Mizzou not the only Tigers around

College sports fans and Alumni of the University of Missouri Columbia know that Missouri is no stranger to tigers. Although Mizzou lays claim to Tiger fame, a far-lesser known kind of hotspot is developing in Missouri for true tiger fans. Against the backdrop of the state's rolling hills is the home of five real live tigers - and I don't mean the "Rah" type.
The National Tiger Sanctuary located just north of Ste Genevieve, MO was started by husband and wife duo Keith Kinkade and Judy McGee. They proudly house five Siberian tigers, Dee, Vincent, TJ, Max, and Paul, who they raised from cubs. The non-for-profit organization has faced many challenges since its establishment in 2000 to become the environmental awareness center it is now.
"Our two goals are number one, educating the public to the tigers themselves, and number two, encouraging the public to become more aware of the environment,” Kinkade said, “The extinction of tigers in the wild is only one piece of the big world picture.”
The sanctuary consists of a large, impressive lodge which serves as both the office for the facility, the starting point for tours, and the living quarters of Kinkade and McGee. Their home is filled with smaller cats and dogs that have free-reign of the grounds. An expansive deck juts out the rear overlooking the giant wired cages where the tigers roam against the woodland backdrop. Down the path away from the deck visitors are separated from the wired cages by a fence only three feet away from the enormous cats. This sanctuary is the only USDA approved facility in the country that allows the public to be able to feed the tigers.
Kinkade and McGee were originally self-employed business owners in Kansas City, MO and upon retirement began to volunteer for different animal sanctuaries. Their volunteer experiences included working with big cats which developed into their current day passion for tigers.
The tigers all came from the same litter born at the Riverglen Tiger Sanctuary in Arkansas in 2001. Four males and one female, the litter was both usually large and unique in that it produced a rare white tiger. Only one in one thousand white Siberian tigers are born in the wild and there hasn't been one spotted for over fifty years.
"Most of the white tigers you see in circuses and shows today are hybrids, a cross between Bengal and Siberians, not true white tigers. They are bred only for money, which is terrible and we try to teach people about that,” McGee said, “Real white tigers haven't been spotted in wild for so long not because of natural selection, but because of us. Humans are their only threat.”
Because a usual litter consists of two to three cubs this litter was an enormous stress on the mother. The cubs were taken away for fear that the mother would kill them.
Their natural diet of mother's milk was substituted with kitten milk replacement which is a successful diet in 80 to 90% of cats. Two to three weeks later a noticeable difference in the cubs was taking place. Vincent and Max both began to drag their hind legs, unable to absorb calcium from the replacement milk. Paul had developed juvenile cataracts.
Kinkade and McGee took the cubs in to provide them with the specialized diet and attention they needed to heal. Before these cubs the couple had nurtured sick cats back to health and then returned them back to the zoos or facilities they had originally come from. This time, however, they were working with De Paul University on their Environmental Learning Campus in Bloomsdale, MO and were asked to keep the cats on for university purposes.
Once the university changed hands in the administration, the land was sold off to a local winery. The winery agreed to allow the tigers to stay as long as the sanctuary provided 50-75% of its incoming profits for use of the land. Because the National Tiger Sanctuary is a non-for-profit organization most of its funding comes from donations and ten dollar per-person tour fees which made the winery's demands an impossibility.
With nowhere to go and unable to pay the winery the percentage it demanded the sanctuary faced a real challenge. At that point of time Kinkade and McGee didn't even attempt to do any fundraising or accept donations for their facility.
"We didn't want people to get confused, thinking they'd give money to take care of the tigers and then end up taking care of some guy's tennis courts or swimming pool. Once people get the wrong idea - and it doesn't matter whether its right or wrong - you just can't get it out of their head,” said Kinkade, “So we thought it was better to struggle and not do anything and just try to get along."
A blessing came when Clint Statman, owner of 450 acres of land right down the road offered up a chunk of his own property for the sanctuary's use.
"He divided land up into four different sections and told us that as we got on our feet and got going he'd give us the option to buy a piece at a time. He's really just been our biggest donor you'd say. We're not paying any rent or anything right now. That's just really made a world of difference in what we can do," said Kinkade.
With the help of Statman and money from Kinkade and McGee's own pockets, the National Tiger Sanctuary was officially moved to its current location in February 2006.
Kinkade and McGee have big plans for their sanctuary, planning to eventually expand the cages out into the woods to let the tigers roam around a more natural habitat. A pool is being installed within the cages to help the cats keep cool this summer. Underneath the lodge, a heavy storm shelter used to house the cats during bad weather is being converted for the dual purpose of a surgical center for the tigers as well as a recovery area. This area will not only provide convenient medical access for the tigers currently housed here but for cats in the future who may need rescue and surgical care.
The Sanctuary can be found at 10019 State Route Y, Bloomsdale, MO and is open 10 am to 5 pm on the weekends for walk-in and on the weekdays by reservation only. They offer a variety of tours: a thirty-minute long "discovery" tour for $10 per adult, $5 per child and a "behind the scenes feeding tour" for $75 per person. Group and school tours are also available.