Conservator’s Center — Hidden Treasure of North Carolina’s Piedmont

When thinking of havens for lions, tigers, wolves, bobcats, binturongs, lemurs and a handful of other animals, you wouldn’t necessarily think of North Carolina.

But tucked away off the winding rural roads of Mebane, in Caswell County, there’s a place exotic animals call home, without which they may never have survived.

The Conservator’s Center, started in 1999 by Doug Evans and Mindy Stinner, is home to 97 animals of 19 different species. But when Evans and Stinner, who both had extensive experience with animals, opened their facility, they decided to start small by rescuing big cats that were sick, injured, seized from owners or faced with behavioral issues.

Fast-forward to now and The Conservator’s Center has one of the largest big cat populations in the U.S.

“None of that was intentional,” said Director of Fundraising and Outreach Julia Matson. “It just happened.”

Matson was kind enough to take me on a tour Sunday morning and the most important thing I learned along the way is that this is an organization worth knowing and worth helping.

And this isn’t just some mom and pop run shop. The Conservator’s Center is USDA certified and is inspected every year for the care of the animals and safety of its enclosures, and has become a tremendous resource for the USDA and other organizations in the country.

Matson said the Conservator’s Center operates on an annual budget of just $120,000 and that includes staff salaries, cage maintenance and food for the animals. The center runs with the help of volunteers and student interns.

Food costs alone could eat up their annual budget, but local farmers donate dead chickens for the big cats and Wal-Mart donates hundreds of pounds of meat to the center each week.

Tours and the Center’s Lifetime Adoption program are what help keep the money coming in. And with admission just $10 a ticket for a scheduled tour, the hope is to get as many people as possible to come visit and learn about these beautiful animals.

What’s amazing about the Conservator’s Center is that every animal there has a story and was in desperate need of the Center’s help when they arrived, and every one working there has a connection with the animals.

First on my tour Sunday were the bobcats. With one large purr sound, Matson was able to lure Bobby the Bobcat over to the side of the cage to say hello. Bob’s a bigger bobcat and his lighter, sandy coat is native to the Rocky Mountains. He came to the Center after the zoo he was in shut down.

Bobby Fargo the Bobcat is the more social one out him and his mate Reno.

The female bobcat that lives with him, Reno, is a North Carolina native. She’s smaller and was hit by a car before coming to live at the Conservator’s Center. The man who’d hit her thought she was a housecat and graciously took her to the vet, where the vet discovered she was a wild animal.

Next on the tour were these amazing creatures – Binturongs, also known as Asian Bear Cats.

This was the first Binturong I met and he was quick to come to the cage wall and say hello.

As part of the Conservator’s Center’s mission, Binturongs fit the conservation mold, because of deforestation and the animal trade in their native lands of Bangladesh, Burma, China, India, etc., there are very few Binturongs left in the world so the Conservator’s Center is working on changing that by working with other conservation groups to create appropriate mating pairs so that maybe one day, these incredibly adorable animals can be released back into their habitats and survive.

If you look closely you can see one of the female Binturongs looking down from her perch in her tire.

The Binturongs are a keystone species for their native lands because of seed dispersal —they’re the only animals that can eat and digest the Strangler Fig and its tough outer covering.

The center has five Binturongs; they had six but Archer’s mate died a few months ago so they are desperately seeking a replacement.

Archer was my favorite - just look at that face!

These were some of my favorite animals on the tour. Definitely unexpected.

Next on the tour were the Servals. Harriet didn’t seem too happy to see the camera Sunday. She came to the Center because she was living in the backyard of a woman’s home who was breeding and selling the cubs.

During this part of the tour Matson pointed out that while the cages are big enough, the Center wants to build larger cages for the animals and hopes to soon embark on that project — but of course it all depends on funding.

“$120,000 gets the animals fed and the best medical care possible, attention and enrichment,” Matson said. “But that’s it. It doesn’t pay for the cage expansion or rescue work. If we up the bottom line we can do better by the animals. Our staff will go without pay before the animals have to do without.”

Lena was another Serval on the tour, and she, too, was someone’s pet before arriving at the Center. Fortunately for everyone involved, though, Lina’s parents helped build the enclosure she lives in now with her mate Masufa and they maintain child support.

Lena is a gorgeous cat, and apparently very sweet and playful.

Lena’s mate Masufa had a less cushy entrance into the world and was initially chained up with a group of pitbulls before he ended up at the same Colorado zoo as Bob the Bobcat.

He may have had a rough start, but Masufa looks pretty content these days.

One of the less attention-getting animals was Tarzan, a jungle cat, which closely resembles the domestic cat, but to me was still exciting.

Here's the junglecat Tarzan.

“Just because an animal isn’t flashy, doesn’t mean it’s not critically important,” Matson said, noting that many people come to the center just to see the lions, tigers and wolves.

Perhaps one of my favorite cats on the tour, though, was Taz, a Eurasian Lynx, which is the same as a Siberian. He was a pet too, but fortunately the owner realized it wasn’t the right thing to do.

This big guy was so sweet, not surprising someone tried to have him as a pet. He was one of my favorites.

“I don’t want to villainize pet owners because most really love their animals, but they don’t have the resources or know how to properly care for them,” Matson said. “Some of their former owners come visit them regularly.”

While the center originally focused on carnivores, they had no plans to help primates … then Jeremiah the Lemur showed up.

This little guy knows how to put on a show.

Jeremiah had been a pet and was living in someone’s guest bedroom in the eastern part of the state. He’d never met another Lemur before, and so he came to live at the Center. When they finally found a mate for him, Cookie, Matson said Jeremiah was terrified of her, but on Sunday it looked as if these two had gotten past that and were definitely living their happily-ever-after.

Here's the happy couple munching on some pieces of grass.

However, while it’s worked out for Jeremiah and Cookie the Center does not want to expand its Lemur population.

Another beautiful creature on the tour was a Caracal named Aretha Franklin.

Matson said Aretha was a little heavier than she ought to be because she hunts the rats and mice that sneak into her enclosure.

She was propped on her hut and as soon as I walked up near the cage she hissed and flicked her ears — the flicking of the ears is a main form of communication for Caracals because it helps them communicate with other Caracals as they hunt.

Aretha Franklin came to the Center in 1999. She was one of their first cats. She arrived with her brother, but he died at 10 weeks old.

Aretha lives with another Caracal, but they’re not a breeding pair.

One thing I found incredibly fascinating was that the center does not spay its female cats. Instead it performs vasectomies on all the males because it’s a much less invasive procedure and helps keep things as natural as possible because everything else still works the same.

As we moved on to the part of the center that houses the lions, tigers, and wolves, Matson said the center never intended to open to the public.

But then, in 2004, the Center got three big cats — tigers — which cost about $80,000 to take care of. That same year, while they rescued those three, they were asked to hold onto 14 others, including lions, until another facility could be readied for them. Well, that plan fell through, and the center was stuck with 17 big cats — which turned into 31 when they all had cubs.

So the center went from 3 to 31 big cats in one year.

“That’s when everything changed and we had to open to the public to help pay the bills and create larger enclosures for all of them,” Matson said.

There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. With 45 acres, only 10 are developed. But the enclosures for the big cats are expensive.

Two of the big cats I met Sunday were Kira the lioness and Arthur the tiger. Arthur is a white tiger that was used as a photo booth prop by people in the state who would park their cage in some random parking lot and advertise a photo opportunity for folks with a baby tiger. To keep Arthur calm, they just starved him.

This is Arthur today - big and happy!

The USDA brought Arthur to the Conservator’s Center and when he arrived he was only 19 pounds, when he should have been 40.

Kira arrived at the center a little worse for the wear with bad hips and an attitude problem — all of which dissipated once she got to the Center.

Talk about a beautiful cat.

“We specialize in happy endings,” Matson said.

The other beautiful tigers I met that day were Buffy, who was lounging in her hammock, Tonka, who was lazing about on top of his hut, and Bella – the smallest tiger they have at the Center — she’s also the only one who doesn’t have an adoptive family.

Here's buffy enjoying the warm, breezy Sunday weather.

Such a big, handsom boy - Tonka is about 17 years old.

Bella is the smallest tiger at the Center because of inbreeding, but she's a beautiful girl and was definitely my favorite.

There are only between 3,000 and 5,000 tigers left in the wild and all big cats are on the endangered list, in one status or another, Matson said.

While visiting the tigers, we heard several huge roars from across the path – it was the lions, and the lioness Willow.

I don’t know if there’s any cooler sound than a lions roar, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. It’s such a random, exciting experience.

And these lions are beautiful. They’re all split into prides and they all have their own way of making things work. The lioness Willow and lion Calvin are also in need of an adoptive family or individual.

Here's one of the prides - don't they look so regal?

Before I wrap up this tour I can’t forget the wolves.

Tucked away, off the beaten path at the Center, in a nice little canopy of trees and bushes are four incredibly beautiful wolves.

I’ve always wanted to see one up close and I got to on Sunday and it was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen prettier eyes on an animal. They just look so smart, so spiritual. It’s hard to explain, but these wolves were amazing.

When I walked up to the fence, the Alpha male Amadeus let his presence known with a bark. Then as we got closer, he just kept growling — though I like to say talking — asserting his dominance and position with the pack.

Amadeus is a beautiful wolf and thinks of all the staff at the Consevator's Center as part of his pack.

It was incredible.

And I’m sure everyone has heard a dog bark, but even I was taken aback, and maybe even had a few chills, when I heard Amadeus bark because it was big bark — low and deep and forceful. It was a very cool experience.

It’s obvious I enjoyed my time spent at the Center. The animals are amazing, and by looking at the cages and the shape of the animals, it was clear they were well cared for by the keepers and the volunteers.

Sadly though, when the economy crashed last year, donations to the Center went down 70 percent.

“I can’t fault people for making family and people a priority, but these guys have no other advocates for themselves,” Matson said. “We’re responsible for telling their stories and caring for them. It’s a big responsibility and we exist because of volunteers and donors.”

But the center got some good news at the beginning of 2010. — The Governor’s Club in Chapel Hill is donating their 3,000 square foot modular building, which was used as their administration building.

Matson shows off the plans for the new building which will include staff offices, restrooms and classroom space.

This building will, for the first time in the organization’s history, provide the Center with an adequate building for the public and office space for its staff.

Right now the public building is a converted tool shed, which acts as the gift shop, and a port-a-potty.

“It will totally change the organization,” Matson said. “We can expand tours, do more for education and serve as a venue for weddings or any number of things people want to do, and we’ll have consistent office space.”

Since they moved to this location in 2001, their offices have been out of the owners’ small modular home in the back of the compound — not an ideal situation for anyone.

But while the building is a blessing, there’s still an issue of getting the building on site. It will cost $60,000 to move the building to the Center. Those funds are still unsecured but they have secured a donor who is willing to match up to $15,000.

Those who donate to the building, for it’s relocation, remodeling, etc., can have naming rights for the building’s different components.

But if it’s the animals you’re more concerned with, there are many opportunities to become an adoptive parent. And just because an animal already has one adoptive family, doesn’t mean it can’t have another — in fact, the center welcomes this.

And what’s great about the lifetime adoption program is that the staff really works to facilitate a relationship between the person and the animal. Adoptive parents get special tours and have the opportunity to bring treats and toys to their animals. Matson said after a couple visits, the animals know their people.

“It gives people an opportunity to be a part of something they normally wouldn’t be a part of,” Matson said.

Of course this adoption does not entail owners entry into the cages, and the animals don’t go home with you. They stay at the center. In fact, the center never gives away or sells any of its animals for any reason.

As work continues at the center and the hunt for funding is long and hard, Matson said the overall goal is to expand their conservation efforts and continue their rescue work.

“Education will always be a part of that,” Matson said.

To learn more about the Conservator’s Center and ways you can help, visit www.conservatorscenter.org.