Guests are kept safe by a row of barrier rail and a wall of heavy gauge cage fencing and can walk within mere feet of the noble beasts. It’s easy to see the changes tigers go through as they mature, as cats of just about every stage of growth live on this row. “We’re planning to take out these cages and put in full compounds,” Cheri says of the park’s future goals to install large, roomy compounds, like the ones which house the real big cats, the full-grown 600-plus-pound tigers and lions that live further out on the safari trail. Pictured here is Midas, a Golden Tabby, a manifestation of a rare recessive gene in tigers. So rare in fact that Rick, through extensive research, has been able to only find eight total in the world.
This article appears in August 4 • 2000.