Lions and tigers and lemurs - oh, my!

The day after Christmas we had a rather unique experience. We got a special invitation to visit the wildlife sanctuary of a guy I'll call Tiger Dave, or just Dave. In the yard of his home not far from Miami he keeps a menagerie of exotic animals, in pens of course. He runs a website called tigerhomes.org where you can find several dozen webcams looking at his animals, along with tons of info about wild animals. I'll get around to most of his animals, but suffice it to say they don't call him Tiger Dave for nothing.

Dave welcomed us to his home in a secluded area of South Florida where we found his house surrounded by fences and tall foliage. Except for the occasional roar, the neighbors probably wouldn't know about his menagerie. The roars are a dead giveaway.

After a short talk with Dave we ventured out to the back yard. The first pen contained a group (flock? gaggle? herd?) of ringtailed lemurs. There were about ten females and one very bedraggled looking male in the pen. (I live with a wife and three grown daughters, so I can understand why.) There may not have actually been that many, but it was hard to tell because they were flying all over the place, hopping from one pole to another in eager anticipation of the food Dave had brought, or simply because they had so much company. Dave works alone to manage this place and company is infrequent, aside from the thousands who visit over the internet each day.

Our next stop was at a pen housing four black and white lemurs. These were a little larger than the ring-tailed ones in the first pen. They also seemed more friendly. In fact, Dave let us go into the pen once he removed one male who is apparently less than delicate with visitors. The females however were very friendly. They would climb all over you and let you scratch them and hold them. They are best described as a cross between a monkey and a raccoon, and they are unique to the large island of Madigascar off the East coast of Africa. They are adorable.

The Lemurs may be adorable, but the next pen was a bit more interesting. It contained two golden tigers, who are among 100 in captivity around the world. They look like a cross between a white tiger and a bengal which is more orange. The first of the two tigers in the pen, the female Sherikon, came to the fence when we approached. The fence is only standard cyclone fencing and although it looks to be at least ten feet high, it is not hard to imagine these big cats knocking it down if they wanted, or at least scaling it. I tried not to think of either event.

Sherikon rubbed her head, and indeed her whole body against the fence so it was just a matter of sticking your finger through in order to touch her. Of course you needed to keep your fingers out of range of her teeth.

I noticed that Sherikon's partner, Marcan the male, was now approaching the fence a little further away, so I wandered over there since the girls were crowding the fence here. Marcan is a little larger than the female but seemed docile enough. I offered a knuckle at the fence so he could smell me which he did. Then he did something a bit startling - he snorted once and then raised up on his hind legs in front of me, not more than a couple feet away, put both front paws on the fence, well above my head, and then dropped to the ground and meandered away. The brief look up at this giant cat looming over me was quite a wake-up, but was over before I had time to get scared. And the girls missed the whole thing. If he was trying to intimidate me, it worked.

The next stop was a pen for the two African lions, King and Princess. Both seemed eager to greet us, but we were all wary of King as Dave warned us that if he turned his back on you that you should step sideways to avoid being sprayed by him. Apparently he likes to mark his territory, even if his territory is likely to leave in a minivan. I did witness him doing this, but only to a bush well away from any of us. It looked like a fine spray emitting from his ass.

Both King and Princess seemed to enjoy the company and we got dozens of great photos. They were good enough to play with one another only feet away from us, and we were able to scratch them through the fencing as well. I must say that my previous perception of lions was that they aren't so big. The sheer size of the head on a lion is awesome. I think you could fit a basketball easily inside the skull of Princess. Something about their appearance in photographs and on TV makes them seem smaller. While it's true that some of the tigers are larger, the lion is no pipsqueak. Maybe you just don't get to be as close on TV as we got to be. Six inches is pretty close.

It's going to be hard to marvel at lions and tigers at a zoo after this. There they are many yards away, separated from you by moats and bars. Here they are touchable - for us anyway. The rest of the world will have to look at the webcams and try to imagine being as close as the cameras are.

So here we were, all gathered around the lions' pen when we suddenly heard Jaclyn screech only a few yards away. She'd gone over to the nearby pen containing the white tigers. Apparently, and not surprisingly, she'd forgotten the warning about spraying from the males. In any case, she'd just gotten a facial from the tiger. That's right, tiger pee all over her face and hair.

To her credit, she didn't come unhinged. She was annoyed to say the least, but not out of control. She and Delia went to the house to wash her off as best they could.

I got a chance to visit with a cougar in a nearby pen. This too was pretty neat. The cougar is the largest cat that purrs, and this one was at the fence and purring away for me. He or she was eager to have my attention. I took out my phone, called my sister in Kansas, got her husband, and held the phone a scant two inches from the cat's nose so he could hear his/her purring. As much as I was in awe of the lions, I was touched by the cougar's need for affection.

No one spent much time with the white tigers. They just seemed less friendly, a notion borne out by Jaclyn's experience. They are big and beautiful like the others but somehow aloof. Maybe no one wanted to risk a fate similar to hers either.

The next stop was with the bengal tigers, Clarence and Gypsy. Clarence is huge, weighing between 600 and 700 pounds, but he is also clearly Dave's favorite. Dave can go in the cage with Clarence with little anxiety, unlike the others. And Clarence was quite photogenic. We got a lot of great pix at the fence with him (that blogger won't accept for some reason), but one with Delia's young cousin, Cynthia, was amazing. Clarence was yawning at the time of the shot and it's clear that her head would easily fit inside his mouth.

Another great shot was taken of me holding my hand out to Gypsy. She and I had a bit of fun pacing back and forth on either side of the fence for a while. Stefanie got into the act but was running back and forth instead of walking and Gypsy was getting more agitated. Dave suggested they stop, in a tone that I interpreted to mean "don't play with fire."

Our next stop was at the pen of Midnight, the black leopard. If Midnight would stop moving long enough, you could see that she was indeed spotted like a leopard, but the spots are all but invisible with her black coat. She was literally running across the wooden wall at the back of her pen. Dave said that he thought she was going into heat. She is separated from another leopard in the next pen and at some point they would be allowed to interact in the same pen. The outcome might not be pleasant.

The whole experience was amazing. Dave is a great guy and loves his animals. We're going to help him get some advertising and/or sponsorships on his site, which will help him cover the costs of operation and maybe even make it possible to expand his sanctuary.

We piled everyone back in the van and headed home. That evening Jaclyn found that our male cat, Meesh, was more than a little interested in her hair. Clearly he was intrigued by the smell.