by
Marjorie Maddox
The sixty-year-old volunteer in a
coyote T-shirt wipes the sweat from her brow with a brown bandana and then
turns to us. “This morning at 10:00 am,” she says, “there were fifty people on this
tour.”
It is almost 2:00 pm and nearing 100
degrees. There are only four of us waiting on two paint-peeling benches. My
daughter and I look around at the large, faded sign and near-empty lot, which
we passed twice before deciding we had reached the entrance to our destination.
“I guess this is it,” I said just fifteen minutes earlier, as I pulled alongside
a still-locked gate. A smaller sign read, “Tour starts here.” A minute later,
an elderly man in jeans had strolled out, smiled, unlocked the padlock, and
swung wide the gate.
Since my eighteen-year-old had slept until
noon, we would have to suffer the hot sun for the second and last tour of the
day. We are joined only by a sporty grandmother and her pre-teen grandson, who
is visiting her from California. They have hit the local amusement park they
tell us, and tomorrow they will hike under the waterfalls in the nearby state
park. Today, though, today is animal refuge day. The grandmother, who is
younger than I am, shields her eyes from the sun and nods towards us. “Want
some cold water?” she offers.
“Yeah, sure!” I exclaim, and she
retrieves a bottle from the cooler in her nearby SUV.
“To Cats of the World!” we toast.
In a sense, my daughter is on vacation
as well. At home for a week from her pre-college summer job a few hours away,
she has been joining me for day excursions, impromptu adventures in between medical
appointments that brought her back to our suburban Pennsylvania home before she
begins college classes. “This will be great, Mom,” she says as we pull away
from the dentist’s office, the GPS on her iPhone now set to “T & D’s Cats
of the World: Animal Refuge Specializing in Exotic Felines and Wildlife.”
And so she and I, the animal lovers in
the family, are off on a last hurrah to explore a thirty-five-acre wild animal
refuge way off the beaten path. The site has been open since 1985, but we only just
learned of this place, and—although we have ventured out as tourists—we are
surprised to find we are not at a tourist attraction, but at someone’s expanded
home, a home that has been opened to over 200 abused, rejected, abandoned, or otherwise
mistreated animals.
The elderly owners’ adult daughter,
one of the children who has taken over the day-to-day management of the refuge,
appears with feed bucket in hand, quickly introduces herself, then turns back
to her chores. She nods goodbye to the guide.
I look at my daughter, who is looking at
me. “Kinda cool,” I tilt my head and whisper, “It’s just you, me, and them.
The animals come from circuses, zoos, government
agencies, people’s apartments—these lions, tigers, bobcats, but also bear, fox,
lemurs, monkeys, parrots, and other creatures. Almost immediately, our guide tears
up. She has been driving here twice a week from the next town over for twenty
years. Her tears show the volunteer work continues to change her life. As she
points out the spider monkeys, she tells us about the pet primate that was
dressed up and treated like a baby, the raccoon that was fed primarily candy, and
the black bear that was chained for years in a man’s front yard. “What’s the
matter with people?” my daughter leans over and asks. What, indeed?
Near each animal is a sign that lists
its donors, who are contributing to that animal’s food and care. “If it could,”
I ask my daughter, “what would that otter write on the sign about its own
life?”
My daughter counters, “What, if it
could talk, would that skunk tell us?” We giggle, but our questions also are
serious. What, we wonder, have the rescued animals learned from the strict
teacher of experience?
While we stare in the eyes of a
particularly mischievous monkey, I think of the TV commercials for sponsoring wide-eyed,
thin-boned orphans. Yet, though many of this refuges’ animals arrived scared,
malnourished, often with bones broken, today they are lazing in the sun,
scurrying up and down ramps, swinging from tires, or hiding in the vast expanse
of tall grasses. Our guide looks on admiringly. I don’t ask if she has children
of her own; clearly she has “adopted” several of the “grown-up kids” at Cats of
the World.
It is the hottest day of the summer,
but my daughter, who hated any family vacations that forced her too long in the
sun for “educational” tours, is mesmerized. She squints in the bright light to
read each creature’s story. The names, we learn, are only known by the owners
and volunteers, whose relationship with each allows them to best care for their
adopted clan. They, alone, have earned this communication. Visitors calling out
bears’ monikers, whistling loudly to the Macaws, throwing bread at the coatis—none
of this is allowed, and for good reason, the guide explains. Animals’ well-being
over entertainment is the mantra. Diverse places to hide from spectators allow
animals the choice of whether or not to be “on display.”
“These animals are wild, wild, wild,”
the volunteer reminds us again and again. She waves her arms for emphasis. “They
are not—and never should be—“pets.”” I think of our local SPCA and, even there,
of all the returned Christmas presents of rabbits, cats, and dogs—animals that
turned out to be too much work for a young child or a busy family. But here, on
this family plot turned sanctuary, over 200 creatures leap or growl or splash
in a safe environment. If we listen closely to their healing, what will we hear
about ourselves?
On our windy path down dirt roads and around
wooded bends, it becomes increasingly obvious that such consistent and safe
care of so many is a lifetime of hard work. “Whoa,” the grandmother walking
alongside us jokes when she sees the expanse of the property, “What kind of
allowance did their kids earn growing up?”
My daughter rolls her eyes. “Nothing,
I’m sure.”
I wonder at what moment the owners
decided to commit their lives, and in turn, their family’s lives, to the
nurture not of a few goldfish, guinea pigs, or hamsters, but to this diverse
fur-and-feather community. Some parrots, we’re told by the tall and rather cute
grandson, live sixty to eighty years. “Eighty years!” my daughter and I exclaim
in unison. Eighteen years of raising my daughter zoom past. Eighteen years of preparing
her to “fly the nest.” Multiply that by almost four and a half—not exactly a
passing fancy.
Soon, however, we find out that Cats
of the World wasn’t a one-moment decision at all. Instead, it was a series of small
choices that snowballed. It began, the volunteer tells us, when the father,
Terry (the “T” in “T and D’s Cats of the World”) took in injured wildlife discovered
by locals. An avid animal lover, he nursed the creatures back to health, then returned
them to the wild. Later, when he rescued cougars and bobcats from illegal sales,
the word spread. Here was an individual helping abandoned and abused animals.
Calls came in from around Pennsylvania, from neighboring states, and then from even
farther away. Cats of the World, which started out with wild cats but now hosts
much more, unfurled into the homegrown refuge that it is today.
As we walk along, my daughter and I talk about
how—day in and day out— the owners communicate to the animals through action.
The fox darting in and out of its man-made den doesn’t bark its gratitude, but
it knows its food comes on a long pole through the fence. The brown bear
scratching against a tree knows that someone will clean and refill the small
swimming pool of water he uses on especially hot days. What really grips us is
how many of the animals were captives their entire lives; they can survive no
longer on their own in the wild. Others are too weak. Some are rescued birthday
entertainment, “photo animals” that were too expensive to keep and would
otherwise be put to sleep. We try to look in their eyes, but they are too
quick, too busy with their animal lives to heed us. Their communication is made
of furtive stuff.
The owners’ wooded trail provides
respite from the heat, so we take another gulp of water and continue with our
five-some past wolves, coyotes, lions, and leopards. Our companions, the
grandmother and grandson point at a yawning tiger and share a joke about an
uncle. My daughter and I marvel at the lanky and beautiful servals, which pay
us no mind. They are too busy slinking past each other, communicating in some
way with their own family.
What we also see throughout our trek
is the owners’ family. In the background or off to the side, they are sloshing
out food, cleaning pens, mowing fields, repairing animal “playgrounds,” and building
new shelters. Like their charges, they also pay us no mind—that is, until we
ask about the animals. The creatures’ habits, food source, life span: the
owner’s daughter is an especially rich source of information.
The last time I see her, I have one more
question. “How,” I ask her as she refills a water trough for the Binturong, “do you ever go on vacation?”
She looks at me as if the idea has
never occurred to her. “Well,” she says, continuing on with her work, “we
don’t.” Then she heads back to a small cart for a shovel. “If I have to be away
for a day, I just call my brother. He knows all our routines. But I don’t need
to call him often.”
On the last leg of our educational
hike, we stop to see the parrots—all sixty or so. In huge cages, some are
huddled together in twos or threes as if conspiring ways to save the world. Others
flap from one branch to another in great paintbrush strokes of reds, greens,
blues, and yellows. A few, perched alone and aloof, peer out at us: the families
displayed on the other side of the bars.
Social creatures, almost all of the
birds are singing. Some are even talking. A Blue Fronted Amazon blurts out what
could be “What’s up, pussycat?” but sounds more like “Wasp at?” My daughter
takes out her iPhone and begins filming.
As we finish our journey, my daughter
and I bid adieu to the birds and thanks and farewell to our traveling companions.
We toss our water bottle in the supplied bin, thank the grandmother again for the
drink, and—for the drive home—buy another bottle from the small but well-stocked
gift store. Cranking up the air conditioning in our Elantra, we head back to
our almost-quiet and cooler home an hour away.
There Gizmo, the lineolated parakeet that
has traveled home with my daughter while her boyfriend vacations with his
extended family, whistles his loud Welcome Home song. Automatically, my
daughter translates: “I missed you! I missed you!”
We do our best to whistle back: short,
loud bursts, then quiet, breathy ones. It is the rhythm of our communication.
After a few minutes, we open the cage and let him fly around the room. When he
settles on my daughter’s head, we take turns telling Gizmo the tale of our day.
I wonder what, in his smart bird brain, he will think. I wonder what he already
knows. About us. About the world. About cats.
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