Jacksonville 1-Animals

It was slightly rainy this morning, but that didn't stop us from having a great day. We got to Catty Shack, and our first task was to paint plywood that will be assembled into new dens for the tigers. Next, we cleaned timber by scrubbing it with a mixture of bleach and wager. We also renovated animal enclosures by scrubbing green gunk off of cages, putting down new dirt, and cleaning platforms. We even got to walk around Catty Shack with the on-site doctor and watch him give animals medicine and food.


The best part of today was watching one of the black leopards, Two-White, return to his enclosure after it was renovated. He immediately ran and leaped around his new area with joy. We picked out a new log to put in there because the old one was beginning to rot, and he loved it!

We couldn't do everything that the workers planned for us to do because of all of the rain and mud. However, we were gumpy and pushed through the messy conditions to accomplish whatever we could do.

The volunteer coordinator, Jordan, continues to inspire us each day with her passion for these tigers. She works over 60 hours a week at the sanctuary and also attends college to become a zoologist. It's motivating to see that someone has found his or her true passion in life, since some of us are still trying to find that.

Today's tasks were more hands-on with the tigers than yesterday's work, and we feel that it will have a bigger impact on them. However, we have to keep in mind that we can't change the world in one week. We're doing what we can little by little. What we're doing won't have a huge impact on all animals of the world, but we can surely give everything our all in helping the animals at Catty Shack.