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IEA’s ministry of interior unveils new uniforms for national police

(Last Updated On: June 8, 2022)Washington’s oversight authority on Afghanistan reconstruction has found that allegations of theft of millions of dollars of cash by former president Ashraf Ghani and his senior advisors, at the time of their hurried departure, are likely untrue. In the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) interim report on the theft of funds, which was…

There weren’t as many lions there as there were tigers.  Or bears for that matter.  This little guy stalking me is Odin.

He came in in the same situation as the tiger Saber.  He was being used for cub pictures.  I could see behavior issues with him when I got there such as extreme nervousness.  He wouldn’t come out of his house for a while and then when he did he would hide under a perch.  He finally grew brave enough and confident enough in his new surroundings that he’d just walk up to see why you were there. 

Here’s what he looked like by the time I left.  He had almost a full mane and almost looked like a grown man.  Fun fact: lions actually don’t start to roar until they reach about two years old.  I remember one of the other interns coming back one day all excited telling us he was finally trying to roar.  I imagine it sounds beautiful by now. 

This girl here is Shauna.  Every morning, Shauna knew which direction we were coming from so we could feed her.  She’d wait for us and then run over to get one of her large boomer balls and start batting it around like she was playing soccer.  Even at 22, she was incredibly energetic. 

And then we had other species at the sanctuary.

There was Mufasa the ring tailed lemur.  He was confiscated from a woman that owned him and a coatimundi and kept them in her apartment.  She had him and the coati defanged and declawed. 

Rio the Ocelot who was retired from an educational program at the El Paso Zoo and donated to the sanctuary.  The ocelot is a native cat of Texas and nocturnal so this is the only picture I have of her.  She was kind of a nervous cat from what I remember, though. 

The capybara Cappy (we did not name him) who was donated by someone that wasn’t supposed to have him.  He was a little nervous but super chill and loved to swim.  Sign him up for water ballet.

And there were three coatimundis.  This one here is Kodi.  She lived in the same place as Mufasa.  Coatis are related to raccoons and native to the southwestern United States as well as down through South America.  Kodi was declawed and defanged by the woman that owned her previously but I can personally tell you their bites still hurt.

There were bobcats and mountain lions and a couple of other species, too, and I can tell you they were all unconditionally loved by those taking care of them. 

A sanctuary should not be there to make a profit off their animals or beat their animals or go in the cage with their animals.  A sanctuary is there to make sure these animals are well fed and treated and educate people why these animals are so amazing, but amazing at a distance. 

IEAS relies on donations from Walmart twice a week as well as three different local grocery stores.  These donations primarily are for the bears.  Some of the meat that comes in, like chicken and steak, is used for the cats but never if that meat has gone rancid.  There is a danger of spreading salmonella so every package, every piece of chicken was checked before it was fed out.  When there are not enough fruit donations to feed the bears then produce is purchased. 

The cats are fed a consistent diet six days a week of specially formulated meat called Triple A.  It is comprised of muscle, organ, and bone.  A supplement was given to every animal as well to fill in the gaps that the meat might be missing.  Very few animals were on any type of medication.  Their diets were adjusted accordingly to how they were eating and if there was a problem, it was addressed immediately.  One day a week they’d each get a bone to mimic a bit of fasting like they’d go through in the wild.  It also helps with their teeth.

Tours were given once every day (if people showed up), twice on Saturdays).  If an animal looks agitated during a tour then we would move on.  There is never a reason to keep anyone around the animal if the animal seems pissed off. 

It wasn’t a perfect environment.  There was a lot more enrichment we wanted to do but never could.  Now the place is under new management (the other guy retired so it’s nothing shady) and everything I’ve seen from it looks like they’re finally able to get the animals some more enrichment.

So if you ever find yourself in Texas or wanting to see what a decent animal sanctuary looks like, International Exotic Animal Sanctuary is one I can personally vouch for myself.

So one of my first animal loves (read: obsession) was tigers.  It was kind of a dream come true when I got to work with them.  When I started there were 20 tigers.  Only two tigers passed away while I was there and they both came from the same Spanish Circus.

I have to start off with my girl Kashmere.

This girl was born on April Fools Day.  I honestly can’t remember her full story.  She arrived at the park with her two sisters shortly after they were born, though.  Kashmere was the sweetest soul.  She was one of my emotional enrichment animals.  In the evening when I was done with work, I’d go down and sit with her.  Outside her habitat (this is a very important takeaway, guys).  She’d see me and come over and chuff away (a tiger’s happy noise. There is seriously nothing like knowing you inspire them to chuff) before laying down somewhere in front of me and just.... exist with me.  Okay, so mostly she slept but do you know how amazing it feels to know a tiger is happy to see you so they come over just so they can sleep in front of you? 

She passed away at age 21 the year after I left.  Her sister Khera was feistier than Kashmere.  Very much a trickster.  I always had to tell tours not to put their back to her habitat because she would sneak up on them and then roar and that’s not behavior we were trying to encourage.

On the other end of the spectrum is Makeen. This is the only photo I have of him because he went through a lot and I never really liked to bother the boy much since he’d already been through enough.  He had the most gorgeous face, too, so it was kind of a shame.

He spent the beginning of his life in the same barn as Bill the bear in a crate that was big enough only for him to stand up a little and barely turn around.  He had joint problems and he pretty much hated everyone.  If you threw off his morning routine, he knew it and you’d hear about it.  He had skin problems so in the winter we couldn’t put hay in his house and instead gave him a heat lamp.  Since he never really saw the sun until he came to the sanctuary, he was in a habitat with a lot of vines growing up the fencing.  Those vines were well watered in the summer to make sure they didn’t die so this guy would get all the shade he needed. 

There were also siblings that were hand raised after being given to the sanctuary by another “sanctuary” not too far from IEAS.  I use that loosely because they did (possibly still do) practice breeding their animals.

Arusha, Kumar, and Akbar.  This is the only photo I have of all of them together.  They had just gotten donated Christmas trees as enrichment.  Since these three siblings were raised at the sanctuary by a team of people, they were cool with pretty much anything and you could tell.  They were the friendliest tigers out there.  Side note: this is only one half of their habitat.  They have a pool in the other half.  Though you can’t see it here, Kumar is the only one to show signs of why you shouldn’t breed tigers that carry the white gene.  He has cross eyes which result from the inbreeding that comes from breeding white tigers. 

Yes, I know white tigers look pretty.  I, too, was once a fool to that.  But knowledge can be a powerful thing.  Kumar is one of two white tigers (out of 8 white tigers total) at the sanctuary that outwardly show signs of the problems that come with this inbreeding. 

The loudest tiger by far was Sajani.

This girl is the first thing I heard in the morning as I went to the nutrition center to start preparing everyone’s meals.  Every morning.  And it was the weirdest sound, too, but it never failed to make everyone that came by smile.  Sajani was rescued from an organization near San Antonio that was misappropriating funds.  It took about two years to find homes for all the animals.  She was the sweetest thing that always wanted everyone to just hang out with her for a few minutes.  You couldn’t help but talk to her as you walked by. 

Lastly, but not least because there were a bunch more, is the pain in the ass I mean cub Saber.  He arrived not long before I did so he went from looking like this cute little cub in quarantine

To looking like this slightly bigger jerk trying to stalk me from behind his water trough (that has to be refilled again because he sat in it for the millionth time in five minutes)

To looking like this guy trying to stab me by the pool.  He’s obviously still not full grown in this picture yet.  He’s probably a little less than a year old in this picture and they don’t hit full size until roughly two years of age.

Saber, as well as a lion cub Odin, were rescued from a cub petting/pictures scenario.  Let me tell you why that is a bad thing and not the dream come true opportunity it seems like.  When people take pictures with cubs, these cubs are passed from person to person all day long.  They never get to sleep.  They never get to sit down and relax.  They never get to be what they’re supposed to be - a cub.  They’ve already been ripped away from their mothers so they’re malnourished, too.  Once they hit six months of age, they’re no longer useful to the establishment charging for cub pictures.  Cub pictures causes behavioral problems.  Both Saber and Odin already had behavior problems when they came to the sanctuary. 

At IEAS, once something is known to cause too much of an issue with an animal in that it’s altering their behavior or getting them far too excited, we would take steps to reduce that so that we could minimize or eliminate it.  With one tiger, it meant we had to distract him with chicken while we got the hose ready to fill his water.  With a lion, it meant we had to raise and lower her gate in a controlled manner with one hand (don’t worry, it wasn’t a situation that required two hands for her). 

Again, the mission at the sanctuary is to be a retirement home no matter the age of the animal.  We wanted them to behave as much like a tiger or lion in the wild as possible.  We were never in habitats with them and if our own presence irritated them then we would remove ourselves from their presence until they wanted us around again.  

(I just had to include this picture because I helped make that fire hose ball and let me tell you, it was tougher than you would think)