Indiana Exotic Feline Rescue Center
May 4th, 2010 by Dorota Zuzanna
If you are vegetarian/vegan, you probably love animals. I do too and cats are my favorite! They are so fluffy & gorgeous. This is why I was very happy when my sister, her friend and I had a chance to visit the ‘Indiana Exotic Feline Rescue Center’, located near Bloomington, Indiana.
This rescue center is not a zoo, or like a zoo. The IEFRC works with the authorities to rescue big cats which are kept in private, often illegal, captivity, where sufficient care is not provided for them. The center then provides permanent homes for these exotic felines. It offers them the sophisticated care that they need such as a proper diet, a high-degree of social interaction and veterinary care. The center does not buy, sell or breed big cats.
I never like to see wild animals in any sort of captivity, but the fact is that a lot of them had been bred in captivity and would not be able to survive in the wild at all. As a result, a center such as the IEFRC is most likely the best place for them to end up.
On our tour of the center, we saw lions, tigers, pumas, leopards and bob cats. Some were very happy to see us, ran up to the fence, rubbed against it and even purred… some were aggressive, and some indifferent. It was a wonderful experience to see these animals live and have the opportunity to learn about them. Even though I felt sad that they are not in their natural habitat, I felt glad they had been rescued from unfortunate situations.
A few facts about the exotic cat trade:
- Most private owners have no idea what they get themselves into when they acquire a wild animal and often go broke just trying to keep it alive.
- A dead cat is more valuable then a live one.
- There are now more tigers in private captivity in the USA than there are roaming wild in the world
Click here to find out how you can take action to ban private ownership of wild cats in the USA.
The exotic felines we met are also on a raw food diet – not the vegan kind, however (see picture below):
