Columnist Susan Snyder: Kraft is a wild keeper

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 9:15 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Jonathan Kraft lifted a pair of giant tiki torches and two gold, plaster cobra heads into the back of his pickup.

He laid them next to a stack of African-motif door panels -- all baubles that once adorned the interior of the Reserve casino in Henderson. The establishment is unloading its jungle decor to make way for Fiesta's Mexican theme.

The decorations were donations for Kraft's Keepers of the Wild exotic animal sanctuary in Mohave County, Ariz. And Monday's cargo was nowhere near the weirdest thing Kraft has toted in a truck.

Last summer he walked, coaxed and carried about 120 lions, tigers, emus, lizards and other exotic furred and feathered creatures into trucks and trailers and moved them from Las Vegas to a new sanctuary 27 miles south of Hoover Dam.

Kraft says the 33.5-acre compound is a vast improvement over the digs he occupied for about 11 years behind Dewey Animal Shelter. It came with a building for a cafe and gift shop, a warehouse perfect for an animal food preparation kitchen. And it has plenty of space for the habitat-type enclosures Kraft plans to build.

Kraft is eager to show off architects' drawings of the proposed enclosures. He hopes to have 16 finished by January 2003. The first is to be one for three bears, which he is obtaining from a Minnesota woman. She raised them from cubs, but local ordinance changes are forcing her to give them up.

"It's nothing like a zoo at all," he said. "The smallest enclosure will be an acre. And they will go up to three acres for our wolf pack."

He has plans for a five- to 10-acre African veldt area and a 50,000-square-foot building that will house more restaurants in addition to an area where Kraft can show visitors some of the animals under his care. That building is to be finished this fall.

Kraft says he came to Las Vegas in the 1980s to work as an illusionist on the Strip and "bought a pair of tiger cubs for all the wrong reasons." When his contract fell through with the old Aladdin, he says he went full-time into rescuing animals from shows and owners who couldn't take care of them.

Kraft and seven full-time staff members live on the property. Financially, the move hasn't seemed to hurt them. The leased land is worth $2 million, Kraft said. The animals' temporary, roofed, chain-link enclosures cost $500,000. They eat $10,000 worth of food each month, including beef from Nebraska.

It's a sanctuary for man and beast that was a long time coming, Kraft said. When his operation outgrew its Las Vegas location, he courted public officials in Clark County, Moapa and Boulder City looking for room.

"We must have negotiated well over 20 parcels of property," he said.

Most officials embraced the plan but were wary of where the money would come from. Kraft says he is constantly looking for donations but has cultivated a strong base of corporate sponsors. Siegfried & Roy are among his supporters.

The Arizona move has expanded such relationships to two states, he said. For example, the $250,000 bear enclosure is sponsored by a Kingman, Ariz., corporation. Such sponsors can't step forward too often or too soon.

"We have a waiting list of a couple of hundred animals, from elephants on down," Kraft said. "And we can't just put them in a cage."

You can reach Keepers of the Wild toll-free at (877) 456-4004.