They’ve got ‘cattitude’ to spare
Delilah the Siberian tiger perched testily Thursday evening on the roof of her new house at the Cat Tales Zoological Park north of Spokane.
Her mate, Samson, had retired for the night and their offspring, Romeo and Juliet, were nowhere to be seen. Zoo director Debbie Wyche and her mate, general curator Mike Wyche, were worn out from moving the homeless feline family across the state, and the sky was leaking cold slush.
But Delilah – built for cold weather – was watchful, vigilant.
She was ready to answer any vocal affront by one of the 43 other big cats that already live at Cat Tales. She was eager to show the zoo’s dozen lesser tigers that Siberians are the baddest cats on the planet.
Certainly, Delilah was in no mood for any impertinent familiarity from next-door neighbor Kiara Gabriella, a mere Bengal tiger. But the unoffending Kiara’s posture seemed to indicate the newcomer would be welcome to borrow a cup of sugar.
“She’s got a lot of what I call ‘cattitude,’ ” Mike Wyche said of Delilah’s posturing.
Not that a Siberian needs to bluff.
“They’re like a tiger on steroids,” Wyche said. “They have huge necks and shoulders that look like a grizzly bear’s hump.”
Considered highly endangered, Siberian tigers are native to the Amur Valley between Russia and China, Wyche said.
He estimated Delilah’s weight at 400 pounds, 50 to 70 pounds more than Kiara Gabriella’s substantial bulk, but far short of Samson’s 700 or so pounds.
The middle-aged Samson and Delilah, both 8, and their 2-year-old offspring, Romeo and Juliet, had been the pets of a Western Washington man who was evicted from his rural Lewis County property Wednesday for failure to pay his mortgage. Still, the tigers seem to have been eating well, Wyche said.
Amy Clark, manager of the Lewis County Animal Shelter, approached Cat Tales a couple of weeks ago when it became apparent that the tigers’ owner, Paul Mason, would no longer be able to care for them.
Public zoos like Seattle’s Woodland Park and Tacoma’s Point Defiance generally won’t accept privately owned animals, although Clark said both zoos offered veterinary help.
“I had no idea it was that hard to find a placement for these animals,” Clark said. “All of the ‘rescues’ are full.”
But the Point Defiance zoo steered her to Cat Tales, and the Wyches accepted the challenge.
“We were extremely fortunate to get their help because, if they couldn’t have taken them, the next closest reputable facility that could have taken them was in Colorado,” Clark said.
The Wyches not only undertook a surprisingly time-consuming and difficult move, but a significant long-term financial obligation, Clark said, noting tigers live 20 or more years. What’s more, Juliet may be pregnant, having mated with her sibling.
In a zoo where the only vegetarians are on staff, the menu previously consisted of 20,000 pounds of raw meat a month. Make that 23,000 pounds now, Mike Wyche calculated.
Clark said Mason had planned to give Cat Tales only Samson and Delilah but was persuaded to donate Romeo and Juliet as well when sheriff’s officers pointed out that their cage on a makeshift trailer wasn’t street-legal.
The tiger transfer near Napavine, Wash., about five miles south of Centralia, was a massive media spectacle, locally overshadowing even Anna Nicole Smith, Mike Wyche said. Reporters weren’t allowed near for safety reasons, so two media helicopters hovered overhead.
“I saw my bald head on KING-TV this morning,” Wyche said.
He said eight stations attended a news conference after the tigers were loaded, “and I did 28 phone interviews yesterday. I went through three cell phone batteries. I was astonished.”
Noting the high school at Napavine is called “the home of the Tigers,” Wyche said he was surprised not to have heard from the high school newspaper. “That’ll be tomorrow, probably.”
If medical reports delivered today show no problems, the public can get a first look at the Siberians this weekend.