After the first visit, serious questions should have been asked, if there was no zoo licence, then surely there should have been dangerous animal licensing. Where on earth was he sourcing the animals from. The people who were going there to photograph the cats must have realised that there were serious problems
No doubt this will all come out in due course, post trial if those that do know wish to make it common knowledge. Until then let’s not potentially jeopardise the trial so justice can prevail.
Wow... This was somewhere that I was considering photographing puma in particular at... I had seen pictures of the enclosure online and my general thought was 'yah, the enclosure isn't pretty but I'm sure the pretense of conservation is there and the cats are well taken care of.' It's perhaps about as well then that I already got my puma fix last year from both Vincennes Zoo and Les Parc des Felins!
I had visited the collection twice, once in 2018 and again in 2022. In 2018, I paid £50 for a friends membership and had a tour of the place. I thought then, the enclosures were very small, with the exhibits for Jaguars, Pumas and a Snow Leopard, very small indeed, and when Raccoons had more room than a Clouded Leopard, I was left rather disappointed. I never met the owner on that occasion, but I left feeling that whilst the enclosures were small, the animals did seem well loved. In 2022, I had the opportunity to visit again, mainly to see a Golden Cat, plus I wanted to see the Jaguarundi, as I was told they had a grey one, as well as the more common orange/red one coloured one. On this occasion, I was left rather disillusioned and upset that the exhibits were still very small, but now offered little in the way of foliage, and enrichment and most of the cats were very pacy for food. On this occasion, the owner, was out on the main lawn, feeding Red Kites of which there were hundreds flying about and coming down for food. There was a number of new exhibits being built, albeit small ones in the middle and I asked if this was for improvements for current animals, but was instead told, it was for new animals. On this occasion, I met Terry, the owner, and I found him rather up himself. He was very quick to slate and slag off zoos and was in particular rude about Paradise, yet had exhibits which wouldn't be a tenth of the size of Paradises. He did show me the Golden Cat and enabled me to get photos, but he started ranting on at me, about anti vacs, how Covid was a scam, world politics and I left wanting to get out of there very quickly. He emailed me a few times to see if I wanted to bring a group of people there, and I did book something for last April. He then contacted me a few days before it was due to take place, saying he couldn't open for a couple of months because he was having issues due to feeding birds without Defra approval. There was no mention of anything else, and every month I would get another email pointing the finger at someone else, next was the article 10, and he was saying it was due to having Raccoons and Raccoon Dogs without approval and that, they had to be removed. As the months went on, I suspected the day booked would never happen and even after I had then been told about his arrest, and that animals were being removed in November and December last year, he would still email me, saying the centre would be reopening soon and he would be able to arrange a day etc, although I already knew that animals had been removed and he was awaiting trial. Then from the new year, I've had 3/4 conspiracy emails, nothing about the centre despite it meant to be newsletters on animals etc, but literally email after email blaming the government, conspiracy theories and everything. The latest ranty email a few weeks ago, I decided to not even read, just moved to archive. I am watching this case with interest, and the day one report is rather damning. I wonder just how much of the "purchased land in Argentina" stories and conserved nature stories are actually true, Given stuff that is coming to light, and the poor care of his own cats. It is truly a sad state of affairs, and hopefully he wont be allowed anywhere near animals in future. There used to be a pet shop on site as well, which had a strong smell and was very messy, the whole place seemed cluttered, like one of those hoarders you see on those TV programmes.
Interestingly enough, I still have the "Snow Leopards of Leafy London" DVD - looking back at ZTL and Facebook posts, in 2022, it was listed they held 5,6 snow leopard 1,1 Amur leopard. With numbers that large for the snowies, would be interesting to know where they ended up.
This in particular confuses me a little... Did he own the red kites? If not why was he feeding them...
I believe many of the animals at CST were a mixture of rescues, purchases, and imports of surplus zoo stock. For instance, the golden cat to which Alwaysevergreen referred came from Parc des Felins in France.
They were wild Red Kites, but he said he fed them so people could get photos and he just seemed very eccentric.
The only thing he mentioned to me, was that there was another local collection where the owner had MND and after they passed away, the family chose not to continue holding the cats. He said he had a few of those cats. I can't for the life of me remember who that was or what the collection was called, but someone on here may know.
In 2018 he had 0.1 Snow Leopard and 2.1 Amur Leopard. Come 2022 he had 0.1 and 1.1 . I think ZTL and their own website, was quite out of date by then.
The collection to which you refer was the Santago Rare Leopard Project. It was discussed on this forum about a decade ago.
You may be possibly referring to Santago Rare Leopard Project, which wasn’t based too far away. This was wound up after its owner, Peter James, passed away. It was a fantastic little collection, where the cats were properly looked after! Of note, when Peter passed away, PWP stepped in to help his widow with care and eventually to rehouse the cats. They themselves took an African leopard and Northern lynx. Perhaps that’s where some of Moore’s bile towards PWP stems from.
The far better place to visit if you were in the area and lucky enough to have an invite to visit Santago rare leopard and always a pleasure to chat with Peter if you got the chance a very different experience to a visit to the cst and a chat with Terry who was always right even when he was wrong.
