemur for company!
The next habitat held Saber, a young white tiger who came to them mid-year last year. She told us Saber was still a bit uneasy around tours and we needed to keep walking all the way around his area without stopping. Cade and I still took pics while we were walking by. Saber really made an impact on Cade, and he bought a framed picture of him to put up in his room for his souvenier.
These guys are hard to see, but they are Coatimundis, coatis for short (pronounced "kwa-tees"). They just acquired their second one last year. Their names are Mork and Mindy, and they are native to Central and South America and closely related to raccoons. They have an anteater type nose that will tilt 60 degrees up when they get a drink of water.
This cute girl is Chewy, a grizzly cub that just this month turned a year old. She just came also last year and is spirited and full of life. She watched us and seemed to want to get our attention (as if she had to try!), She played with her Christmas tree and balls, and stole all of our hearts. Especially Gabriel's, who ended up getting a stuffed grizzly for his souvenier that he named Chewy.
At this point we also saw our first Bengal tiger, but I could never get a good shot of her. Most of their big cats are elderly when they get them and have developed arthritis and other bone or joint problems. Their habitats are purposely not very big so they won't walk or run very far.
We entered into the main bear area through some large gates and were told that it is a myth that bears hibernate in the winter. There are some true hibernating species, where they actually sleep all winter, but bears are not one of them. They actually go into a state of "torpor", their metabolism slows, they sleep 1-2 days at a time, and eat less. But they come out to enjoy warm, sunny days and our guide had hope we would see some out and about enjoying the sun.
And she was right! There was this guy in the tree. one lounging on her back with one eye open watching us, and another HUGE black bear lumbering along the fence line too far away for a picture. Our guide told us that black bears actually come in a variety of colors, including cinammon, which made us wonder how you tell the difference between brown and black bears. These were bears that have been at the sanctuary awhile. While we were walking past, we noticed a small domestic cat walking around inside the bear habitat. Our guide said that since the bears are well fed they don't pay any attention to her.
It was then that our guide told us the story, and proudly showed us the new habitat, for their 11 newest bear members. These bears had been living in South Carolina as a road side attraction. They lived in small concrete pits, having just enough room to pace back and forth, never aloud to leave the pits. Their only taste of outdoors was a small circle at the top of their pit where people would pay to throw food down to them. IEAS and many animal groups pulled together for years and finally won custody of the bears last June, but they only had 90 days to build a habitat. An anonymous donor from California, who had been trying to free the bears for years also, gave them $450,000. They had a crew working round the clock and finished it in 75 days. Each bear now has a living area with a man-made den, feeding area and water tub (for those brutal Texas summer days), along with an acre of land to explore. How wonderful is that? Some of them have had a hard time getting used to the freedom, and still pace back and forth when they get agitated. But IEAS recently shared some video on Facebook of two of the bears who had no trouble adjusting to this new life, one of which had her instincts pop in and dug out her first den herself this past fall. I didn't take pics during this time. I was pretty overwhelmed about hearing that story and just wanted to enjoy seeing those bears living happier lives.
When an animal arrives at the sanctuary, most of the time he or she isn't too fond of humans (with good reason). We heard some terrible stories about how some residents got there. There was the tiger that got left in a garage with no food or water when his owner had to move and had no papers for the animal. There was a circus who had come through a nearby town, called IEAS and said if they didn't take their white tiger that day (he had recently stopped performing for the crowds), they were going to shoot him and make him into a rug. There was the lioness who as a cub was living with a family with small children. When the mom next door found out, she took it upon herself not to call authorities, but to shoot the animal herself! Luckily she was a bad shot and the lioness only lost a toe. The tour makes you realize both the worst and best human qualities, because with every horror story she told us, she also had one about people donating money or time to the sanctuary, or about local businesses like Walmart and Kroger donating all kinds of food every single day. Also, on staff is an animal behaviorist who has developed an Emotional Enrichment program for each animal based on their history. The volunteers help, by just sitting with and talking and reading to their animal. They spend time with them weekly, until the animal begins to trust humans again.
My cute tourmates.
This is Shauna, the lioness who got her toe shot off. She is much older now, but still playful. Shauna is also the only animal who tidies up her area every day, gathering up all her toys and placing them in the corner.
Sapphire, the female cougar. Look at those muscles! Mountain lions, cougars and pumas are all the same animal, just called different things based on where you live in the country.
THIS handsome face is really the reason I finally made myself see the place in person, along with the Cade reason. This is Odin, newly arrived member. These pics were taken 3 - 4 months ago. He and Saber, the white tiger, arrived together at IEAS from Florida, where it is legal to keep cubs for photo shoots with people until they turn six months old. IEAS is fighting to get that law changed, needless to say. But there is something about this face that just charmed me. I knew I had to see him in person. When we signed in we were asked if we had a favorite, and I said that even though they are all special, I really liked Odin. They replied that he has become very popular. Easy to see why!
So this was Odin on our tour. He has doubled in size already since arriving. He LOVES tours and poses like this all the time. He had a mentor, an older male lion named Ron whose habitat was next door, teaching him how to be a lion. But sadly, Ron just passed away the week before our tour. So Odin is the only male lion now. His mane is starting to come in. I can't wait to watch him grow up!
This is also hard to see, but there is a white tiger at the corner of her habitat. Her name is Karen, and when we were done taking pics of Odin the guide said that Karen was stalking us. Huh? And to go ahead and walk over, but if she got up and started pacing we would have to move on. Well, I got one picture and then Gabriel and I sashayed on out of the way. "Stalking" is not a good word to hear while walking by with my little pork chop. She never moved, by the way, which somehow made me more uneasy.
We learned some heartbreaking things about white tigers. None of them are pure bred, the original white tiger was a pure white Bengal with no stripes that was bred with a Siberian tiger in India. All white tigers are related. The white fur is a double recessive gene, which will only come out by inbreeding, brother with sister or father to daughter etc. When the cubs are born, they are very rarely white, and they all have several sad side effects from the inbreeding: crossed eyes, cleft palates, club feet, spinal deformities, and defective organs, including congenital heart disease. The cubs without white fur are "throw aways", having all the defects but not the money-making ability of white fur. So, so sad. There is a ban on breeding them now, but of course greedy people still try to do it.
The Director and Curator of IEAS are married, and live on site with their small son and a dog in a heavily fenced in area right at the front of the property. I would be more than a bit nervous raising a child in this environment, but like I said they seem to really have the safety thing down (but still, you never know). The staff is composed of volunteers and 8 interns who also live in barracks onsite. They are one of the few places that offer food and rooms, and even cars to the interns. Every time there is an intern opening they receive over 200 applications! They come from all over the country, and there was a current intern from Finland. There is a big map posted that shows where all their interns have gone on to work. Apparantly it is a really good place to have on your resume, since they are accredited by the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). They also have a full-time vet on staff and a quarantine area for new animals and for the animals that get sick. They had 8 tigers in the quarantine area the day of our tour.
We were shown the kitchens on our tour, which was really cool. They have everyone's diet carefully written out on a huge dry-erase board, complete with measurements and supplements. As I mentioned before, Walmart, Kroger, and a produce market nearby donate all their unsold fruit, vegetables, meat and sweet breads (for the bears). I was pleasantly surprised by this. Also by each cats' name is written either B or NB, which puzzled me. Then our guide pointed out some very bent stainless steel bowls with teeth marks through them that they keep to show tours. Some cats are B (food in bowl), and the ones who demolished their bowls the first time they were served are NB and get their food dumped on the ground.
The biggest surprise of my day came when we walked up to Noel's habitat. He is a Siberian tiger that has been with IEAS for almost 20 years, coming to them during Christmas time in 1995. Hence his name. The pics above were some I pulled from their website. I don't remember seeing him before our tour day.
The guide said he usually stays in his den and doesn't come out for tours very often. But here he came, and plopped down right next to the fence for a photo-op! He is majestic, to say the least. And has a playful side about him. There is a dead tree stretched horizontally across his area and he loves to straddle it, lounging in the sun. That is personality! I'm seriously considering a one-day adoption of him, so I can go and sit with him during Emotional Enrichment time.
What an amazing day, and what an amazing place. I can't wait to go back. Sadly we can't take Jojo for a few more years, but I'm ok with that. I was really nervous a couple of times even with Gabriel. If Joel had been with us I would have ended up in the hospital! I totally understand that rule. We want to go back in early summer and take my parents. I think we will turn it into a Father's Day celebration.
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