By: Carole Stairs Lewis

WHY OWN AND RAISE EXOTIC CATS? Not many people ask us this outright and they should. Most people assume that it is a business that pays for itself or that there must be some celebrity status involved, but both of those assumptions are incorrect. Many people assume that because so many of the adult exotics we have were unwanted by their previous owners that they were free, but of the 140 cats we own, only a few were given to us. Not only do we have to pay for all of the cats we bring home, we have to pay more for them than the uncaring owners would get from the taxidermists and game hunting ranches; and then we usually spend more on the cat in Veterinarian care than his purchase price in the first few days. The free cat cost more in Veterinarian bills than a healthy one would have cost on the open market. Our very smallest pen costs more than $750.00, and for the larger cats the costs are several thousand dollars. We travel to all corners of the continent and spend hundreds of dollars in phone bills each month to find these cats before they end up in the wrong hands. We pay a regular staff to help care for these cats seven days a week and we have to buy all of the food we feed. Right now, that is close to $350.00 per day! Volunteer help is not reliable enough for proper care of these felines, and until recently we did not accept donations of food or money from anyone. Several times a day we are asked if we are governmentally funded or if we receive any grants to do this. I don't think our government cares about conservation or preservation. If they did, the USDA would have to be completely restaffed and redirected. 

We are not open to the public, but due to word of mouth there are many people, every day, who want to tour our facility and we take the time to walk them through and answer as many questions as we can, or we will pay a tour guide to do so, but we charge no fee and have to take time from our work schedule to do so. We have begun accepting donations to offset the cost, but to date the expense of paying the guide still exceeds the donations received. Due to the wild nature of the cats and the unpredictability of the visitors, we cannot just allow them to wander at will. A USDA license is required to be open to the public and we have that, but the rules are much different if you are considered a zoo and require boardwalks and countless other frivolities to keep the public visually satiated. To charge admission is to be in the unenviable position of allowing anyone and everyone access to our precious animals. All of the running, screaming children would make our cats nervous and put an end to the relative peacefulness we enjoy now.

We do sell kittens to carefully selected pet homes, and include our two hour video to help them along. We try to make ourselves available to the new kitten owner at all times. The price of the kitten may seem like a profitable thing, but one person cannot properly bottle feed more than two exotic kittens, which means if we have more than one litter, then we have to employ help. Almost all kittens arrive in Spring at nearly the same time, and it is not at all uncommon for us to be spending $100.00 per day to raise twenty cubs for six weeks. If we sell a kitten and the new owner does not properly care for it and it dies, they invariably want all of their money back and their Veterinarian bills. Or, if they do not properly train the cub and it gets out of control, then they call us to buy it back, and we do. We can not cure the "bad" cat, but we don't want it to end up on that downward spiral of going from owner to owner until it ends up suffering or dead.

Most zoos are not interested in the small cats because the public wants to thrill at the size of Tigers and Lions and is not impressed with exotics who "are the same size as my cat". We want to breed the endangered species to build their numbers, but it may be all in vain. The USDA and USDI make it nearly impossible to transport these animals across state lines, which constricts the blood lines to a very narrow gene pool. Their offspring must go to someone else who is also in the same state, therefore limiting the number of prospective purchasers. To build a large colony of any endangered animal is to produce an island in a sea of red tape that only a few will ever appreciate. Zoos are very protective of their licenses and rarely deal with individuals because of the public liability of doing so. In Tennessee there is a governmentally run zoo that euthanized two male Clouded Leopards who were considered "over represented" in the gene pool, rather than sell them for $7000.00 each to the private sector, when there were homes readily available for them. A zoo in Texas spayed a Cheetah because she was considered too prolific and they spayed four of her daughters to insure that no further breeding would take place because they did not have the room for the animals and did not wish to tarnish their image by dealing with the public. I do not mean to bash zoos, because much of what we know about exotic cats has been gleaned from the careful observation of their keepers in these institutions. If these animals are not represented in zoological collections, and small private collections cannot meet the USDA requirements, then the only way that the small cats will ever be known must be through private individual owners who raise them as pets and teach those they meet about the animal. Even being raised domestically, each breed has it's own distinct characteristics carried over from their wild nature.

If one more person asks "Are you going to return them to the wild someday?" I may just puke. What planet are these people from that they believe there is any safe place left for them? The only native North American wildcats are the Bobcats, Canadian Lynx and Cougars and with the exception of the Florida Panther, they are all still considered highly prized kills by hunters and are legal game. A century ago there were estimated some 80,000 Lynx living free in the lower forty eight states, but as of 1991 that number has dropped to 200. The Lynx is now extinct in 13 states where it once roamed. Only fifty or so are left in Montana, and in Idaho it is believed that they are completely gone and yet it is still legal to trap and kill two a year, and the rest of the country has no limits. The conservationist will be greatly outnumbered by the red-neck murderers in any society. There are people who claim to be able to raise orphaned animals so much like their own mothers that they can be returned to the wild, but we are not prone to believe this is possible on a large scale. What surely happens more frequently is that the animal wanders off to die a slow and agonizing death of starvation. Who would ever know? Even the well known Lions of "Born Free" and "Living Free" died early and untimely deaths. The documentary, "Born To Be Free" was a fascinating tribute to a man who devoted years of his life to the raising of the George and Joy Adamson’s cubs. He raised them in the wilds of Africa, taught them to hunt, taught them to defend their territory and did a remarkable job of it, only to have hunters kill two of the three, before they were even full grown, and the third Lioness to disappear without a trace before she was four years old. In the NE Tuli Block Game Preserve in Botswana, Africa in recent years, and while under the protection of full time rangers, twenty five of the resident fifty five Lions were slaughtered in just a two year period by poachers. Battery operated collars show up on dead animals all the time and after raising so many exotic felines we know that keeping a collar on the cat is nearly impossible. Not only will they nearly kill themselves to be rid of it, but others of their own kind see it as some foreign thing to be removed and will often attack the cat wearing it. The only cats that belong in the wild are the ones who were born in it and raised by an experienced mother. No human can give the training necessary to instruct this animal how to survive in a hostile world.

Humans claim to be the most intelligent of the thirteen million species that inhabit our world, but we consume 80% of the natural resources and threaten our own Earth’s life support system in the process. As a society we spend over a million dollars per minute waging war or preparing to. Entire species are disappearing daily and most of the feline species that we know now will be gone before the end of the next generation, but virtually nothing is being done to halt the destruction of our planet. It is estimated that one fifth of all of Life’s species will be completely extinguished by the year 2016. We have learned from touring the public school system that only a small handful of children in Junior High School can identify any cat other than a Lion or Tiger.

So why do we do this? God has blessed us greatly and given us more than we need to live on. We give to the Church of Christ to help spread the gospel, but we wanted to give back a portion of what we had been given. When we learned of the great need there is for a sanctuary for God's creatures and to preserve the unique specimens that He created we felt we had found our calling. Through our video tapes and this book, we strive to share in our successes and warn by our failures. We are not Veterinarians and have no formal schooling. All that we have to offer is our experience. We cannot guarantee that you will have the same results that we have had because every cat is an individual. Except for the diet, the information in this book would apply to the care of most carnivores. Our daily dedication is to our cats, but we want to help all cats everywhere. It brings us tremendous joy and inner peace to know as we fall exhausted into bed, late each night, that we did all we could this day for the many cats that have been entrusted to our care.

When we were first starting out, we learned very quickly how little information is available to the Novice. Much of the literature we were able to find was written by Veterinarians and scientists and difficult to interpret. Most of the information on big cats concerns their life in the wild, which is very different from their behaviour in captivity. In years of searching we have been unable to locate one publication that deals with all aspects of captive exotic feline care, from birth to death. If you are contemplating the purchase of a large cat, you should be prepared to care for him for his entire life. We would like to help you and your feline friends and we are learning more every day. As we learn we will make that info available to you by offering supplement chapters at a nominal rate. You can order only those chapters that are of interest to you and add them to your book. Future chapters to come include: Fleas, Adult Diet, Supplementing the Diet, Behaviour Problems, Geriatrics, Comprehensive List of Breeds and their peculiarities, Breeding (Natural and Artificial), Exhibiting, and more. If you want to know more on a specific subject, let us know, and we will research and publish our results. If you know of something that would help another cat owner, let us know and we will pass it on.

Also rest assured that all of the profits from this book, our video & audio tapes, rentals and photo shoots go directly to the cats here at Wild Life on Easy Street. With our real estate business, we are able to feed and shelter these beautiful creatures, but your continued support gives them the natural enclosures, the toys and all of the better things that life has to offer. If you decide after reading this book that you are not ready to make the committment of a lifetime to an exotic cat, then perhaps you would like to "Adopt" one of ours. Call or write for more information on our Adopt A Wildcat program. You are welcome to visit our facility at any time and can rent our Bed and Breakfast Cottage if you wish to stay more than a day. Thank you for your patronage, from all of us here at Wild Life on Easy Street.