For the News-Gazette
Forty-three big cats will soon be making their way from Brevard County to a new home at a south Osceola facility.
Central Florida Animal Reserve, currently operating in Brevard County, is in the process of moving 32 tigers, four lions, four cougars and three leopards to a new facility on 500 Broussard Road, just off of U.S. Highway 441.
The facility, currently under construction, will take up a little over half of the 11 acres the animal reserve purchased in Osceola County. Once completed, it will have enough enclosures to house all 43 exotic cats, with features such as concrete in-ground pools for tigers, mist-spray features and ample shade for cats not suited for the Florida heat. It also has an on-site animal hospital and an indoor food-preparation area complete with large freezers and coolers. “With the number of cats in this country being likely greater than the number that’s in the wild, it’s very important that we try to maintain them in a manner that is going to be both dignified as well as responsible,” said Simba Wiltz, volunteer CEO/ senior vice president of the Central Florida Animal Reserve.
Beginning as a nonprofit to care for neglected exotic cats in 1996, the organization became Central Florida Animal Reserve in 2007 and took over a failed exotic cat facility in Brevard County that held 60 lions, tigers, cougars and leopards. With the zoning around its facility changing from agricultural to rural residential, Brevard County had given it until March 2015 to move to another location.
Wiltz said that while construction is underway, the reserve has 35 percent of the $700,000 needed to construct the new facility. Wiltz and others in the organization are working to raise the remaining $400,000 to $500,000 needed to complete the construction. Along with Osceola County, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are helping its move by conducting regulation inspections as the facility is constructed, but the construction needs to be complete before the cats can move in.
The facility also will serve as a place to provide information to similar organizations on the ways to properly care for exotic cats and become a source of information about exotic cats.
Anyone interested in donating to the new facility can call the animal reserve at 321-637-0110 or visit the website www.cflar.org.
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