These wolves are a litter born of a female rescued as spayed - OOOPPPPSSS !! The female was in such bad shape that the Vet who examined her couldn't even tell she was pregnant.
Trees are just being planted - but this is the desert
-------------------------
The guy at the top is the lion in the story below. The lion below is named 'Ellen' (after a benefactor to the park).
The guy here on top is one that NO ONE ever gets near. you can tell by looking at his beautiful face that he's not a nice guy.
Here are just two of many interesting animal histories the keeper explained to us:
There are several emus at the park. One emu had been purchased by parents for a little girl so she could say she had Big Bird at home. However, when the parents learned that an emu can eviscerate a lion with one kick, they decided to get rid of it. But what do you do with an emu????
And one of the male lions (looked like a large female) was purchased for an animal act. The owner neutered the animal assuming that this would make him docile. But it changed the hormone balance and his mane fell out. So the animal was no longer wanted.
Included here are several pictures of the animals – sorry about the fences in every picture – the habitats were double fenced (with about 5 feet between the fences) so you couldn’t even shoot a picture between the fencing.
We loved our few hours there and will definitely return in the future.
The picture below is a cat named Mica who resides in the
I just had to include in our blog a section on ‘Keepers of the Wild’ – http://www.keepersofthewild.org/ an exotic animal sanctuary. In early December we were looking on the Internet for a new place to visit (Needles is NOT an exciting place). We came across a WEB site for the above park. It is located 27 miles NE of Kingman on old route 66 near the small town of Valentine. The park opened at this location in May 2007, after moving from its previous location near Las Vegas. This location offers more room for the 150 animals they have now. And there are more than 200 animals on a waiting list.
The animals at the sanctuary have varied histories – some have been abused; some have been purchased for private pets and for any number of reasons (usually become too big or ‘act’ like wild animals) they can’t be kept any longer. Many were used in animal acts, or used as young animals for kid’s photo ops. At six months, it is against the law to have the public near wild animals, so the animals are discarded. The founder of the park was originally an illusionist in Vegas and when he saw how badly many of the animals in other acts were treated, he began dreaming about starting this preserve to protect as many animals as he could. We were told it is one of the few USDA sanctioned animal sanctuaries in the nation.
The guy at the top is the lion in the story below. The lion below is named 'Ellen' (after a benefactor to the park).
The park is dependent on donations (food for the animals for a year will cost $150,000) and volunteers. We started our time there walking around the compound and decided to take the tour – just the two of us joined by the head animal keeper. As we drove (ala golf cart) among the animal compounds he told us the stories of how they came to have many of the animals. There were predominately cats (lions, tigers, cougars, jaguars), wolves, monkeys, birds, hoofed stock……even two cows and a duck. The park keeps the animals until they die naturally, then the animals are cremated (no body parts are used or sold) and their ashes are buried at the park.
The guy here on top is one that NO ONE ever gets near. you can tell by looking at his beautiful face that he's not a nice guy.
Here are just two of many interesting animal histories the keeper explained to us:
There are several emus at the park. One emu had been purchased by parents for a little girl so she could say she had Big Bird at home. However, when the parents learned that an emu can eviscerate a lion with one kick, they decided to get rid of it. But what do you do with an emu????
And one of the male lions (looked like a large female) was purchased for an animal act. The owner neutered the animal assuming that this would make him docile. But it changed the hormone balance and his mane fell out. So the animal was no longer wanted.
Included here are several pictures of the animals – sorry about the fences in every picture – the habitats were double fenced (with about 5 feet between the fences) so you couldn’t even shoot a picture between the fencing.
We loved our few hours there and will definitely return in the future.
The picture below is a cat named Mica who resides in the
Meade sanctuary - How can she sleep like that??? Bye for now
