Petting the Cougar, originally uploaded by Wordyeti.
This is one of a series of photos I’ve put up on Flickr showing the various exotic animals at The Nature of Wildworks, a rescue facility in Topanga Canyon. More & more of them keep accumulating, as people who had once had the means to collect & keep exotic pets are falling victim to the Sub-prime Mortgage Meltdown here in Southern Cal.
Unfortunately, just as some hoodrats dump their pit bulls by the side of the freeway when they become inconvenient, a lot of these people are just bailing on these beautiful creatures. There are three mountain lions here, a half dozen other large cats (bobcat and civet – at least, I think the long-legged junior leopard is a civet cat), a silver wolf, a fennec fox, skunks (descented), hawks and coyotes.
These folks need help. Watch this space – we’re going to try to help them expand their web presence and try to get more donations to expand into a larger facility where the animals have a little more legroom & can have a better quality of life.