After grief and loss, life goes on at big-cat rescue center

WYLIE — The 10 new tigers that arrived last week at the In-Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue and Education Center are a sorry-looking crew. They’re skinny and scared, still disoriented by transport, wary of their new surroundings.

One female with an inexplicably broken paw hops awkwardly inside her enclosure. Several have had their tails docked. A sweet but painfully underweight male named Cincinnati has big hairless spots and ugly raw lesions on his legs.

But these are problems In-Sync knows how to fix. The sanctuary’s staff and volunteers are old hands at rehabilitating exotic cats who have either been confiscated from abusive owners or, like the newest residents, surrendered by other facilities that found them too much to handle.

As run down as some of these poor animals look, they represent new life for the rescue center. They’re the first new residents since an outbreak of a dog disease — canine distemper — killed seven animals: six tigers and a lion.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/jacquielynn-floyd/20140210-after-grief-and-loss-life-goes-on-at-big-cat-rescue-center.ece