Glowing Eyes and Darkness Growls: Big Cat Rescue Night Tours

So you meet an amazing women at a social function and ask her out . Where do you take her for your first date? If she's someone you're only semi-interested in, probably to a movie or a bar or something typical like that. But when you really want to impress a woman, you look for something more original and exciting, and if you have connections, you pull some strings.

Big Cat Rescue is a non-profit sanctuary in Tampa, Florida for abused, abandoned and retired-from-the-entertainment business wild felines. At Big Cat, you will find many different species of cats such as lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars, bobcats and caracals (look them up). For a small donation, visitors are treated to a tour of the facility and told amazing, yet sometimes tragic stories about its resident felines. Stories such as unsuccesful attempts to breed white tigers, which in actuality is a genetic defect, and the casualties of such a practice. Breeding white tigers with orange tigers sometimes produces tigers with gold or yellow coats that are often born cross-eyed or defective in other ways and are either abandoned or put to sleep. The tour gives visitors a new educational perspective on some of the horrors of breeding wild cats for pets or entertainment purposes.

Not all the stories told are tragic however. Many of the felines residing at Big Cat are retired performers from the circus or former pets that weren't abused or abandoned, but just needed a new home. It is also astounding to hear how much it actually costs to run and maintain a facility like Big Cat, which depends solely on private donations from tours and corporations who generously give large contributions.

Big Cat Rescue also offers night tours of the facility on the last Friday of every month. Now, since I was somewhat smitten with my new European female friend, I decided to use my connections at Big Cat and call in a favor for a night tour on a Friday night that wasn't the last Friday of the month.

The night tour at Big Cat is a completely different experience than the day tour. Walking around a 200 acre facility populated with caged wild animals in near pitch darkness with only a flashlight and a camera flash as light sources is an exhilarating experience. Although many of the cats stay inside their fiberglass caves within their cages, you can see sets of eyes peering at you as the flashlight is pointed inside. Seeing this is reminiscent of watching old horror movies and Scooby Doo cartoons, where you can see nothing but a floating pair of eyes staring back at you. Even more chilling is hearing the growls in the darkness. One particular cat, the serval, has a hair-raising growl that sounds like a demon possesion straight out of The Exorcist. It's also scary to walk in the dark, see the eyes stare at you and listen to the tour guide tell stories like how the acidity of the cats' urine causes the bars of the cages to deteriorate over time, although he reassures you that the cages are replaced and repaired on a regular basis.

The downside to the night tour is that many of the cats do not come out at night. One particular pen at Big Cat houses a male lion with a giant mane and a female white tiger. Witnessing a male lion playfully wrestling with a female white tiger is quite a sight; unfortunately at night neither one came out to play. Taking the night tour is also a gamble at $50 per person, especially if you are not guaranteed to see many of the cats.

During my day tour last year, it was fascinating to watch one of the jaguars feast its eyes on a fellow co-worker who, lets just say, was a little on the heavy side. I was standing in front of the cage side by side with another female co-worker when, all of the sudden, the jaguar took its eyes off of us and began moving them in the direction that our portly colleague was walking in. Our guide, trying to explain it in a polite way, said that the jaguar saw her as easy prey because she was limping in her heels on the rocky dirt trail like a wounded animal. As a test, she even walked past the cage again and the jaguar kept its eyes focused solely on her the entire time. Whether the beast locked its eyes on her because it saw her as easy prey or as a large meal, or both, it was fascinating to watch.

The night tour is definitely an experience worth telling, but the day tour is a much safer, and less expensive bet. Fortunately for me I had connections and was given a special private tour at no cost. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't enough to secure a second date... she's a sweet girl, but the chemistry just wasn't there. Still, if you want to impress someone on a date or just get an up-close and personal experience with these majestic creatures, invite friends or family to take the tour. Day or night, it's an experience you won't soon forget.