Animal Shelters Offer a Taste of Freedom to Variety of Exotic Cats : Wildlife: These former pets are the lucky ones; the unlucky often wind up as targets in ‘canned hunts.’

Bred for cash and often abused, exotic big cats finally have found sanctuary and friendship in the rolling hills of rural northeast Mississippi.

They range from the young and playful to the old and dying, but all of Kay McElroy’s 19 lions, tigers, cougars and bobcats are magnificent to behold.

At her Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary, about 15 miles north of Columbus, the animals experience at least a taste of freedom.

Every one was once a cuddly cub, sometimes offered as an expensive gift for a family member or kept as an attraction for some roadside show. Now they are discarded misfits.

“Every cat we have is genetically dead,” McElroy said. “We are talking about eight to 10 generations of being bred and born in captivity. They’ve never known the wild and never will.”

Those that end up at Cedarhill--or one of a handful of other sanctuaries around the country--are lucky. They are frequently declawed, defanged or neutered and often raised at the end of a chain; many end up as prey in so-called “canned hunts,” where sportsmen pay for a chance to track down the animals and shoot them. Others are killed for their skin and organs.

McElroy and two full-time assistants stay busy feeding and caring for the big cats, plus 79 domestic cats and an assortment of pet dogs. But she spends much of her day fielding telephone calls from people seeking homes for unwanted animals.

She said problems result largely from ignorance and a lack of adequate regulation for those who breed and traffic in big cats.

Misplaced love is sometimes at fault.

“When we see a beautiful, wild animal, particularly a baby animal, our instinct is to love, nurture and care for them,” said Gail Eaton of Zoo Atlanta. “But it is the wrong decision to buy them and take them home. If you love these animals, you will support those institutions, accredited zoos and sanctuaries, that have the capability of caring for them.”

Zoo Atlanta has an ongoing program to educate the public about the unique care such animals require.

McElroy said sellers sometimes trick unsuspecting buyers into believing they can purchase a breeding pair, “make babies and sell them for a lot of money.”

But, she said, “when the cats are 6 or 8 months old, they become unmanageable, kill the family cat or pet dog and the people are anxious to get rid of them,” often selling them to sponsors of for-profit canned hunts.

Federal laws do regulate the exhibition and trade of exotic animals, but not the breeding for individual ownership, said Dick Watkins of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s animal care division in Tampa, Fla.

With backing from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, McElroy has twice approached state lawmakers with a proposal to require those who purchase exotic animals to be licensed. Both efforts failed.

“We’re not trying to jerk everybody’s cat away from them,” she said. “We just want to make sure they understand what is involved, the dietary needs, the shots, even what kind of [holding] pen is needed.”

Pat Hoctor of Prairie Creek, Ind., said his main concern was not fair regulations but who would do the regulating.

“We would have no problem with legislation that is reasonable and leaves a level playing field between the municipal and private sector that is administered by somebody who knows what the heck they are doing,” said Hoctor, a breeder and editor of Animal Finders Guide, a publication listing dealers of exotic animals ranging from ostrich to albino wallabies,

But, he said, individuals or agencies that either do not understand the care of animals or are opposed to any animal being held captive are frequently placed in authority.

E. J. Shumak, whose JES Exotic Sanctuary in Sharon, Wis., near the Wisconsin-Illinois border, has 40 large cats and a few bears. He said tens of thousands of large wild animals are being held outside zoos in the United States for breeding, exhibition and other purposes.

“It’s just so easy to kill them when they become a problem,” said Shumak, whose sanctuary is one of the largest in the Midwest.

He said most people mistakenly believe the animals are protected by law.

“They are under the misconception that you can’t sell endangered species’ hides,” he said. “But anyone can raise a tiger, slaughter it and sell the hide. There’s nothing to regulate it unless it is at the state level, and that would be rare.”

He said this gap in the law means there is a major market for animal body parts, such as the gall bladder from bears and the penis of the tiger.

“Bear gall sells for $3,000 an ounce, and that’s more than heroin,” he said. “These things are exported to Asia, where they are considered an aphrodisiac.”

Shumak said the only way to stop the practice is to regulate breeding and trafficking in wild animals.

“We’re not talking about legislation against possession,” he said. “The legislation should come in trafficking. If you cannot sell them in any manner, shape or form, then you take away the profit margin.” That would settle much of the problem.

McElroy has seen firsthand the torment inflicted on the animals when they are in the wrong hands.

A male cougar she calls “KC” was brought to the sanctuary in 1992 after being found abandoned in a back-yard pen in 17-degree weather. There was no food or water and his face was scarred from torture inflicted by the owners. Nearby, McElroy keeps another cougar rescued from a man who had kept the animal tied up in a small, boarded-up room for months without ventilation or sunshine.

“I’ve never been able to put into words how I feel about them, the love and the level of trust I have with these big cats,” said McElroy, whose first boarder was a starving cougar for which she traded a 1945 model tractor in 1988.

“I didn’t consider myself being in business. I planned to find another home for the cougar, probably a zoo,” she said. “But after dozens of telephone calls, it became obvious I was going to have to put him to sleep or build a compound. Obviously I built a compound.”

She built the 20-acre, nonprofit facility on an old farm. It’s a mixture of old cages and spacious, new compounds enclosed by chain-link fences securely padlocked.

Corporate donations finance most of the costs for maintenance and the hundreds of pounds of meat needed each day to feed the big cats. The sanctuary is not open to the public.

Hoctor, the breeder and editor, said reputable breeders would not sell an animal knowing it would be mistreated.

“We have to remember,” he said, “that whether we are news people, gun sellers or people selling wildlife, there are reputable people out there and there are those who are not reputable.”