Previous project Next project Catty Shack is open for Daytime and Night Feeding Tours on specific days. Check our calendar to see when we're open. Do you have questions on what to expect during a tour? Read our Tour FAQ. Visit our Thrift Store for an ever-changing array of furniture, toys, clothes, and more! Learn more about our thrift store. Want to get involved? Join our volunteer family! Click here to learn how to volunteer. Wednesday, September 7, 2016 - Night Tours and Feeding Hours of Operation: 6:00 – 8:30 PM, Last Admittance at 7:15 PM2 & Under: Always Free Enjoy a guided tour of all the residents (Siberian tigers, lions, cougars, black leopards, a bobcat, 4 coatimundis and 2 foxes) at our sanctuary! Tours begin at 6:00 PM and leave approximately every 15 minutes. Tours last about 45 minutes and include a viewing of all our residents, as time allows, along with facts about the animals. To see the feeding, we suggest everyone arrive at the ranch by 7:00 PM to allow for adequate time for check-in and walking to the feeding point.

At 7:30 PM, you will get to watch over 600 pounds of meat distributed throughout the sanctuary! Get ready to see their “wild” side – there’s sure to be plenty of roaring! Purchase Tickets: Click here to purchase tickets online. Tickets may also be purchased at the event (cash, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and Amex are accepted forms of payment). Thursday, September 8, 2016 - Daytime Tours Hours of Operation: 1:00 – 4:00 PM, Last Admittance at 3:15 PMTours begin at 1:00 PM and leave approximately every 30 minutes. Tours last about 45 minutes and include a viewing of all our residents, as time allows, along with facts about the animals. Friday, September 9, 2016 - Night Tours and FeedingTickets may also be purchased at the event (cash, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and Amex are accepted forms of payment).Click here to purchase tickets online. Saturday, September 10, 2016 - Night Tours and Feeding Learn About More Upcoming Tours... Join us for our biggest event of the year!

This October, the forest comes alive with monsters and ... Venture through hair-raising scenes like the Infirmary and Butcher Shoppe or see if you survive the Electric Chair! Vinyl Tile PlanksAnd be sure to watch out for zombies!Wedding Dress Rental In Orange County Ca Costumes are encouraged, but not required. Black Lab Puppies In AzThe Costume Contest will take place on Sunday, October 16th at 3:00 PM. The winner will receive a 6-Visit Pass to the sanctuary!Welcome to Big Cat Rescue's Gift Shop Check out our wild selection of big cat gifts that are purrr-fect for any occasion or grrr-eat if you are simply shopping for yourself. Each and every purchase helps us care for more than 100 lions, tigers, leopards, and other big cats that call Big Cat Rescue home.

Big Cat Rescue is a 67-acre sanctuary in Tampa Florida that provides a permanent home for big cats that have been abused or abandoned.We currently email discount coupons for our customers to use on this website. If you would like to have these discount coupons emailed to you, please click the link below ... fill-out the information and click SUBMIT. You will start receiving discount coupons in about 1-2 weeks.Click Here for Discount CouponsThe young — or young at heart — can try the Museum of Science & Industry’s zip line. Explore the science behind natural disasters in Disasterville. This place has been added to 0 trip(s) ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy This place has been added to0 trip(s) Explore five interconnected islands of mangroves, wetlands and palm hammocks, which provide refuge to loggerhead sea turtles and 328 species of birds. Larry Lynch / Alamy I always miss my cat whenever I travel. I get my fix at this sanctuary with its beautiful bobcats, tigers, cougars and jaguars.

Niels Busch / Getty Images Best-selling author Brad Meltzer's hands-on research has led to some unexpected discoveries in Florida, his adopted home state. Here are three hidden gems he unearthed in the Sunshine State. I love to stay right on St. Pete Beach. No matter what the hotel’s price range is, the beach is the same, with pristine white sand and warm Gulf water. Franz Marc Frei / Getty Images So you want to get the whole family in on a vacation. But where can everybody — from the seniors to the schoolchildren — have a great time together? Here are some places. This completely natural island features what some consider the best beach in the world. As you’ll see, this isn’t the most controversial of opinions. Raymond Gehman / Getty Images Find out our picks for the best beaches to visit.At Florida Aquarium, visitors have the opportunity to put on a wetsuit and go swimming with the 20,000 aquatic plants and animals on show. John Coletti / Getty Images

It may be known for its hair-raising rides, but Busch Gardens is also one of the largest zoos in the country. See over 2,000 animals roam the open plains. Thomas Damgaard Sabo / Damgaard Photography / Getty Images A round at the Fox Hollow Golf Club in New Port Richey is best followed with a bite to eat at the course restaurant. Be sure to get a table near a window. Medioimages / Photodisc / Getty Images There aren’t many places in the U.S. where an open-air shopping mall could thrive, but Tampa just happens to have perfect weather all the time. Paper Boat Creative / Getty Images Savings on British Airways and Vacations by Rail This place has been added to0 trip(s)Posted on Dec 23, 2011 in , | The USFWS defines a sanctuary as a place that does not breed, buy, sell, trade nor allow public contact.  McCarthy’s Wildlife Center appears to do most, if not all of the prohibited sins. WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Mark McCarthy, the owner and operator of the McCarthy Wildlife Sanctuary is a busy man.

“We’ve got our hands full out here,” he said.  “We’ve got 24 big cats on our sanctuary.” Bishman, a white tiger cub, and Babu, a snow tiger cub, are their newest cats. They’re just nine weeks old. “They’re both brothers, even though the one is much lighter than the other one,” explained McCarthy. “He’s about 90% white.” “This one,” he said, referring to the other white tiger, “is a handful here. He’s very boisterous compared to his brother, far more outgoing than his brother.” The cubs were a gift from Preservation Station, a South Carolina wildlife center, just weeks after McCarthy’s prized white tiger Sabi, suddenly died. Blood test results showed she died from canine distemper. While the sanctuary’s cats are inoculated for rabies and feline distemper, canine distemper has only recently started to be a concern. McCarthy now inoculates all their cats for it. “There are several zoos around the country that have had this problem,” he said, “and have lost a huge part of their collection.”

Preservation Station’s gift has helped take away some of the pain of losing Sabi, McCarthy said. “They called us up and asked us if we wanted one white tiger,” he added, “so I went up there to pick up one and then they told us to take two. So we got two white tigers.” Actually, they now have a total of four white tigers. Just days earlier, the Zoological foundation in South Dade, overcrowded with too many animals, gave them two 14 month old white tigers, plus a liger, part lion, part tiger. They’ll join the reptiles, birds and all kinds of creatures at the sanctuary that are mostly donated animals. “They’re not all what I would call rescues,” said McCarthy. “Some are, but a lot of them are just people’s pets they could no longer care for anymore and had to give them up.” McCarthy hopes the people who visit, like the Fisher family from New York City, who paid extra for the chance to play with Babu, will leave with a healthy appreciation for wildlife.

“He was climbing on us,” said Russell Fisher. “He was soft and furry,” added his sister, Sydney. “Hopefully this is an experience they’ll remember for the rest of their lives,” said their father, Larry Fisher. Between now and January 15, 2012, you can interact with the cubs yourself for a donation of $50 per person. The money will be used to help pay for the cubs’ new enclosures. McCarthy said after mid-January the cubs will have grown too large. Note:  Real sanctuaries do not breed, buy, sell, trade nor allow contact with their big cats. McCarthy’s is no sanctuary by definitions of the USFWS nor the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. The places sending cubs to McCarthy’s are some of the most prolific breeders of cubs for use as photo props who are then discarded when they become too old at 12 wks to be used legally for that lucrative market. You can find out most about all of these places who purposely inbreed tigers to get white coats, or who cross breed lions and tigers to get ligers at 911AnimalAbuse

Wildlife officials catch missing tiger and lion Reported by: Carson Chambers Last Update: 12:47 pm WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Bengal tiger that escaped from its cage at a sanctuary was tranquilized and captured Wednesday morning, authorities said. The adult tiger was last seen by caretakers at McCarthy’s Wildlife Sanctuary about 11 p.m. Tuesday, said Gabriella Ferraro, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Authorities had warned residents in the area Wednesday morning to remain indoors while they searched for the cat. Three schools also were put on lock-down. Ferraro said the tiger was captured at about 11 a.m. Wednesday on the sanctuary grounds. It was tranquilized and put back in its cage. A lion also escaped its cage at the sanctuary sometime overnight but was quickly captured, authorities said. A person who answered the telephone Wednesday at the sanctuary said they wouldn’t talk and abruptly hung up.

The facility is located about 20 miles northwest of West Palm Beach. It houses about 90 animals, including one lion, six tigers, five cougars and five leopards. Fish and Wildlife officials last inspected the facility on Jan. 29 and found no problems, except for an unlocked venomous reptile cage, according to the agency. “The sanctuary has a good record with the FWC,” said the agency’s Capt. John West. FWC officers were investigating how the animals got free. In 2004, a 600-pound tiger named Bobo escaped from the nearby five-acre home of Steve Sipek, who once played Tarzan in movies of the same name. A wildlife officer eventually shot and killed the cat after 26 hours on the loose. That shooting set off a public outcry and led to at least five death threats aimed at the state FWC. An agency report later found the officer used sound judgment and complied with the agency’s guidelines when he shot the Bengal-Siberian tiger. However, the report also noted that the officer’s lack of training in dealing with big cats, his proximity to the animal and a tranquilizer team’s delay in getting to the scene factored into the cat’s death.

At the time, Sipek and others complained that killing the cat was unnecessary. Owner of lion, tiger cited for conditions that led to escape in Loxahatchee Palm Beach Post Staff Wednesday, September 10, 2008 A Loxahatchee wildlife sanctuary has been cited by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after a Bengal tiger and a lion escaped their pens as Tropical Storm Fay passed through town. Mark McCarthy, owner of McCarthy’s Wildlife Sanctuary was cited for keeping the animals in an unsafe manner, resulting in a threat to the public. The citation is a second-degree misdemeanor, with up to a $500 fine or 60 days in jail, Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Gabriella Ferraro. Investigators determined that the gate hinges on the enclosure were improperly secured Aug. 20, the day the animals went missing. The animals were apparently able to push the gate off its hinges. The escaped Bengal tiger was cornered and shot twice with tranquilizer darts after the brief scare that forced three schools to take special precautions.