From the WSJ, “Circus Animals Find a Home on Colorado Range“:
50-year-old former high-school math teacher Pat Craig… shares his three-bedroom house here on the plains of eastern Colorado with 13 dogs, five cats and three parrots.
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He has other creatures in his backyard: three packs of wolves, 66 black bears, 13 grizzly bears, two prides of lions, 70 tigers, 14 mountain lions, five leopards, eight bobcats, five coati mundi, five lynx, three foxes and a coyote—all scattered across 320 acres of rolling prairie…
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A burly, mellow, bear of a man, Mr. Craig dreams about the day when people will stop trafficking in exotic animals, making what he does unnecessary. But that isn’t about to happen.
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When he bought his first swath of wheat fields outside Keenesburg in 1994, he had 60 animals on 80 acres. He quit his teaching job two years later, when tending to the animals got to be too much. His wife, with whom he had raised two sons and many baby lions, tigers and jaguars, moved out three years later.
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After draining his savings and his small retirement account, selling his vintage motorcycle and tapping out his donors, he nearly shut down in 2006. By then he had 155 animals. Better marketing and a slew of new donors kept Mr. Craig afloat, and even allowed him to expand. He now has 275 large carnivores on land four times the size of his original plot.
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His Wild Animal Sanctuary, as he calls it, is the largest of its kind in the U.S., he says, with a food budget alone of nearly $500,000 a year. In all, the not-for-profit relies on donations to support most of its nearly $2 million-a-year budget. Visitors, who pay $10 apiece, can view the animals from an elevated walkway.
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Mr. Craig has also amassed a thick sheaf of hospital records, which he keeps stashed in his office. He has been set upon by wolves, tackled by tigers and mauled by lions—and he holds no grudges. Both of his knees are shot. One run-in with a jaguar nearly deprived him of his left arm. He has scars where a startled lion chomped his chest, puncturing a lung. “It happened in a split second,” Mr. Craig says. “We were both apologetic afterward.”
Slide show and short video at the WSJ link. Apart from the “awww, keeyute!” factor, I’ll admit reading about Mr. Craig made me feel less stupid that so much of my household decor is designed around mazes of baby gates, easily moppable floors, and ‘disposable’ furniture that can be clawed, chewed, and peed on by a series of rescued housecats and small dogs…
Punchy
Just wait until a disgruntled worker cuts off the electrical fences just before a major storm, and the only way to restore the power is…through the cheetah sanctuary. They hunt in packs, ya know.
Yutsano
@Punchy: MMM…lunch!
They are some pretty kittehs in that slideshow. I hope our Colorado BJers get to pay the big beasts a visit soon.
freelancer
@Punchy:
Dammit, even Nedry knew not to mess with the cheetah fences…
Oh, yeah, this is gonna end swimmingly.
Paging Werner Herzog. Mr. Herzog please call your office.
tripletee
Sounds like my house, except substitute “small children” for the cats and dogs.
Mary G
Story of my life.
Platonicspoof
MikeJ posted this near the end of John’s last open thread:
The first picture and caption deserve Internet Immortality.
Thanks MikeJ!
JGabriel
Wheee!
+lost track at +5 over 4 hours ago.
Seriously, got a late invite to dinner at a friend’s place tonight, met new people, had a delicious meal, walked two beautiful Chilean women to their hotel, and made plans for brunch with them tomorrow.
Life has occasional moments of sweetness and beauty, sometimes.
.
freelancer
@Platonicspoof:
I saw that as well. I was curious as to where all the quotes came from, but to go back and read they they’re all from a single radio interview with conspiracy nut Alex Jones. Topper Harley has lost his shit entirely. I feel so bad for Martin Sheen.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
I swear the first time I read this it said…no..no…never mind.
Corner Stone
@freelancer:
Martin??
Hell, how do you think Emilio feels at this point?
Corner Stone
So who has this animal guy in their 2011 deadpool?
Corner Stone
@Platonicspoof:
If I wasn’t already gay married to Loneoak for the NANCY SMASH quote I would totally gay marry MikeJ for bringing this site to my attention.
Oh to hell with it. I’m glamorously polyamorous with the both of ’em.
freelancer
@Corner Stone:
The same way I feel about my alcoholic brother? “Meh, I hope he’s humble enough to get his shit together, but Mom and Dad just have to feel so bad about this.”
It’s hard to be fed up with your loser kid, but not willing to let them completely destroy themselves at the same time. That’s all I’m saying.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
Relieved that he stuck with using Estevez for his surname?
.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: You may need to explore the beauties of Denobulan marriage. They just keep adding and adding pretty much at will or whim. I admit it’s kinda fun, I’m up to three husbands and two wives already.
Corner Stone
@freelancer: I could be wrong but I think I read somewhere that Martin is on an “adult vacation” with like his wife and two girlfriends. Or ex-wife and two girlfriends. Or something similar.
So doubtful he’s feeling too much pain at this point.
But Emilio has to be like, “God damn it! I was sooo close to having his life! I was in The Breakfast Club for God’s sake!”
freelancer
@Corner Stone:
Obviously, I do. Did you see the slideshow? That’s a nice 7ft tall wire mesh fence between Craig and that tiger. I’ve seen fences like that at the zoo, but there were ostriches, antelope, and goats behind them.
Did you see “Bobby”? It wasn’t half bad. Emilio is a competent filmmaker in his own right.
Corner Stone
I am fucking dying over these cat quotes. It may be because it’s almost 3am here, I’m completely loaded, I’m listening to a shuffle of Pantera and Crowbar at high volume, or some combo thereof. But damn those are funny.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
Or Emilio is thinking, “Dude, I learned how to be happy with just two at a time before I was 23. And I learned a little fucking discretion. Jesus, Charlie, when are gonna frickin’ grow up?”
.
Corner Stone
Can I just add that XXX:State of The Union is about as much guilty pleasure cheese as I can take?
And I say this as a man who will stop what he’s doing and watch The Chronicles of Riddick at any point when I come across it.
Any of the Fast/Furious also, too.
Corner Stone
“Kira, are you with me?”
“You killed everything I ever loved.”
Corner Stone
Alright, just added in some System of a Down and some RATM.
Good for another hour.
WHO’S WITH ME??
Yutsano
@JGabriel:
This point is debatable. He DID marry Paula Abdul after all.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Well, hell. I guess it’s just me and my triple distilled potato vodka.
Good enough for me.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
He also divorced her after 2 years. TWO Years?! There are cellphone contracts longer than that. The debate is over. He won.
MikeJ
@freelancer: When the debate is “who is the saner offspring of Martin Sheen” everybody loses.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ:
Fixt that for you snookums.
freelancer
@MikeJ:
I vote for Renée, she played secretary “Nancy” on The West Wing in a recurring role.
Joseph Nobles
I’m a closed captioner and the local client I’m about to echo is running Coral Ridge Ministries right now. Hoo, boy. I never knew Jesus had so much to say about the evils of the Obama Adminstration’s czars.
Dennis SGMM
There’s a Darwin Award in this guy’s future.
fourmorewars
Since it’s an open thread, can I make a humble request for Mr. Cole to put a new entry into the mix of homepage heading phrases, or whatever the term for them is?
“I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that.”
Why every single American doesn’t know this phrase by heart is a sad, sad mystery. Every single adult American, that is, the context of the phrase being too frightening for children to be subjected to. Although in contradiction of that very statement, I kind of think lefties should make a habit of calling up right wing radio shows and finding a way of sticking that phrase somewhere into the call every time, until the hosts and their fans dread hearing it repeated.
Culture of Truth
I love this guy. But I imagine he has a hard time getting health insurance.
Luci
“I’ll admit reading about Mr. Craig made me feel less stupid that so much of my household decor is designed around mazes of baby gates, easily moppable floors, and ‘disposable’ furniture that can be clawed, chewed, and peed on by a series of rescued housecats and small dogs…”
Leaving out the small dogs, which I cannot have because I’m often gone for long days and cannot let them out, I too have a home like this, AND thank you Anne Laurie for pointing out that we can now feel less stupid about it. That’s exactly what I intend to do… well, that and likely find a few more cats to take in.
asiangrrlMN
@Culture of Truth: Ditto this. And, KITTEHS! And, who’s up? And, here’s a picture of baby TUNCHIE!
CORNER STONE! You still up?
different church-lady
Dammit people, there’s one very simple rule: NEVER let your pets outnumber the people in your household. End. Of. Story.
asiangrrlMN
@different church-lady: I heard the rule was +1 animal (over the number of people living in the house). Since I am one person and two cats, I’m living by this rule.
Southern Beale
The other option for a lot of these retired circus animals is to be sold to some rich asshole in Texas who operates a game ranch. There some rich asshole from Japan or Bahrain can get a boner shooting a tame tiger.
It’s really disgusting. These game ranches are brutal.
asiangrrlMN
@Southern Beale: I know. That’s why this guy rocks.
MaryRC
@freelancer: Notice how the article casually mentions that Mrs. Craig moved out early on? Guess that occurred to her too.
Uloborus
@Dennis SGMM:
I am not certain I agree. His odds of exotic animal-related death are very high, but the Darwin Awards imply a certain amount of blind stupidity. Mr. Craig clearly understands the danger he’s in and thinks it’s worth it.
And boy, is he in a lot of danger. The lion story is Exhibit A of why the professional zookeeper’s attitude is ‘never get within touching distance of a wild animal’. Ten seconds of a snappish bad mood or particularly frisky affection can kill you if they come from a big cat. It doesn’t matter HOW well you have them trained.