No Petting Zoo : 50 Wild, Endangered Big Cats Find a Haven in High-Desert Compound

In the desert, the dusty desert, the lion sleeps tonight.

Wait a minute. Isn’t that supposed to be the jungle ?

It is, except that out in the jungle things aren’t going well for endangered species such as the Amur leopard or the Siberian tiger. Poachers’ guns and dwindling forest habitats are thinning worldwide populations of these big cats, leaving only 150 Amur leopards and 800 Siberian tigers to straddle the line between survival and extinction.

But in the high desert north of Los Angeles, in the shadow of an abandoned gold mine, the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in Rosamond is a haven for more than 50 beautiful, endangered cats, including the Amur leopards and Siberian tigers, plus North Chinese leopards, clouded leopards and jaguarundies.

Former truck driver Joe Maynard founded the compound with his now-estranged wife, Jeanne, in 1977. Although he had no formal training in the handling of wild animals, he felt a calling to save those that were endangered. Using his own funds, he started the compound.

Zoos from all over the world began to send their cats to breed here because the desert locale offered a quietude and space few urban zoos could afford.

The animals are not, however, totally cut off from human gawkers. In 1983, the compound began admitting the public. Now, it gets more than 80,000 visitors a year, the majority of whom come on school tours. Admission is free, but donations are accepted.

In the main courtyard of the compound, leopards, a California cougar and the small, leopard-like felines known as Fishing Cats are among the animals on display.

In one cage, Hobbes, a clouded leopard with an intricately textured yellow-orange coat, crouches near his battered red rubber ball. In a nearby cage, Nay Lee, a North Chinese leopard, eyes visitors warily. When they turn their backs, she leaps with lightning speed toward them, snarling and batting at the steel mesh of her cage with a menacing set of claws.

“You never turn your back on a leopard,” says Maynard. “They’re just extremely explosive . . . and some of them would just as soon eat you as look at you.”

All the same, Maynard and the others who work at the compound have formed close bonds with the animals.

“Oh, they’re like your kids. Each one of them has a different personality,” says general manager Sandy Masek, 42, who has worked there for five years. Although it’s not part of her job, she sometimes cleans out the animals’ cages.

“I don’t want to lose contact with the cats or be stuck in an office,” she says, heading to pet the compound’s friendliest denizen, an ocelot named Peaches.

Peaches, like every cat in the compound, has a story. She was brought there by the California Department of Fish and Game, who found her living on a yacht. To give her an environment in which she’d feel at home, Maynard designed Peaches’ den to resemble a small blue and white tugboat.

An Asian leopard named Isaac was left, orphaned, on the compound’s doorstep at the age of 8 months. His anonymous owners, who probably acquired him on the black market, left a note saying they could no longer take care of him.

Watching Isaac pace aggressively in his cage, it’s hard to imagine how anyone without an enormous back yard, a ready supply of meat and plenty of know-how would be able to care for him properly.

The overhead for care the compound provides comes to about $200,000 a year, according to financial statements, cheap by exotic animal care standards. The funds are provided entirely through private donations. The dues-paying 2,000 members of a support group and a handful of small grants and donations by visitors keep the institution afloat.

On this shoestring budget, the compound has a patched-together appearance. Sidewalks end suddenly, and a variety of building and landscape projects are only partly finished. While some of the animal cages are relatively new, zoo-class models, others are Spartan mesh enclosures.

Recently, the compound launched a national fund-raising campaign in the hope of improving its public viewing area, breeding area and medical clinic.

But expansion comes at more than just a monetary cost. What construction and expansion has occurred has caused stress among the animals, resulting in lowered birth rates.

“Heavy equipment that makes a lot of racket--backhoes and cranes and all that--are not conducive to a lot of breeding progress,” Maynard says.

But with Valentine’s Day just around the corner and a fourth Amur leopard scheduled to arrive from overseas on Feb. 8, there is hope that the public may be treated to the sight of an Amur cub in the coming years.

“It’s necessary for the public to be able to experience these animals, so they understand that they need a place in the wilderness,” Maynard says. “If people keep encroaching on their habitat, they won’t be able to go on.”