Wildlife Waystation Reopens for Tours

With animal lovers in procession to see abandoned grizzly bears Mike and Huck and all manners of beast and fowl, the Wildlife Waystation began to look and sound Sunday like the famed exotic animal refuge it has been for a quarter century.

The 600 or so guests on the $12 tour were the first visitors--outside of staffers, inspectors, volunteers and journalists--to roam the 120-acre compound on Little Tujunga Canyon Road since the California Department of Fish and Game barred public tours last April.

The visitors, many of them financial supporters who eagerly anticipated the opening of the Waystation, said they had not been deterred by the state’s charges that the facility polluted streams and kept cages in an unsafe condition.

Don Bridwell of Hemet said that if the state had promoted the station instead of criticizing the few things it did incorrectly, “This would be a much better world.”

“These animals have nowhere else to go. If it weren’t for the Waystation, they’d be dead,” Bridwell said.

Others, like Troy Coonrad of Redding, showed up see the compound they had heard so much about.

“Even though I hate to see animals locked up,” Coonrad said, “I don’t know a better place in L.A. to see wild animals like this.”

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Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in reconstruction to meet state regulations, the place looks the same as it did eight months ago. Lions and ligers, lion-tiger hybrids, paced their confines. Wolves on a hillside howled in anticipation of the afternoon feeding under an evergreen canopy in their retirement home/zoo.

Technical modifications, such as earthquake upgrades and lowering cage clearances, have not altered the appearance of the refuge, although the number of animals there, about 1,000, is slightly lower than it was eight months ago.

When the state stopped the tours, it also ordered the center to stop accepting animals for rehabilitation.

In July, that ban was partially lifted, allowing the sanctuary to receive smaller, native animals.

The Waystation is still barred from taking in birds of prey, reptiles, game mammals, exotic birds or exotic mammals.

The state allowed the Waystation to reopen Dec. 15, on conditions that its employees receive additional training and that the facility apply for three state permits that allow the rehabilitation and exhibition of animals.

The conditions have not yet been met.