previously:  part I,  part II,  part III,  part IV,  part V and  Part VI

Day 11 ~230km

Big Cat Diary

A couple of days before we were leaving for Denver, Animal Planet was running a show on a small black leopard called Eddie. He was an unexpected newborn in  Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Sanctuary. A sanctuary for big cats, bears and other large animals that insane people buy as pets only to find out that the cute and cuddly little felines grow up into huge and potentially dangerous carnivores.
Suddenly Whiskas and a small cage in some garage just don’t seem to work anymore. You wouldn’t believe all the stories we’ve heard. And the end results of those stories are often crippled animals, emotionally and physically scarred for life. The sanctuary gives them a decent place to live through the remainder of their lives in relative comfort that is being upgraded all the time.
The owner and all the volunteers are working hard to expand and improve the cages and open habitats that include a couple of tiger pools and an underground cave system for bears to sleep during the winter, among other things. It really is a nice place for them, no doubt about that.
The entrance fee is $10 (I think) but you’re welcome to donate as much as you want. What you have to remember though is that it is not a zoo. Visitors observe the habitats from a raised platform and that’s pretty much it. We ended up giving them a $50 note and they deserved it.

WARNING – Attack Cat

As it turned out the sanctuary is only a short drive northeast from Denver near a small town of Keenesburg out in the plains in the middle of nowhere with the nearest neighbor a few kilometers away. There’s nothing but grassland around them, nothing.
When we got there we were welcomed by a sign on a fence that said Warning – Attack Cat. How inspiring…

It was sunny morning and the heat was already being felt. The bears were sleeping, tigers were just waking up, lions were taking a nap, the lone arctic wolf and mountain lions were nervous, the bulldogs were all around us and there he was… Eddie, the attack cat, yawning.

The true motive and circumstances of our visit naturally came up while we were talking with the owner and sometime during that conversation we made it to the fence with the administration building on the other side. Eddie was on the other side as well. Yet the doors were opened and we were left inside. OK then…

I dropped down on my knee to get a better perspective of Eddie, seemingly not bothered by us being there, with my 70-200 lens, took a few shots then came the warning…

– He’s getting interested, perhaps you’d care to stand up?

– Uhm, why?

– Well, when you’re down on the ground he might start chasing you around. For fun y’know.

Needless to say I got up. Yet it turned out Eddie was still interested in me (aww, how nice of him). He took his time and walked towards me at a gentle pace to take a closer look at the intruders.

– It’s OK, he’ll just sniff around a bit.

Fine, not a problem, dogs do this all the time… I’ll just let him do his stuff and keep still for a while untill he moves on to Janez (he never did for some reason).

Hmm, now wait a minute, what was that?
– Why is he having a taste of the back of my knee?

– Oh, don’t worry, just a little love nip

(how cute, I love him too!)

Eddie does another couple of circles around me, the location of his nose (and consequently his teeth) does not always inspire me full of confidence…

– OK, I don’t mind one or two gentle bites but I think he’s about to start chewing to see if there’s anything worthy of a meal on me (why does it have to be the back of the knee??) and it’s not terribly comfortable if you know what I mean?!

He did…

– Have you ever been hurt?

– Oh, I’ve been to hospital a number of times. Broken bones, collapsed lung etc. These animals have no idea how much they can hurt you just by playing. It’s all a game to them and sometimes they go just a bit too far. They don’t want to hurt you but humans are simply too fragile for them.

– Do you normally let visitors see Eddie from this close?

– No, not really. He’s cool with people that are around him all the time but you never know what could happen with strange folks. After all he’s a big cat and the fact we raised him since day one doesn’t mean he couldn’t potentially do some serious damage, although he’s too fat and generally too lazy to anything. But you guys came here from far away just because of him so…

Then we started talking about animal conservation, Animal Planet, Discovery, National Geographic and the sad fact that a lot of those shows are shot using captive animals yet presented as completely wild and untamed. They’ve been asked to loan animals to various TV producers with that specific idea in mind. Another problem they’re worried about are shows that present dangerous animals (such as polar bears and big cats) as cute pets anyone can have at home.

Inevitably we eventually stumbled across the phenomenon that is Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter and learned that we missed him by just a few days! He was shooting a feature on some high tech Colorado animal clinic and dropped by for a visit. He’s supposed to be more down to earth kind of guy and a lot less enthusiastic and melodramatic than he appears on camera. Somehow I find it hard to believe Crikey…

The Feline Element

Curiously enough, I’m not a particular fan of regular domestic cats; I’m indifferent when their presence around me is concerned. I couldn’t care less whether they exist or not. But tigers….big cats….that’s another story altogether.
I have a particular love affair with tigers; they’ve got this mysterious almighty presence about them that no other big cat species has. Leopards, mountain lions, cheetahs, lynx… they’re all very nice but none of them comes close in terms of versatility and the “awesome” factor. A bit like great white sharks in that respect. And let’s not forget they love water

These predators are undoubtedly incredibly cute and mysterious and awe inspiring when you look at them. But only someone with half a brain would have them as pets. Something that can kill you without even realizing it is not and cannot be a pet. Unfortunately there’s a growing number of people that buy wild animals only to dump them when they grow up. Plain stupid.

Here Be Dragons

It was still very early in the day so we made our way to the other side of Denver area to Golden and the Dinosaur Ridge state park for a short hike. It’s a short ridge very near populated areas and frequently visited so we were very surprised to see some deer and a coyote from the trail itself. Unfortunately I didn’t get any shots since they disappeared as soon as we got anywhere near.
The ridge is supposed to be a site of some dinosaur fossils or something. We didn’t see any. We did see a Barnes and Noble nearby though. And that’s where we were headed next.

one more to go…