Shy_Wolf_Sanctuary

Alright so speaking for myself, and not Shy Wolf Sanctuary, my stance on PETA is simple. PETA is an extremist group, and extremist groups are usually pretty counter-productive to their cause. Their attack on Steve Irwin was in extremely poor taste and was very personal to me given the fact that without Steve Irwin's inspiration there is a very good chance I am not doing this AMA today.

That they eat grandmas?

One of the things that I think surprises people when they visit our sanctuary is that they expect the wolves to be sort of "large and in charge". That they are fearless and in control of the situation, and I think it's very disarming for people when the animals present themselves as timid and curious. So I guess my answer is that wolves have been demonized by our fairy tales and movies to be the big bad guy all the time, when really they are the shyest guy in the room.

We have rescued quite a few big cats over the years and all but one of them were captive bred to be pets. The one exception was Glory, a small female cougar who was bred to be a canned hunt animal. We interacted directly with all of those cats. We currently have two, a bobcat that we do interact with when he's in the mood and a Cougar (or Panther since we're talking Florida here) that we do not directly interact with. The reason is, our Cougar was played with rough as a cub and the owner neglected to instill the commands that are so important when raising a big cat. Our Cougar is a big, friendly, affectionate cat but if we went into the enclosure he would end up accidentally hurting us. He just doesn't realize that our human skin doesn't hold up to those claws of his.

He gets a ton of attention through the fence though, and loves to purr.

Ah! I can finally use one of my video answers! I'll let our volunteer coordinator Caitie explain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F2tTz80N00

My first rescue was a 6 wolf-dog rescue in Belle Glade Florida. The owner had past away un-expectedly and the family had no idea what to do with the animals. By the time we got there the animals were in really touch shape. Most of their ears were bleeding because of fly strikes. This is where an animal's ears open up due to a huge number of fly bites, once the wounds are open, the flies will continue to bite and essentially eat the ears from the tips down. Two of the animals had maggots on their ears when we got there. It was a grueling rescue as it was July in Florida and one of the animals had a den it had dug that we didn't notice right away so even though we had captured 5 of the 6, we had to sit and wait for hours for number 6 to come out of the den for water. We still have two of those animals today. Takoda and Bear.

My favorite rescue was an escaped wolf-dog (not ours but a private owners) that was running free in Cape Coral, FL. We chased that animal for hours and eventually the situation culminated with me paddling around a remote canal at 2am floating on two pool floaties while other volunteers stood on the dock and spotted for alligators. We eventually captured the animal and returned them to the owner, but my god was that exhausting.