Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Animals, including big cats, wolves relocated to Texas

Even Teresa Johns' tiny animal sanctuary on what were once the outskirts of Henderson could not be spared from the rapid development that has spread throughout the bustling Las Vegas suburb.

Betty Honn's Animal Adoption Ltd., started by the sanctuary's namesake in 1968 and moved to the corner of what is now St. Rose Parkway and Bermuda Road in 1971, was once the home of between 600 and 700 animals that included dogs, cats, monkey, tigers and, at one point, a Kodiak bear, Johns said.

"My mom was one of the real Dr. Doolittles," she said, comparing her mother to the fictional animal lover. "At that time there was nothing else being done to save the animals."

But when Honn died in 1997, she took the industrial zoning that allowed the park to exist in the once-rural stretch with her, making way for the low-density residential properties sprouting up nearby, Johns, her daughter, said.

By 3 p.m. Wednesday, two of her tigers, three lions and four wolves were gone, on their way to the Wild Animal Orphanage sanctuary outside San Antonio.

Today the cluster of trailers and animal pens cared for meticulously by Honn and her family is bordered by sprawling new residential developments and Coronado High School, which sits less than a mile from the property.

And, although a small sign posted outside the property warns those entering the property to enter at their own risk, Johns said she worries about the high school students who frequently wander into the fenced property.

"It's just too much liability," she said.

Johns, who prides herself on the conditions in which her animals were kept, watched as her two favorite lions, Sabu and Sha-nay-nay, resisted being moved from their cages into a truck on its way to Texas. Ultimately, the cats had to be sedated with a combination of Valium and Ketamine, an animal tranquilizer.

"It's very overwhelming," she said, gazing at a Sabu, who her mother took in when Johns was 8 years old. "We're saying goodbye to a family today, but I know they're going to a place where they'll have more room and a more natural environment."

Johns, who declined to give her exact age but said she was in her 40s, had not visited the Wild Animal Orphanage but planned a trip in the near future. She also plans to continue her animal adoption service but will do so from another, yet-undetermined location.

The Texas nonprofit sanctuary, headed by president Carol Asvestas, is currently home to 654 animals, mostly those displaced by the growing exotic pet trade and private owners unable to care for the wild animals, according to literature produced by the facility.

Asvestas, who has no formal veterinary training, started the facility 20 years ago and has seen it grow to 112 acres and employ 14 staffers, including an in-house veterinarian. She oversaw the movers and veterinarians on hand at Honn's facility Wednesday afternoon.

The facility has been made necessary by animal control officers nationwide who know little about taking care of the "epidemic" of unwanted exotic animals and rarely have veterinarians on staff who are familiar with the large creatures, Asvestas said. In Nevada, no law exists barring the private ownership of tigers and lions.

"If you're going to create something you have to have a backup plan," she said of most states; inability to regulate the exotic animal trade.

Asvestas, who was joined by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a Hyannis, Mass.-based advocacy group, had overseen another rescue in Pahrump on Tuesday, after a leopard bit the finger off Sandy Alman, the woman trusted to care for the six lions and three leopards kept in small cages on the property.

Chris Cutter, a spokesman for IFAW, said "Anthony," the leopard who bit off her finger, remained quarantined on the property, which consisted of two ramshackle trailers and a slew of small cages that had become rusted by recent rains. He is expected to stay there for 30 days, at which point the leopard may be shipped at Alman's expense to the sanctuary.

Johns of Henderson said the emotional move was something her mother, who had a gift for relating to animals but always wished for a more wide-open space for her animals to roam, would have wanted.

"We're just more interested in what's good for the animals," she said. "But my mother's the only one I know who could have three male Dobermans living together peacefully."

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