Carolina Tiger Rescue: It's not 'Tiger King' — it's better

Just over 50 years ago, UNC professor Dr. Michael Bleyman founded the Carolina Tiger Rescue. He served as executive director until he passed away in 1996. That year, the rescue revised its mission from a captive breeding facility for carnivores that were threatened or endangered, to a sanctuary for these animals. The rescue started offering public tours of the property 20 years ago.

That’s where volunteers like Amber Farmer come in. 

After doing a public tour over 10 years ago, Farmer said she knew that volunteering at the Carolina Tiger Rescue was how she would give back to the community.

“My favorite thing is just the education, so that people have an understanding of what we do and how we do it, and the lives of these animals before they came here, and how much better it is once they’re here,” she said. “And, the fact that this is their forever home, and the fact that they are so well cared for.”

Another volunteer, Kalie Gorham just began working at the rescue this past October. Her favorite part about being a volunteer is getting to see the tigers and other cats. 

“One thing that I always think about, and I talked to my husband about this week, I get to see more big animals than probably most people get to see in their lifetime,” Gorham said.

Her husband was actually the one that got her involved in the rescue. He works for UNC at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and he and his coworkers got to visit the site. After going on the tour with them, she knew she wanted to volunteer regularly. 

The tour itself is a little over an hour and a half long and visitors get to walk around the property to see several of its inhabitants, from tigers to lions to servals. One tiger, Naveen, turns 10 this year and was rescued from a park seen in “Tiger King,” the popular Netflix docu-series released in 2020. Farmer said that when 68 animals were seized from the park in Oklahoma by the United States Department of Justice, four of the tigers came to them, including Naveen.

“It’s not freedom, but it’s the best home they’ve ever had,” Gorham said.

Another resident of the rescue is six-year-old cougar Beausoleil, whom they call Beau for short. Farmer said he was rescued from Washington state after he was found all alone at a very young age, wandering around rural neighborhoods. Because he was rescued at such a young age, she said they played him NPR to get him acclimated to human voices, and to the rescue itself.

While walking from the cougars to the servals, Farmer was interrupted by the only lion on the property, Roman. He was making a noise called oofing, which is one of the ways they communicate to mark their territory. Farmer said Roman was rescued from a pseudo-rescue that had to give up many exotic animals after new laws were passed in the early 2010s. 

Reina, the female lion he was rescued with, sadly passed away last year. Farmer said those days are always heart-wrenching, but she and the other volunteers and staff hold on to the fact that these animals live good lives while at Carolina Tiger Rescue.

“When they jump the rainbow bridge, we cremate them,” she said. "And you see this big tree back here? We have a memorial garden back there where we spread their ashes, and everybody gets a brick with their name.”

At the end of the tour, first-time visitor Catherine Stio said her favorite part was seeing the Siberian tiger and she loved learning about how the different cats use their markings to communicate with their babies in the wild. She said the care for the animals is clear, seeing them out and about.

“It was a cold day today, and we saw so many animals, so that was wonderful to be able to see, and the education that you get with it, I mean, they’re very clear in speaking about the animals and open to questions,” Stio said.

As for Farmer, she said she would rather be there than anywhere else and when people come to volunteer, they stay. 

“We don’t get paid, my salary never goes up, my heart is always happy,” she said.

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