Great Cats World Park is a privately-owned roadside zoo focusing on

big cats The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus '' Panthera'', namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. Despite enormous differences in size, various cat species are quite similar ...

. It is located a few miles south of

Cave Junction, Oregon Cave Junction is a city in Josephine County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 1,995. Its motto is the "Gateway to the Oregon Caves", and the city got its name by virtue of its location at the junction of Redw ...

, United States. It is owned and managed by Craig Wagner, and is not an accredited member of the

Association of Zoos and Aquariums The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), originally the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1924 and dedicated to the advancement of zoos and public aquariums in ...

History

Great Cats World Park was built on a 10-acre lot bordering the Redwood Highway. The land was purchased in 2003, and the facility opened to the public in 2005.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service probation

In September 2007, Great Cats World Park was sentenced by a federal court to one month probation for violation of the

Endangered Species Act The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...

and fined $10,000. Owner Craig Wagner pleaded guilty in June 2007 to purchasing the park's ocelot for $3,000. There is a near-total ban on ocelot sales in order to discourage the commercialization of the rare animals. The ocelot was purchased from the Isis Society for Inspirational Studies, who were given two years probation and fined $60,000. The ocelot will continue to live at Great Cats World Park. According to Phil Land, the resident U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent in charge, "Sometimes it's actually better to leave them with the people that care for them. Then we don't have to try to find a place for them."

Safety incidents

In 2016, a park employee was hospitalized after being bitten in the arm by one of the tigers at the facility. A

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

spokesperson confirmed that federal complaints against the facility had been filed after four reports of animal bites over the years.

Cats

As of 2014, Great Cats World Park is home to 44 cats of 17 different species, including

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

African lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult ...

Siberian tiger The Siberian tiger or Amur tiger is a population of the tiger subspecies ''Panthera tigris tigris'' native to the Russian Far East, Northeast China and possibly North Korea. It once ranged throughout the Korean Peninsula, but currently inhabit ...

s, a

fishing cat The fishing cat (''Prionailurus viverrinus'') is a medium-sized wild cat of South and Southeast Asia. Since 2016, it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Fishing cat populations are threatened by destruction of wetlands and have declin ...

, and an

ocelot The ocelot (''Leopardus pardalis'') is a medium-sized spotted wild cat that reaches at the shoulders and weighs between on average. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Two subspecies are recognized. It is native to the southwes ...

. Information from official Great Cats World Park website

Notes

External links