Here are some frequently asked questions.

Well actually they were first asked by my first English tour (thanks to Jill Rolph an her students, you were amazing!) and we found them so good (and they are really frequently asked) that we thought we would give you the chance to browse through.

FAQ:
1. What types of animals do you accept?
2. Do you keep them for the rest of their lives?
3. How does the local neighborhood/community feel about them?
4. How do you elect your board members and how many do you have?
5. Do the animal caregivers get paid?
6. Have they ever had to put animals down due to health or other issues?
7. What are the procedures, if an animal escapes or injures anyone?
8. How many volunteers do you have, and what are their duties?

 

1. What types of animals do you accept?

The Sanctuary started with only accepting big cats however during the last 4 years we have also accepted an Arctic Fox, a Common Red Fox, two Japan Macaques, many ferrets and two Opossums. At the moment all our enclosures are inhabited so we can take up no more animals (except maybe for a ferret or so). Our main focus is still on taking in big cats, especially the apes were an exception since we didn‘t have any experience with apes before. When we get inquiries to take in animals and don‘t have the expertise or space we try to find them a home somewhere else. E.g. There is a big sanctuary for all kinds of apes in the Netherlands, for smaller animals we contact other animal welfare associations such as „Vier Pfoten“ (Four paws) or „BUND deutscher Tierfreunde“ (Association of German Friends of Animals).

2. Do you keep them for the rest of their lives?

In 99% of the cases we do. However we would re-home nearly all of our animals if someone could offer them better living conditions at their place. Sadly only one animal (an ocelot) could be re-homed during the last 20 years. It‘s easier for local animal shelters to re-home a cat than for us to re-home their bigger relatives since you have to get a special permit to keep dangerous animals in Germany.

We often get asked why our animals can‘t be given to the zoo. Theoretically they could! However the zoos only want pure-bred animals which means they would need a pedigree. Something our residents don‘t have since their previous „owners“ didn‘t care for the pedigree but merely the status of keeping an exotic animal. The zoos need the pedigree for the EEP (European Endangered Species Program).

3. How does the local neighborhood/community feel about them?

We have both: Neighbors who support us and neighbors who hardly comprehend our cause. Luckily we have more of the first who are very generous especially on Open House: Some allow free parking on their nearby meadow helping us with our limited parking spaces. Others come by frequently with their kids to watch the tigers and apes as you can see them from outside our grounds.

However some of the neighbors get pretty angry when we have our Open House, since parking spaces are limited and our visitors park everywhere in the village. It‘s an problem we had to face more and more during the last year since more and more visitors came to the Open House. We tried to find a solution together with the city of Ansbach and are now allowed to put up traffic signs on Open House stating where our visitors are allowed to park and where not.

4. How do you elect your board members and how many do you have?

We elect our board members every four years. Every member of our association gets an invitation about three months beforehand. You are eligible to vote if you are 18 or older and have been a member of the association at at least for a year.

We have nine board members: Chairman, co-chairman, treasurer, secretary and five committee members

5. Do the animal caregivers get paid?

Our chief caretaker gets paid since he is on the grounds 5 days a week. He should get 40 days off, however in all those years we have sadly never been able to find enough volunteer caretakers to make this possible. Usually we manage to give him 20 – 25 days off per year. Also our two „Bundes freiwilligen Dienstler“ or in short „BufDi“ (federal service volunteers) get a little pocket money. About 110€ are paid by the association and about 220€ are paid by the state. All other caretakers are volunteers and get no payment!

6. Have they ever had to put animals down due to health or other issues?

Sadly this happens very often. Especially when the animals get older their health issues often become untreatable. Together with our vet and the vet of the Nuremberg Tiergarten we try to decide what is best for the animal. Last year we had to put down one of your cougars: He was already 17 years old and suffered from diabetes and arthritis (which we were both able to treat at least a little). However in the course of a few weeks he developed serious epileptic seizures. Since we were unable to help him in these situation we decided to release him from his suffering and put him down.

We also had tigers who suffered from cancer and thus had to be put down.

7. What are the procedures, if an animal escapes or injures anyone?

We don‘t have an official protocol as far as I know for cases like that. Safety takes up number one priority at the Sanctuary which is why escapes and injuries are very rare to non-existent in our history.

If the unlikely case should occur and a dangerous animal should escape, I‘m afraid it would have to be shot by the officials if they failed to tranquilize it. We would also probably have to close down the Sanctuary since we would lose all the trust of the community and of the city of Ansbach.

Since we don‘t have direct contact with our bigger animals the risk of injury here is at a minimum. However I doubt that the animal would have to suffer any consequences since it‘s usually human failure or inattentiveness which causes injuries cause by animals rather than an animal‘s malice.

Injuries have to be reported to the chief-caretaker, the officials and of course a doctor if they were inflicted by an exotic animal. We even have to report injuries inflicted during gardening work to the chief-caretaker since the insurance might cover the costs if the wound gets infected or the injured person suffers from serious damage.

8. How many volunteers do you have, and what are their duties?

This one is actually the toughest question to answer of all: Fortunately, we don‘t have a set number of volunteers! I would estimate that the core-team consists of 20 volunteers who help as often as their free time allows. We currently have four voluntary caretakers who were instructed by our chief-caretaker and have the permission to take care of the animals on their own. These four cover the weekends so our chief-caretaker can have some days off. They also make his holidays possible.

Then we have two BufDis who are instructed for 6-12 weeks depending on their learning capabilities and are then allowed to do the same tasks as the volunteer care-takers. BufDis usually serve for 12 months.

All other volunteers help the care-takers with their tasks which mainly are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and preparing the food. They also take care of all the other little maintenance works  that have to be done around the grounds: gardening, building new toys for the animals or even building shelters (e.g. both cages for the opossums and the degus were built by volunteers).

A special occasion is always our Open House: We assign a volunteer to each enclosure where they can answer our visitors‘ questions and keep an eye our for safety. We also have volunteers selling self baked cakes and coffee as well as souvenirs at the „Tiger Shop“. On a good Open House we have up to 30 volunteers helping make this day possible.