STRICT RULES: Taming the wild, wild pets

Owners of exotic animals talk about the caution required

A U.S. Department of Agriculture manual on the handling of big cats advises, "it is very important that you be totally familiar with the operation and use of your blow gun, darts and sedatives.

"Wherever your compound is, it should be close by so you can reach in and get it."

The emergency tranquilizer instructions issued by the USDA are for those animal lovers in the Pahrump Valley whose idea of a pet isn't just a petite Yorkshire terrier sitting on the couch or a Siamese cat. Owners of exotic animals like tigers, lions, bobcats and cougars in Pahrump are all acquainted with each other, but come from a variety of backgrounds. They prefer to live a private life, keeping their animals away from the eyes of curiosity seekers.

Nye County Commission Chairman Jeff Taguchi said he wants to research an exotic animal ordinance, similar to one Clark County is preparing, after recent incidents like a lawsuit against Nye County by filed Roger Ganrud, who had reconstructive surgery after being bit by a tiger in a cage. In another recent incident, former animal control officer Karl Mitchell reportedly shot one of his tigers himself.

Pahrump owners of exotic animals say such incidents are rare and give their brand of animal husbandry a black eye.

Carl Beck

"These are lethal animals, no matter how well trained they are," said Pahrump resident Carl Beck, who has two rare, golden, tabby tigers along with two black panthers and two African servals. "Safety is what we're all about."

Beck, who grew up with the daughter of the owner of the Clyde Beatty circus in Southern California, said he became involved in the circus at a young age, juggling, then eventually began magic tricks involving big cats in 1975 at Knott's Berry Farm in Anaheim, Calif. After years of shows as Carlton and Company on the Las Vegas Strip at resorts like the Flamingo and the MGM Grand, he went on a world tour for three years, appearing in exotic locales such as the Genting Highlands of Malaysia, Sun City, South Africa and in Belgium, where he stayed at King Leopold's castle on the North Sea.

"I worked in casinos and hotels. They require insurance and they require a background check so if there's any kind of incident, they can say that guy is covered by USDA, he has the permits," Beck said.

Beck said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has stringent rules for people who have an exhibitor's license. To acquire the permit, Beck said he has to have a blueprint showing where the animals will be, showing the necessary setbacks. He must have the proper gauge of chain link fence, get approval for the plans from a planning agency and pay the application fee. A USDA inspector visits the property every year, he said.

"There shouldn't really be a problem because they (the USDA) tell you what to do," Beck said. "The reason why people are afraid of having USDA inspectors on their property is because they're not doing it right."

Beck pulled out a copy of the publication, Animal Finders Guide, which included want ads for buying and selling exotic animals. But he said while people would love to own the animals they see on stage, they take a lot of responsibility.

"There's nothing worse than to be lying in bed awake at one in the morning thinking: did I lock that gate?"

Beck moved to Pahrump four years ago. In 1997 his son Kevin took over his magic act and Carl has been largely retired. Kevin has been training the tabby cats for their upcoming musical extravaganza, "Spellbinder."

"I was on a world tour, we were gone for three years and we had sold our house, put all our things in storage," Beck said of his move to Pahrump. "When I came back and saw the way it was I didn't like Las Vegas. It wouldn't be good for the animals, too much traffic."

In Las Vegas, Beck said he had six tigers, five leopards, a lion, servals and other animals in a large, fenced-in compound. Some animals stayed in his home when they were babies.

His two golden, tabby tigers, are so rare they don't have a price. While working at a place called Jungleland and Cypressland in Kissimmee, Fla., Beck said he met a Croatian with an extensive tiger collection, who brought a tiger back from India that gave birth to a golden tabby, previously thought to be extinct. The Croatian knew of Beck's reputation and gave him two tabby tiger kittens -- Maya, the female, and Siddartha, the male, now mating pairs 4 and 5 years old.

During a visit, Beck opened a perimeter gate that lead to a central walkway where the animals could be viewed in their individual cages. Each cage was fenced in on all sides even the top where there was camouflage netting to let in only patches of sun, while soothing music from KJUL-FM played on the radio. The male, Siddartha, was a little protective and jumped up to the cage when a photographer walked up to take pictures of the female, Maya. A latch opens a guillotine door that allows the cats to walk around and exercise in a rear area.

While Beck nuzzled a tiger, a trainer walked into a cage with one of the black panthers, which he said are no less fierce even though they're smaller.

"These guys are considered, pound for pound, the strongest animals in the animal kingdom," Beck said. "They can kill a creature 10 times their own weight and carry it 30 feet up a tree."

However he sought to dispel the stereotype these creatures are ferocious, ignorant beasts. "These guys are also capable of learning and they love to please you.

"You build up a connection with them from birth. You become their surrogate," Beck explained.

Beck said he doesn't toss the big cats a steak, instead they eat about 10 pounds a day of Nebraska Brand feline food, the same meal as the zoos, otherwise he said his veterinarian wouldn't touch them. He occasionally feeds them liver or chicken.

"I have to keep reiterating, these are lethal animals, no matter how well trained they are," Beck said. He said owners of tigers don't even pet each other's big cats. Sigfried and Roy won't pet his tigers because they're not familiar to them.

Brian Turner

Brian Turner said he received his master's degree in environmental ecology from California State University, Fullerton, where he teaches in the fall. Turner said he'd like to live in California, but wouldn't be able to have his two cougars, which he raises along with a leopard and a hybrid wolf. Turner said his nearest neighbor lives a half-mile away. Nevertheless the cats are quiet, not like lions that roar.

"These cats were all raised by somebody else. They came under my care because they were disobedient or recalcitrant," Turner said. "I had a reputation for training cats."

The big cats are the apex predator at the top of the food chain, Turner said. Normally, owners of big cats should own them from the time they're babies, he said.

"They regard other animals as a predator or perspective mate," he said.

Instead of a playmate, Turner said owners of big cats have to act in a mothering role.

"All of us have to adopt the role of mother to the cub. We have to provide love, nurturing and sustenance," Turner said. "We are able to sustain a cat through its entire lifetime through that bond.

"That's one thing that's fascinating to us. We can continue that bond," Turner said. He added their personalities change when they get older.

"There's really no reason for a 500-pound lion or tiger to listen to me," he said.

"They have to know they can't play with you like a sibling," he said. "All that is, is practicing to kill when they grow up."

But he added, "I've learned you can go in with these animals and sleep. That creates their trust."

Turner doesn't have the extensive entertainment background as Beck, but he did work as a trainer in Bridgeport, Texas, worked in Kansas as an educator, and traveled to the state fair twice before joining the U.S. Army in 1991. He came to Pahrump a year ago hoping to open a nature center, but said people weren't that interested.

"Up to now the only publicity concerning exotic animals has been bad," Turner said. But owners of the big cats have something to educate people, he said. While most fans come for the entertainment at wildlife shows, Turner said, "you're shooting for the 10 percent who want to acquire some biological knowledge."

Beck concurred with those remarks.

"You never hear about the good guys. You only hear about this crazy stuff, people getting mauled," he said.

Turner said an average of 27 people per year get killed by dogs. Beck pulled out a March 5 newspaper article about the trial involving a San Francisco boy who was mauled 77 times by a dog.

"The most dangerous animal in the United States is the dog we come home to each night that's laying on the rug," Turner said.

Turner walked in a cage with a 4-year-old, jet black, female Asian leopard named "Katara" who jumped on his back playfully. He walked through the first gate of another cage where there were two cougars, a 5-year-old Brazilian cougar named "Sassy" and a 4-year-old British Columbian cougar named "Rocky."

Zuzana

Zuzana, who wanted to be identified only by her first name, is a native of Czechoslovakia who moved to the United States in 1986 and recently settled in Pahrump from Washington state. Zuzana likes her 4-year-old, white Bengal female tiger and a bobcat just as pets.

"You don't just get a tiger without any experience," Zuzana said. She added, "I don't make any money on them.

"I just have them because it's an amazing feeling to have a tiger who loves you back, not many people experience that. They are the smartest animals alive," she said. "There's no way out, no way back, it's addictive."

Zuzana lives in an isolated part of Pahrump Valley. Her new home is surrounded by a fence, inside that fence is a compound of fences for her animals that resembles a penitentiary.

"You have two or three doors to go through to get out in the public," Zuzana said. "You are trying to prevent accidents all the time."

Unlike Beck and Turner, Zuzana said her "baby," a 400-pound, white, female Bengal tiger named "Pepper," isn't accustomed to seeing other humans. During a recent visit, Pepper seemed nervous when a few humans walked in through the perimeter fence to stare at her through the one, remaining chain-link fence. T

"My animals are scared of people because they never see anyone but me," Zuzana said.

"In captivity they are happy. They have everything," she said. "My tiger spends most of her day belly up, which means they're happy."

Jeanie Stevenson

Jeanie Stevenson, who preferred to use her maiden name, said she has been living in Pahrump for 23 years. A lifetime animal lover who was formerly an assistant to a veterinarian at the Phoenix Zoo, Stevenson said she moved to Pahrump in 1978 to manage a sod farm. She brought along a lion, tiger, cougar and four bobcats.

In 1979, Jeanie said her facility became licensed by the USDA and she opened a zoo in Pahrump for the next few years. But Stevenson said she closed the zoo when she moved to the back of the sod farm and started breeding the animals.

"Basically I'm just trying to help the zoos out breeding endangered species that don't breed very well in zoos," Stevenson said.

While she had a lengthy list of animals she bred -- lions, Bengal tigers, Asian black and spotted leopards, snow leopards, cheetahs, cougars, Siberian lynx, Canadian lynx, Caracal lynx, bobcats, servals, ocelots, golden cats, leopard cats, wolves, coyotes, ringtail cats, coatimundi, as well as horses, goats, chickens, Borzoi (a Russian wolfhound) and Chihuahuas -- today Stevenson said her only exotic pets include a pair of rare Barbary lions and a tiger. Jeanie said her worst animal-related injury was a broken arm from falling off a horse when she was 12.

"In cooperation with their owners and other facilities we can perhaps prevent total extinction of this beautiful and majestic species through captive breeding programs," Stevenson said in a written speech. "There has been documented evidence that a lot of species who don't readily reproduce in a zoo environment will thrive in a private facility. This too, has been my experience. It is for that reason I closed my zoo years ago to concentrate on breeding.

"A lot of the cats we had, the smaller cats, were very shy and we wanted them to breed and we had a lot better success if they had a lot of privacy," she said. "That's not to pretend that these animals can't be dangerous. They just have to be handled properly. Still accidents can happen but it's the people that cause accidents, not the animals."

The animal owners say they treat their animals humanely as well. Many had pools for the cats to swim in their cages and ample area to exercise. Beck said people wrongly think tigers need to roam 25 miles in a day; they do that only to search for food.

As an indication of the magical allure of the tigers Beck showed a letter he received from a promoter after a show at Mandalay Bay. "To say Maya, your golden tabby, red-striped tiger was a hit is putting it mildly. Her beauty and majestic manner captivated the entire audience."

However an April 30, 1998 ABC news report said there were only 3,000 tigers of any kind left in the world. Turner expressed concern that in our lifetime the Caspian tiger, Balinese tiger and Javanese tiger have gone extinct. The Siberian tiger and Sumatran tiger are on the verge of doing so, he said.

In her written statement, Stevenson said, "if these animals are kept in sturdy, spacious enclosures, fed adequate amounts of natural, nutritious food, handled with the love and respect they deserve and a whole lot of common sense, they can live long, productive lives in captivity and safely co-exist with humans and domestic animals."

She continued, "Animals have just as much right to be here as we do. Instead of competing with them or being afraid of what we don't fully understand, we need to give animals their own space before they are all gone. Extinct is forever."


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