When most of us wake up for work, we don’t go and play with a batch of giant felines. For most of us, the daily grind entails writing e-mails, answering calls, and maybe serving a few customers. For others, however, the days are much more exciting. In animal sanctuaries around the world, staff members punch their time cards and proceed to spend their hours nurturing and caring for a variety of animals. The job is a ton of fun but also has its share of sad stories in the form of neglected creatures. After a while, you might assume these people have seen every situation imaginable— but stories like this prove that’s definitely not the case.
The Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro, North Carolina, is a facility dedicated to saving wild cats. According to their website, you can see anything from tigers and ocelots to jaguars and caracals roaming the premises.
With the huge variety of animals entering the facility and bringing such varied pasts along, staff at the Carolina Tiger Rescue pretty much thought that they’d seen it all. In 2009, however, they realized they truly had no idea…
Randomly, on a day like any other, staff members received a bizarre, anonymous phone call. The caller told the staff “their friend” had a pet they could no longer care for. The animal was too aggressive, and the caller wanted the sanctuary to take him. They’d even make a donation to help cover some of the costs.
Unfortunately, the sanctuary had just gotten two new tigers, and supplies were in short demand. Even though the woman had offered to make a donation, they had to be approved by the resident curator who wasn’t there at the time. Staff assumed that was the end of it until the found a bizarre “package” at their door.
The next day, an employee found a large dog crate sitting at the rescue’s front door. A note was attached to the crate that explained the animal’s situation and said “Love me tender. Elvis.” Despite the bizarre circumstances, rescue staff was still surprised by what was inside.
Inside the dog crate was a wild serval who looked to be in pretty bad condition. These wild cats are indigenous to Africa and require zoo-like areas to swim, hunt and explore. After seeing what the owner was dealing with, it was no surprise the serval was aggressive after being cooped in a tiny room all day!
Jessika Morgan, communications director for the rescue, told The Dodo, “It’s not his [Elvis’s] fault, he’s a wildcat with wildcat instincts. We found a way to make it work; we couldn’t turn him away.”
When Elvis was released from the crate and examined by vets, staff learned some shocking news about his past.
“He walked in circles for a long while, indicating to us that he was confined to the crate for a while,” Jessika said.
“His collar was also ingrown, and we had to sedate him to cut it out. It probably hadn’t changed since he was a kitten.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, rescue staff then noticed Elvis wasn’t putting weight on his back leg. “It was shattered in more than a dozen places— and we still aren’t sure how it happened.”
Unfortunately, Elvis lost his leg as a result of his injuries. But with tender loving care, a nutritious diet, and lots of toys to play with, the little guy started to thrive and heal.
It has now been 7 years since Elvis was first dropped off at Carolina Tiger Rescue, but Jessika things his story speaks to a much larger problem: “[Servals] should not be pets.”
In the United States, five states (Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin) allow people to own wildcats, says Big Cat Rescue. Twenty-one states ban all exotic pets, while the rest have regulating procedures.
“Many of our servals were former pets… Animals such as Elvis deserve to be respected as the wild animals they are.”
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