Two-Year Sentence for 'Rescue' Facility Owner Ends an Amazing Journey for the 39 Colton Tigers

By Catherine Hess

All senses alert for danger, Chuck's Girl padded out into the alien night, nose twitching at the unfamiliar smells. The small tiger walked as if the uneven ground wobbled under her feet.

Her hesitancy was understandable. Her life had already flitted between two extremes: brutal neglect and gentle care. What awaited her on this cool Northern California night in late February?

She didn't know it, but she had arrived at her permanent home, among the last of 39 tigers who would never again experience the cruelty and neglect they had endured at a private animal facility in Southern California. The facility dared to call itself, without a trace of irony, Tiger Rescue.

Unbelievable Squalor

In April 2003, California Fish & Game wardens had served a search warrant at the Glen Avon home of John Weinhart and Marla Smith. Authorities had had their eyes on Weinhart; in 2002, they had confiscated ten tigers, seven of them cubs, from Tiger Rescue. This time around, they suspected Weinhart of illegal animal breeding, but their search warrant mentioned only one tiger held captive without a permit.

What they found astonished them.

Besides two juvenile tigers, one confined to a cramped cage and the other tied to the porch, they found a couple of alligators in the bathtub and animal waste everywhere. They found a burro outside hobbling on untrimmed hooves while a goat, a pig, and sheep picked their way through a nauseating mess of feces and rotting animal carcasses. They found a freezer with the frozen bodies of 58 tiger cubs. They found tiger hides stored in a trailer. They found an attic crammed with 11 infant cubs, tigers and leopards so young their eyes hadn't opened yet, nearly dead from dehydration.

Fortunately for these desperate animals, The Fund for Animals stepped in. The Fund's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center near San Diego was practically made for nursing these animals back to health. The center's managers, Chuck and Cindy Traisi, had cared for the seven cubs seized earlier at Tiger Rescue, and they again stood ready to help these young animals—along with center staff and a dedicated group of volunteers who readily gave up vacation and sick days to bottle feed these cubs back to health.

Bringing Up Babies

Weak from hunger and dehydration, the cubs ate ravenously, gulping down several bottles of formula at each feeding. Like all baby cats, infant tigers are not able to eliminate wastes on their own, so after feedings the caretakers would stimulate them with towels and clean them up.

Huge airline carriers served as beds for the tigers. Each cub had a roommate in the carrier, and everyone had a stuffed "mother" to snuggle up to. After a couple of weeks they started trying to stand and walk, so the workers put blankets on the floor and let them exercise. As the cubs grew and as some recovered from pneumonia, the carriers were opened so the animals could run around.

The tiger cubs shared the room with the two leopard cubs as well as a young cougar and a baby bobcat rescued from other situations. None of them seemed to realize they were different species; Cindy Traisi remembers seeing little leopards and tigers playing together, with the baby cougar leaping happily around them.

The juvenile tigers were housed in an outdoor enclosure separate from the cubs. The pair arrived underfed and ragged with mange, but veterinary care and nutritious food soon had them in better health.

All Too Common

The circumstances that brought these innocents to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center may seem strange, but they are all too common. An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 tigers—more than remain in the wild—live in the United States, kept as pets by private individuals.

Tigers, like most big cats, reproduce readily in captivity. Tigers are irresistible when young and charismatic when full-grown, making them attractive to those with a taste for exotic pets. Despite a desperate lack of suitable homes, tigers are bred so that customers can pay to have their pictures taken holding a cub. Tigers pay a price for their appeal.

Those adorable cubs will grow to 600 to 1,000 pounds, rapidly becoming hard to manage. When things don't work out, good homes are almost impossible to find, and most tigers held by individuals get highly inadequate care. Once a tiger is disposed of, no one knows where the animal goes after that; the big cat could land in the hands of a trader, who may kill the tiger for his pelt and body parts, which sell at a high profit in other countries as folk remedies.

Some of this is illegal, and all of it is unkind, driven only by a desire for gain.

Retirement Home from Hell

At Weinhart's arraignment, the judge ordered him to have no contact with any animals. This created a dilemma for officials who knew of the Tiger Rescue facility in nearby Colton, a place billed as a retirement home for performing animals. The fact was, the 54 animals there, soon to be wards of the state, badly needed rescuing themselves.

California Fish & Game made an emergency conference call to all interested parties, which included Chuck Traisi. Within hours, Traisi checked into a motel near Colton and shouldered responsibility for the big cats. Cindy Traisi, already managing care for the young creatures at the rehab center, started recruiting hundreds of additional volunteers to help in Colton. Neither of them suspected how many nights Chuck Traisi would spend in that dingy motel room, far from his wife and the domestic cats who share their home.

Even now, Chuck is horrified recalling what he faced at the Colton facility. "It was disgusting. The cats had no water, nor anything that could hold water. The cages weren't even made for cleaning...When I got there there were 54 exotic cats, some clearly underweight, some clearly emaciated. No captive animal should ever be desperate for food."

In all, Chuck Traisi counted 12 leopards, two African lions, one cougar, and 39 tigers, all in need of help.

How to Feed a Hungry Tiger

Hundreds of people responded to the call for volunteers, but none of them had experience caring for wild animals, much less tigers. Their inexperience was compounded by the fact that the enclosures were falling apart, and the big cats could easily escape if they so desired. Chuck Traisi immediately reinforced the enclosures and established safety rules, which helped guide all the volunteers—who were "deputized" by the state wildlife agency—through their duties without injuries.

Among other rules, the volunteers were told to stay a safe distance away from fence gaps, as tigers could reach their entire front legs out more than three feet. Traisi warned everyone not to put their hands or fingers into the cages. Volunteers used backscratchers to administer those important scratches around the ears, as well as long barbecue tongs to place food in enclosures.

Feeding the tigers, at first, was terrifying for the volunteers. The malnourished animals were frantic to get at the food, and came close to breaking out of their cages at the mere sight of it. After four or five months of daily feeding, both humans and tigers grew more blas!nd sometimes a tiger would just look up when the food arrived and go back to sleep.

With a whole compound of large felines to feed, Traisi bought 650 pounds of fresh food daily. He shopped at retail stores until he discovered a local market that sold wholesale meat to area restaurants. The market could supply enough for the tigers' daily needs while allowing The Fund for Animals to purchase in bulk. Even with the discount, though, feeding the tigers cost more than $500 per day.

Some big cats had cuts and injuries, and were put on a regimen of antibiotics. Two veterinarians experienced with exotic cats came in to stitch them up and provide other treatment. Some of the tigers were pregnant when The Fund for Animals took over their care. To prevent further reproduction, The Fund worked with The Humane Society of the United States and experienced wildlife veterinarians to spay and neuter the cats who were living in mixed gender groups.

With the tigers' medical and dietary needs under control, Traisi decided the animals also needed a little fun. He brought in 1,000-gallon stainless steel tanks and filled them with water for the tigers to play in—a favorite activity of tigers everywhere. Traisi recalls the volunteers laughing until they cried while watching the tigers go berserk in water for the first time.

As the weeks went by, Traisi watched each cat gain significant weight. "We didn't lose a single one of those cats," he says proudly.

The Placement Puzzle

As trying as it sometimes was to feed and care for tiger cubs and adults, finding permanent homes for all the animal was even harder: The Fund and The HSUS worked with the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition, The Association of Sanctuaries, the American Sanctuary Association, and others to find good, reputable, accredited homes for the animals—and to screen out facilities that would use the big cats for breeding, entertainment, or commercial purposes.

The sanctuary community heeded the call and opened its doors. The Austin Zoo took the lone male cougar, who now enjoys the company of other cougar companions. Three adult leopards, two African lions, and 21 tiger and leopard cubs went to Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center in Colorado. The Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Indiana took in eight adult leopards. The two juvenile tigers from the Weinhart residence were placed at the Folsom City Zoo/Sanctuary in California. And the Shambala Preserve, operated by actress and animal advocate Tippi Hedren, took in six young tiger cubs, in addition to the three tigers the preserve had rescued from the original Colton seizure.

After all that, 39 adult tigers were still left at the defunct Colton facility, and nobody had room for them. Which is not surprising. As with domestic cats and dogs, there are always more tigers than there are good homes, and as people who keep a tiger discover when the exotic pet becomes too unruly to manage, good sanctuaries with space for another animal are rare.

The Fund for Animals called some 175 facilities for big cats around the country, but most were not acceptable. Many operations allowed breeding or would put the tigers to commercial use, such as displaying them in a mall for photos.

Fund for Animals President Mike Markarian observed, "We knew we were spending our donors' money and staff time, and that we had a responsibility to send them to only the best facilities—not to be used for entertainment, exhibits, or breeding. We wouldn't allow them to end up at some place that would be Tiger Rescue Part 2."

Zoos weren't a magic bullet either. Most zoos are not interested in tigers unless they are genetically pure Bengal, Siberian, or Sumatran tigers with records to prove it. Only pure subspecies can be used to continue valuable genetic lines, and the Colton tigers—like most cats in the exotic pet world—had no pedigrees.

Only zoos such as the Folsom City Zoo/Sanctuary and the Austin Zoo were willing to help because they operate as rescue centers for animals in need. Both zoos educate the public about why they should not have exotic pets or support exotic animal industries.

With no welcome mats in sight for the last 39 tigers, The Fund for Animals decided to pay for a new facility. While several sanctuaries said that, given the money, they could build facilities for tigers, only the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) had enough undeveloped land at its ARK2000 sanctuary in San Andreas, California to create a spacious habitat.

The Fund for Animals agreed to raise $250,000 for this project, and PAWS began construction on a ten-acre expanse with dens, trees, and swimming pools—all for the homeless tigers.

All the Comforts of Home

The new tiger habitat at ARK2000 is large enough that, even with 39 residents, it can be hard to spot the tigers—but then again, they are not there for anyone's viewing pleasure.

The easiest place to catch a glimpse is in the open area around the deep, 18-foot by 12-foot pool popular with the tigers. Beyond the pool, the terrain is mostly grass with oaks, pines, madrone, and manzanita. The whole area is surrounded by an 18-foot fence, protecting those inside as well as those outside.

Many people dug into their pockets to help create this home for tigers. Artist Peter Max, comedian Richard Pryor, sculptor Kitty Cantrell, and others contributed artwork and other items for a fundraising auction. And Fund for Animals donors gave generously.

Starting in June 2004, The Fund for Animals and PAWS transferred the tigers to their new home in groups of six to eight to make their adjustment easier. It took many hours just to unload one group of tigers and move them into the primary enclosure, where they were left to settle in on their own for the first day.

To animals who had lived only on concrete surfaces, the unevenness of soil and grass felt foreign, and they stepped cautiously or stayed on the familiar concrete. Once they gained confidence, they would awkwardly try running for the first time. Before long, they would prowl into the underbrush and peer out as if they had always lived in a jungle, and not a retirement facility.

Now that they're all at ARK2000, the tigers are kept grouped as they were in Colton, so they are with familiar companions. Each animal has a separate den, and the tigers go into their dens for meals. A whistle alerts them that mealtime is coming, and newcomers quickly catch on to the routine.

Scars from the Past

Unfortunately, real life doesn't usually conform to Hollywood's notion of a happy ending. While the tigers all enjoy a better life now, many still battle medical problems, most brought on by years of neglect and improper care.

Two of the tigers have had surgery for tumors. One of them, Cherokee, has recuperated and gone back to her original group. The other, named Meguire, is still getting round-the-clock care. A male named Peja had pus in his lungs, and is recovering in a hospital. Spanky was diagnosed with a pancreas problem caused by near starvation. For the rest of his life, caretakers will put an enzyme on his food right before he eats so that he can digest it. With this special care, Spanky has gained 30 pounds.

Many of the tigers have vision problems related to indiscriminate inbreeding. A big male known as Ray Charles is almost blind, but has found a group that accepts him. He follows them around all day.

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty...

The two people responsible for this neglect and cruelty had their day in court. In February 2005, a jury found John Weinhart guilty of 56 of the 61 counts he was charged with, including 13 felony counts of animal cruelty. Marla Smith, who faced the same charges as her partner, pleaded guilty in January and was sentenced in March to 180 days in jail and four years of probation.

Weinhart's verdict came nearly two months after The HSUS and The Fund for Animals formally combined their operations to create the world's largest animal protection group. The combined resources of the organizations proved powerful as the Tiger Rescue case came to a close. The HSUS's attorney had urged the district attorney to file felony cruelty charges rather than wildlife violations—the felonies could result in up to 16 years in prison, while wildlife violations probably would not have carried any prison time.

The felony charges paid off in July when Weinhart was sentenced to two years in jail (part of which he has already served) and five years of probation. Furthermore, the judge ordered Weinhart, while on probation, not to own, work with, or take care of any animals and to stay at least 50 yards away from exotic cats. He will receive counseling services in anger management and parenting as well.

Fund President Markarian noted the importance of jail time for Weinhart. "It sends a strong message that if you abuse animals, you don't get a slap on the wrist, you go to jail," he said.

The same week in February that the guilty verdict was announced against Weinhart, The HSUS and The Fund worked with PAWS to move the final group of seven tigers to their new home at ARK2000—capping a massive two-year effort.

Chuck Traisi, whose life was disrupted for 21 months while he cared for the Colton tigers, was pleased when the district attorney called to tell him that the jury had returned a verdict. "I wanted that man to pay for what he had done and what he had not done," Traisi said. Then Traisi paused and added, "He is only one of many."

The Tiger Tales Continue

While Chuck's Girl and her companions settle into their new digs, many more tigers suffer in substandard conditions. Justice may have been done in this case, but the tale is far from over for them or for the thousands of others suffering out of public view.

A team of caretakers and vets will care for the ARK2000 tigers for the rest of their lives—care they deserve, but a financially daunting arrangement that leaves precious little room for others equally deserving of humane treatment.

Mike Markarian admits, "If this happened again tomorrow, if another facility was raided and 75 big cats needed placement, I don't think we could do it again. It took two years and about $1 million total to rescue these tigers. The good sanctuaries out there are full, and there are so many tigers in this country in abusive captive situations."

It would seem the only hope for less fortunate tigers is to put those who exploit them out of business.

Catherine Hess is the web specialist in charge of the Campaigns Department for The HSUS.

How You Can Help Exotic Captive Animals:

• Don't visit petting zoos, circuses, roadside exhibits or other facilities like the one in Colton.

• Don't buy exotic animals, no matter how adorable they look as babies. Plenty of domestic cats need homes.

• Don't buy any products made from exotic animal skins, fur, teeth, or other body parts.

• If you suspect abuse or dangerous housing of exotics, report it to local humane or animal control officers.

• Make a donation and help us combat the desperate exotic animal situation through legislation and education.

• Let your legislators know that you want to see a ban on all sales of exotic animals.

• Spread the word about how captive exotics suffer. Don't miss an opportunity to inform your friends and acquaintances—even the media—on the issues.