We celebrated Val's birthday this year at Shambala Preserve. Shambala is a sanctuary for exotic felines who have been mistreated or neglected. Mostly big cats - lions, tigers, etc. We did their "Sunset Safari" and it was pretty amazing. They prefaced our tour with making sure we understood that these cats aren't there for entertaining us, which is good. These are not trained animals, they are wild animals who have been rescued from some bad situations, and who are being allowed to live their life as nicely as possible. The preserve just opens up very infrequently to allow small groups to walk through - under close supervision - and maybe see some of these stunning animals. Being an owner of housecats, I was not surprised to see that some of these amazing creatures wanted to ignore us (status quo for our housecats). But we were still amazed at what we did see of the majesty of these incredible animals. These are some shots of what we did see. It was a very hot day, even at dusk, and the cats were not very active in the heat. Still, you can see how stunning -
Just look at those paws!
A serval! I didn't even know what that was!
Trinity the gorgeous Cougar
Pretty she-lion. The he-lion was there too, but dozing on the side. they said she is very protective of him. Good girl.