 |
Stern will be remembered well
Deputy at odds
with Crabtree agrees
to leave the sheriff's office
| Saving
the wild cats |
WildCat Haven continues to adopt more wild cats born in
captivity, although room and costs have become stretched
to the limit |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
 Life as an indoor cat is pretty good.
D’Artagnan enjoyed it.
Although captive bred he’s a wild cat by blood, an African Serval, about two to three
times the size of a house cat and colored similar to a cheetah. He resided under a roof,
subsisted on a hearty diet and spent each night in bed with his owner.
But the owners decided to move to Costa Rica. They tried to take him with
them and falsified the paperwork for their feline luggage, but their effort failed. The
couple called the Humane Society from the airport, and said if they couldn’t place
the cat in another home then it should be euthanized.
“But instead, they called us,” said Cheryl Tuller. Along with her
husband, Michael, Tuller owns and operates WildCat Haven, an eight-acre lot about six
miles east of Newberg, around dozens of curves and over as many hills, tucked on the side
of a secluded slope. Pulling up the steep gravel driveway one is impressed with the number
of large pens on the property. D’Artagnan’s is in back. “He’s not very
happy,” Tuller said. “But he’s here. At least he’s not dead.”
Curled up on a straw bed in a den made of plywood, about the size of a dog
house, he hissed his disdain for Tuller when she hoisted the roof up. He was in the cold,
outdoors, away from his “mom” and on a diet for his serious obesity.
“He’ll never adjust,” Tuller said. “He’ll never be the
same.”
His story is but one of the many pet lovers’ living tragedies to be
found at WildCat Haven, a nonprofit organization with federal tax exempt status. The
foundation gets its funding through some donations, Tuller said, but most of the money
comes from her husband, who works at Microsystems Engineering. He’s also the one to
build all the pens.
Tuller and her husband relocated to the property two years ago, when they had five wild
cats. Presently, they care for 33.
The cats range in size — no larger than a cougar to as small as a house
cat; as well as origin, from Africa to Minnesota — but they all share one thing in
common, they’re all captive breed.
They are African Servals (11); Lynx, both Canadian (5) and Siberian (2);
bobcats (6); Asian Jungle Cats (3); ocelots (2); North American cougars (2); Caracal (1);
and South American Geoffrey’s cat (1).
Their stories include:
— An Asian jungle cat that was declawed improperly, disabling its
tendons and causing a toe to be permanently splayed outward.
— A Canadian Lynx kept in a dog kennel with cement floors for nine
years, giving it weak joints.
— A bobcat shot in the rear leg with a dart gun fit to drop an elk and
shattering its bone. This one, as well as many others, have received treatment at the
Newberg Veterinary Hospital.
— A Canadian lynx who was raised on a diet of cat food and
vegetables. “He’ll eat a cucumber before he eats meat,” Tuller said.
— An African serval who was relegated to a shed with no windows
for nine months after killing one of the owner’s pet monkeys.
— And two Siberian and one Canadian lynx rescued from loosing their pelt
to a fur farm.
Wild cats are bred in the United States for many reasons, none of them for
the felines’ benefit: to sell as pets and fur farms chief among them.
The reason the trade thrives in the United States is simple, Tuller said:
it’s legal and lucrative. Licensing is easy to obtain through the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and breeders can make as much as $2,500 per kitten.
“I think it’s the breeders’ fault,” Tuller said.
“They’ll sell them to anybody.”
Part of the problem is also the zoos, she said. They breed cats for the
kittens, drawing many visitors, and, once old and boring, euthanize them or sell them out
the back door.
Tuller said she is inundated with calls from frustrated owners, looking
to place their cats at her reserve. But she can hardly blame the owners.
Her own story with wild cats begins with a classified ad she saw in The
Oregonian, advertising a young hybrid lynx/bobcat.
“Wouldn’t that just be the coolest thing,” Tuller recalled
thinking. Originally a dog person, her husband converted her to cats. At first Michael
rejected the idea of bringing home a wild cat. (As it would turn out, the
“hybrid” was a bobcat -- it’s legal to sell a bobcat hybrids in Oregon, but
not a purebred.) But then came a video from the breeder of the kitten. It was the
“most adorable kitten you’ve ever seen.”
Six months after they brought home the bobcat, named Bobo, Tuller said, they
were ready to place it in a reserve.
Despite what the breeder told them, the bobcat, despite being neutered,
wouldn’t learn to use a litter box. And even when the signs were there that the cat
was not trainable, she persisted.
“People say, ‘My cat will never do that,’” Tuller said.
She was one of them.
She said she was naive and in her ignorance she mistreated Bobo, but he
served as a great teacher.
“He was just trying to be a bobcat,” she said.
For more information or if interested in making a donation — cash,
building materials or otherwise — call 503-625-0812 or visit www.wildcathaven.org.
WildCat Haven is not open to the public, but special arrangements can be made for
sponsors. |
|
From Nov. 15,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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