A hot, sunny day. A warm breeze ruffling the tall grass. The sound of lions roaring. Is this Africa?No, it’s Big Cats of Serenity Springs, just a few miles south of Calhan.BCSS rescues big cats – African lions, mountain lions, tigers, leopards, bobcats, servals and lynx – and provides them a permanent home.Nick and Karen Scoulac founded the sanctuary 16 years ago, said Ashley Stewart, volunteer guide and zoology student. She provided a short history of the cats as she led a tour group through the compound.Aries, a declawed white tiger, was owned by boxer Mike Tyson, who used Aries and her two brothers (who have since passed away) as sparring partners. “One day she got fed up with being punched in the face, so she sat on him for four hours until one of his trainers came back,” Stewart said. Tyson didn’t have permits, so the Department of Agriculture confiscated them.Daisy, a Sumatran tiger, was used for photo opportunities in Myrtle Beach, S.C. “You get them as cubs,” Stewart said. “You can only use them until they are 35 pounds or 4 months old. That’s the law. A lot of the cubs are euthanized because there is no place to take them. These guys were lucky enough to come here.”Pharoah, who is thought to be a Barbary lion, was the star of a King Soopers television commercial shown within the past two years. “He was the lion walking through King Soopers who goes up to the meat counter,” Stewart said.Barbary lions are extinct in the wild, though Pharoah’s sperm has been saved and may be used to breed with a female Barbary lion recently found in Morocco.Many of the BCSS cats were privately owned, and one is a celebrity: Anthony, an Asian leopard, bit off the finger that was eventually placed in the Wendy’s chili in an extortion attempt in 2005.”Usually, when a cat harms a human being, it’s immediately killed. For some reason, Anthony wasn’t killed,” Stewart said.A tiger named Tiger was purchased as a cub by a couple for their toddler daughters. They couldn’t afford to feed him and by 8 months of age, they were just terrified of him, Stewart said.”They said, ‘We have a vicious cat,’ when they called Nick [Scoulac] to come get him,” Steward said. Nick got him and Tiger slept in Nick’s hotel bed on the trip back.BCSS acquired 13 cats when the owner of a cat farm in South Dakota abandoned 50 cats. “All the guy got was 50 counts of animal abuse and a $1,000 fine. He left them there without food and water,” Stewart said.Chip, a binturong, came from a petting zoo in Oregon. An arboreal civet with a prehensile tail, the binturong species is endangered due to habitat destruction and poaching. “He loves banana chips but can’t have any because they aren’t good for him,” Stewart said.With 120 cats, BCSS goes through about eight tons of meat a month, costing about $10,000. The entertainment industry, which is a never-ending source of cats that need a place to live, rarely makes a donation, said volunteer Kurt Wheeler.BCSS supports itself by charging $10 per person for the tour, which occurs at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer. Reservations are not required. See their Web site, www.bigcatsofserenitysprings.org, for directions and information on group tours.As a federal and state licensed zoo, BCSS cannot slaughter animals, so it can only accept donations of raw meat and chicken without freezer burn.Other items on the BCSS wish list include used stock tanks and bleach for cleaning them.With regard to the African lion that was rumored to be roaming free in the Ellicott area, Stewart said it is not theirs. “We have never had a cat escape,” she said.
