Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Catty Shack Ranch is at 1860 Starratt Road in Jacksonville, and it is a sanctuary rather than a zoo. It is a registered nonprofit whose stated purpose is to give endangered big cats a safe permanent home and to teach the public why they need one. The animals living there include tigers, lions, cougars, leopards, bobcats, arctic foxes and coatimundis, and the sanctuary says plainly that it does not breed, sell or trade any of them. Each one is there because something went wrong somewhere else, and the guides tell you which story belongs to which cat. There are two ways to see the place. Daytime guided tours run on Thursday afternoons. The night feedings, on Friday and Saturday evenings, are the ones people talk about: more than 600 pounds of meat goes out to the animals while visitors watch, and the cats are loud about it. The grounds are wheelchair accessible and there are public restrooms. The sanctuary runs on volunteers, donors and what visitors pay at the gate, and it sells sponsorships for individual animals. Tickets are sold in advance through its own website