Big Cat Sanctuary

An exciting day today, a visit to the Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent. It's not generally open to the public apart from on special days and experiences. It looks after big cats that have been rescued from places like circuses and also plays an active part in breeding programmes. The cats have space and peace and quiet most of the time. 

Today we had an audience with one of the sanctuary's directors, Giles. He was on "Big Cats About the House" where he hand reared a black jaguar called Maya and a cheetah called Willow. We got to see both of them today (see the extras), Maya in particular is always pleased to see "dad". We have a black cat here at home (Leonard) and seeing Maya greet Giles was like a beautifully big version of what we see daily with him.

An the end of the day, three lucky people won the raffle to hand feed one of the cats. We didn't win but we got to enjoy watching it. Here is one of the white tigers being fed a drumstick. It is quite startling seeing a tiger’s mouth that big and that close. He may look fierce but he's been taught to stand like that and open wide so they could do health inspections whilst they are being fed treats. 

Roar!