Big cat sanctuaries still get under my skin every single time.
I’m sitting here in my little rental house outside Fort Collins, Colorado—windows open because it’s one of those freakishly warm February afternoons that make you forget snow exists—listening to the neighbor’s wind chimes clank while I try to write this without sounding like a polished article. Truth is I’m not polished. I’m the person who showed up to my first big cat sanctuary wearing brand-new hiking boots that immediately got covered in red clay mud and tiger spit.
That First Visit That Still Haunts Me
It was late spring two years ago. I drove three hours north to this tiny rescue that doesn’t even have a fancy website—just a Facebook page updated twice a year and a donate button that half the time doesn’t work. Pulled into the gravel lot next to a rusted horse trailer someone had turned into an office.
The woman running the place—mid-50s, ponytail coming undone, voice like gravel—didn’t bother with small talk. Just handed me a liability waiver thicker than my car insurance packet and said “sign here, here, and initial you won’t try to take selfies with animals that could kill you.”
Within twenty minutes I’m standing in front of an enclosure holding a Siberian tiger who’d spent his first eight years in a concrete pit behind a gas station in Oklahoma. He’s huge. Like, bigger than my couch huge. And he’s just… staring. Not aggressive. Just existing. And I started crying right there in front of strangers because I realized he’d probably never seen a real tree until he was brought here.
Big cat sanctuaries aren’t zoos. There’s no music piped in, no train ride for kids, no $9 hot dog. It’s chain link and concrete ponds and volunteers who smell faintly like raw chicken for the rest of their lives.
The Stuff Nobody Posts About
You don’t see the 4 a.m. texts from volunteers asking if anyone can cover a shift because the night person’s kid has strep, You don’t see the spreadsheet where they calculate exactly how many pounds of meat they can afford this month after the vet bill for antibiotics, You don’t see the retired dentist who drives two hours every Saturday to mow the paths because the riding mower finally gave out and they can’t replace it yet.
I’ve helped scrub algae out of water tubs that smelled like death warmed over, I’ve carried 40-pound bags of donated horse meat from someone’s pickup truck bed while praying I don’t slip and land face-first in it, I’ve stood in a circle with other burnt-out volunteers passing around a warm Monster energy drink like it’s communion wine because the power flickered again and the chest freezers almost lost everything.
And yeah, sometimes I leave feeling worse than when I arrived. Because these big cat care places are basically permanent triage. Most of the animals will never touch real grass in a wild place. They’re ambassadors for a problem humans made—backyard breeders, cub-petting schemes, circuses that somehow still exist in corners of the country. Big Cat Sanctuaries
What I Wish I’d Known Sooner
- New shoes? Leave them at home. Seriously. I ruined three pairs before I started bringing the ugly ones I don’t care about.
- Ask questions. The good sanctuaries love when you’re curious. The bad ones get defensive fast—that’s your red flag.
- $25 buys a lot more than you think. One place I support uses donations to buy cases of raw turkey necks for enrichment. Twenty-five bucks = happy bored leopards batting around frozen treats.
- Don’t romanticize it. It’s beautiful and it’s brutal and it’s both at once.
I still drive out there every couple months. Bring coffee for the morning crew. Help haul hoses. Stand in the quiet and watch a rescued cougar stretch in the sun like he owns the whole damn mountain. Big Cat Sanctuaries
(Quick links to places I’ve seen do good work:
https://www.turpentinecreek.org
https://www.bigcatrescue.org (legacy site—closed but influenced a ton of current rescues)
https://www.fcf.org (Feline Conservation Foundation—check their partners)
Always vet them yourself. Not every place with big cats is doing right by them.)
