[FEL-L] Eviction notice displaces family's big cats

[Chufff at aol.com]

 Eviction notice displaces family's big cats
 By Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter
 Samson and Delilah and Romeo and Juliet aren't your garden-variety house 
cats.
 So when Paul Mason, who lives in Napavine, Lewis County, decided he could no 
longer care for the Siberian tigers, he knew he couldn't take them to the 
nearest animal shelter. Instead, he turned to Cat Tales Zoological Park, a 
Spokane-area exotic-animal rescue.
 Though Lewis County is largely rural — with horses, emus and even a camel — 
tigers are far from the norm, said sheriff's Deputy Chief Gene Seiber. When 
Seiber became aware of the fact that Mason, his daughter, granddaughter and 
their four tigers were being evicted from their Napavine home, he helped find the 
cats a home.
 "This whole issue wasn't the fact he had tigers, the issue is he didn't pay 
his bills," Seiber said. Cat Tales, a sanctuary for 43 other big cats, 
volunteered to take the Siberian tigers. "The family, they're taking it pretty hard; 
it's like losing your kids."
 Mike Wyche, Cat Tales curator, said these are the first Siberians for the 
sanctuary.
 On Wednesday, Wyche and his staffers tranquilized the cats and tested them 
for disease before the drive to Spokane County. In addition to caring for the 
four cats, Cat Tales will also raise Juliet's cub when it is born, Wyche said.
 "They look and appear to be in good shape," Wyche said of the tigers. "I 
have no doubt in my mind these people did care for their animals."
 Siberian tigers, which are native to northeastern China and Russia, are rare 
in the wild, Wyche said. Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle doesn't have any 
Siberian tigers, but they do have three Sumatran tigers — a smaller subspecies of 
the Siberian, said Woodland Park Zoo animal curator Martin Ramirez.
 To some, exotic animals can be tempting as pets, but it's a bad idea, he 
said.
 "One of the things we try to get across to people, even our visitors who 
come here, is that exotic pets aren't the way to go," said Ramirez. "We try to 
teach people a tiger is really cool to look at, but they don't make good pets."
 Full-grown tigers live long lives and can be dangerous, Ramirez said. Wyche 
said he doesn't know where Mason got the tigers. He said Samson and Delilah 
are parents to Romeo and Juliet. The cats range from 400 to 650 pounds.
 Once at Cat Tales, the siblings will live together and the parents will live 
in a separate area, Wyche said. Cat Tales, a nonprofit zoo, is in the midst 
of remodeling its big-cat sanctuary and the tigers will soon have access to 
more play space and a waterfall.
 The sanctuary made news in 2003 when a South Korean television personality 
was attacked by a white tiger, according to The Spokesman-Review newspaper in 
Spokane. A Cat Tales attorney accused the woman of prodding the tiger. The 
woman was not seriously injured.
 When Mason's family moved to Napavine, Lewis County did not have a 
dangerous-animal ordinance that included tigers, Seiber said. This month, the county 
approved a new ordinance placing tighter restrictions on dangerous animals, 
including mandatory insurance policies, specific guidelines on enclosures and the 
right of the county to confiscate, Seiber said.
 Because of foreclosure, Mason and his family will be evicted from their home 
today, Seiber said. The family had planned to keep Samson and Delilah, but 
when they realized their cages weren't stable enough for transport, they asked 
Cat Tales to take the two older cats, Seiber said.
 Seattle Times staff reporter Brian Alexander contributed to this report.
 Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan at seattletimes.com
 Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
  

 

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