Tessa Stripes is our newest animal keeper here at Carolina Tiger Rescue. She studied wildlife biology at Virginia Tech. Before coming to Carolina Tiger Rescue, she interned at Wildlife Safari. Her favorite animals to work with are tigers! She enjoys giving the animals at Carolina Tiger Rescue a safe and appropriate home for them. It’s a hard and dirty job, but she loves it! Her favorite time of year at the rescue is the fall, when all the animals get pumpkins for enrichment!

Keeper Tessa’s Blog 4/3/21

Look how much Bowie Serval loved some of his new enrichment last week! The other keepers and I decided to give Bowie a turtle pool filled with wood wool. Wood wool is made up of slivers of wood cut from logs, so it is safe to use as enrichment for the animals. Bowie enjoyed this enrichment so much that he spent the entire day lounging in his pool! He even wanted to eat his meal in it! Enrichment is anything that changes up an animal’s day. When we give enrichment, we rate it on a scale of 0 to 3, based on how well the animal reacts to it. If they do not pay any attention to it, it would receive a score of 0. If they love it and spend a lot of time with it, it would receive a 3. I would definitely give the wood wool pool a 3 for Bowie!

Bowie and twelve other servals were rescued from a backyard breeder in Canada in the fall of 2019. They had been kept in RVs without fresh air or access to water. No natural light was allowed in and their litter boxes were overflowing. Fortunately, seven of these servals came to us and five went to other sanctuaries in the United States. Now all Bowie has to worry about is sunning himself in a pool overflowing with wood wool while waiting for his food to be delivered to his enclosure.