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Carolina Tiger Rescue is a 501(c)3 nonprofit wildlife sanctuary whose mission is saving and protecting wild cats in captivity and in the wild.
Love is in the air…or is that the smell of perfume and chicken? Here at Carolina Tiger Rescue, they go hand in hand, or should we say paw in paw? With each passing holiday, we take the time to make special enrichment for our animals to show them how much we love and care for them. Enrichment is a vital element to keeping our residents healthy and active. In the wild, a tiger will patrol territories up to 60 square miles, ocelots are opportunistic hunters and are always on the lookout for food, and servals will hunt up to 4,000 rodents in a single year. In contrast, our residents simply have to wait for the food truck to come their way. They aren’t as active as their wild cousins, but that doesn’t meant their physical and mental health shouldn’t be top notch. That’s where enrichment comes in.
Enrichment is anything that changes up our animals’ day, it gets them up and moving, makes them think, and provides them with stimulation. Carolina Tiger Rescue’s enrichment program provides physically and mentally stimulating activities and toys for all the sanctuary’s residents.We do a wide variety of activities with the animals, like painting Pawcassos, pools for swimming, boomer balls to roll, textures to rub on, new scents and objects outside of the enclosure, like remote-control cars, windsocks or decoy ducks. Enrichment allows animals to demonstrate their species-typical behavior, stimulates the senses and enhances their well-being. It’s just as essential to animal welfare as proper nutrition and veterinary care.
What can you do to help?
Looking for a way to help? An easy way to help keep our animals enriched, is to send us old perfumes and body sprays. Our animals are very scent oriented and love musky, strong smelling perfumes. We spray them on boxes and boomer balls and they go wild over them! Building enrichment that lasts is extremely helpful when it comes to caring for our animals. If you are able to donate, gift cards to home improvement stores help us purchase materials that we can use to make puzzle feeders, platforms, and hammocks for our animals. Each of our animals is unique with certain likes and dislikes, being able to customize their enrichment goes a long way in maintaining the best care we know they deserve!
