I got licked by a Canadian Lynx.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I spent the weekend in Atlanta/Nashville. We stopped at my roommate’s parents’ house. Her parents breed wild cats and take care of a couple of older wild cats.

Her parents keep bobcats, lynxes, servals, and caricles, and an ocelot named Prowler. (He was extremely cool looking, but fiesty. With a capital “F”, actually.)

We went to look at the cats, and I got to go in the cages with the servals, the lynxes (both Canadian and Siberian) and the bobcats. When we walked past the Canadian Lynxes, Sasquatch decided that he wanted to be petted. He was rubbing up against the fence, so I reached over and rubbed him. He stopped to smell my hand, licked it, then immediately decided he wanted to swat at me. Luckily I backed my hand off, because he’s got some good claws. So I got licked by a lynx this weekend.

I think Prowler is the coolest, although he’s a little scary. He makes a wonderful ruckus whenever anyone walks outside. I have lots of pictures, but I have to get the digital camera up and running on my home computer. So, as soon as I get it set up, I will post the link.

Big cats are so cool. :smiley:

2

Yep, big cats are definitely cool. I got ya beat, though–I got bit by a tiger once. Granted, it was a tiger cub, and it was a very friendly bite (didn’t break the skin), but I can still say I got bit by a tiger.

3

wow! lucky ducky! lynx kisses.

i’m totally jealous.

4

Yeah and baby tiger bites.

Me jealous :frowning:

5

I have a picture of me with a Florida panther (non-releasable, had a bum leg). Got to pet her too - very silky smooth.

No kitty kisses, though. She had teeth the size of New Jersey. Nuh uh, no way.

6

I was visiting my ex-girlfriend (back when she WAS my girlfriend) in Tallahassee back in January 2000, and she decided that we would go to Tallahassee’s equivilent of a zoo. It was pretty decent, they had the usual alligators, a few wolves, a Florida Panther, which seemed REALLY pissed off to be stuck in a zoo rather then being allowed to roam free across the wilderness that is Florida.

ANYWAY, they also had 3 tigers, who didn;t seem to mind living in a sauna. We had oohed & ahhed them and were looking at all of the poisonous snakes in their plexiglass cages when a keeper came by and asked us how we liked the park.

We said that it was pretty cool especially the bit about the tigers and he asked if we would like to get a bit closer to said striped animals.

We said, “Sure,” thinking that nothing would come of it.

But he said, “Follow me,” and led us thru the KEEPERS ONLY door and THERE WE WERE, separated from 3 nearly full gown tigers by nothing more then a chain link fence.

One tiger seemed completely disinterested in us, but the other 2 came over and started rubbing back and forth against the fence.

We were dying to reach out and put our hands against the fence, but we asked if that was okay. The keeper said yes, but not to do it when the head of the tiger was near us.

Well, DUH.

Anyway, very soft fur, but I wouldn’t want to have to feed one every day.

And VERY, VERY, VERY large teeth and paws.

7

I saw a piece on one of these reality shows where a bunch of pre-teen kids (in India, I belive) were petting a tiger, when all of a sudden the big cat grabbed one kid’s arm and tried to drag him into his sleeping box. A tug of war ensued, which the kids actually won when the tiger let go. A slow motion replay showed that the kid had inadvertently stepped on one of the tiger’s paws as he started to stand up. Since the tiger didn’t even draw blood on the kid, I have to think all he really had in mind was to give him the tiger equivalent of a “trip behind the woodshed”.

Lynx Licks = Band name.

8

I got to bottle feed a tiger cub once.

Was a chartity event, where they were raising money to keep a big cat rehabilitation home funded, and they brought along a couple of tiger cubs they’d rescued from some loser that thought they could raise the cubs in a small apartment.

Feeding them was pretty cool, but a bit daunting when you realize that this warm furry animal, the size of a large cocker spaniel, is just a cub less than three months old.

9

When I visited a zoo in Central Florida, I petted & was nuzzled by a cerval. I believe it is with a “c”, Skerri.

Beautiful and friendly.

Ever seen a North African Sand Cat? Looks like a larger version of it’s domestic cousin.

10

Well, searching for both terms doesn’t get me too far. I get variations of both spellings. And, heh heh heh, it apparently blocked some sites that were “questionable”. I don’t even wanna know…

Either way, they are really cool looking cats. Here is one page that has a few good pictures. These people do sell servals, but they are not my roomies’ parents. As soon as I get home tonight, I’m going to get the pictures up. These are the first big (as in larger than my 25 pound housecat) cats that I’ve ever been near. I mean, I’ve been to the zoo and seen the tigers, but I didn’t get to go in the cages and pet them like I did here.

The fun part was playing with the babies. There was a baby bobcat, and two baby Siberian lynxes. And of course, the day after we left, the serval cat had kittens. (Which would explain why the male serval got a little antsy whenever we walked by her side of the cage.)

11

Wow, they must have next to no zoning laws there for your friend’s family to be able to keep those animals there. Still, that is pretty cool.

Tigers and lions never impressed me at zoos, since they were always sleeping. Whoop dee, I can see my own cat sleep at home all the time. I like those nature shows better when you can see them actually do stuff in the wild.

12

aaarrrrghghghg, i wanta touch a big cat, aaaarrrrgggghhhhh.

i am so very jealous of y’all, esp. tranquilis.

13

I once ran a training on the job program and we had a student who was placed at a wild animal farm. Part of his job involved cleaning out the bear and lynx cages, and what sticks with me about the lynx is the size of their paws, I guess since they can use them as snowshoes it shouldn’t surprise me, but it was always a shock to see a dessert sized paw on a lynx.

14

I suspect that the lynx was not so much licking you as TASTING you.

Or maybe it was BASTING you.

15

Yeah, but I Can Lick Thirty Tigers Today.

[sub]Sorry, it’s just the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title.[/sub]

16

You should really visit South-Africa then. Outside Johannesburg you have a number of wild-farms where they breed big cats and help to rehabilitate domesticated animals.

I have had the opportunity to wrestle with 3 lion cubs. I have to say this was the most moving experience ever. I also got to pet a 2-year old lion, although we had to be a lot more careful with them.

BTW seeing a real full-grown lion is a big difference from seeing those kept at zoos. If you look into their eyes, you know these guys mean business : if they get a chance, they WILL eat you.

17

Aw, hell… c’mere, Skerri and I’ll round out your experience.

Closer.

Closer.

::LICK::

::snicker::

-BK (who, as soon as The Palacial Estate is built and money has been saved, will be puchasing one of her namesakes)

18

bobkitty, I have to say that the bobcat kitten was my favorite of the babies. She was a sweetheart, even though she tore the SO’s arm from elbow to pinkie. (She has tiny claws, but they are SHARP!) And of course, he’s on blood thinning medication, so he bled forEVER. But he’s ok now.

I talked to roomie’s parents about the cats for a while. They said you’d be suprised by the regulations regarding wildcats. They are amazingly lax. You only have to keep the cage area big enough for the cat to perform their normal daily activities. So, technically (and if you want an unhappy kitty) you don’t have to have anything bigger than for them to run a bit and keep their mess a ways from the food. So sad. :frowning: But, you also have to have a special license to keep them, and you get suprise inspections twice a year from whoever regulates this kind of thing. (Department of Interior?) Their pens are suprisingly large, and there is an electric fence that surrounds everything. The pens also have walkways that are contained, and each pen has an entry-room, so you can lock that door without actually providing the cats with an escapeway.

The one thing that really suprised me was that the ocelot is an endangered species, but Roomie’s parents are totally self-sufficient in taking care of him. Maybe I’m just an optimistic fool, but shouldn’t someone help to subsidize care for this cat? They’re definitely not cheap to feed. I mean, it’s an endangered species, and they’re helping to keep him around. Oh well. Just get my rose-colored glasses and call me Pollyana.

19

I was driving through the Yukon Territory in a snowstorm when coming around a corner a lynx suddenly ran across the highway in front of me. I can still vividly remember how big his paws appeared, allowing him to navigate to drifts like he was wearing snowshoes.

20

Well, lions and tigers both spend an AVERAGE of 20 hours a day sleeping, and lions tend to do their hunting at dusk, so you aren’t all that likely to see them doing “stuff” if you go on a safari.

But i have a question: Animal Planet ran a show about a place called Tiger Island, which is a zoo of some kind where you can actually “interact”, read pet, with the tigers for a nominal fee. The infuriating thing was that they NEVER mentioned where Tiger Island is located. I got the impression that it’s in California, but I could be wrong.

Anyone have any info?

Thanks in advance.