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On the 4th of December 1992 at the notary office of Simon ter Heide a non-profit organization Pantera – Refuge Center for saving endangered predatory animals became a fact. The first Tiger, Ruby, already arrived a couple of days before. Her outside living area was quickly built, and on the 5th of May 1993 the refuge center was officially opened. As a part of the opening ceremony Ruby went to her outside living area "for the first time". Since that time more than 250 predatory animals have stayed, or are still staying at the center - from small ones (raccoons, ferrets, skunks, polar foxes, small-spotted genet cats, civet cats, jungle cats, Bengali tigers), to a bit bigger ones (wolves, Dingo’s, jackals, servals, ocelots), and to very big ones (brown bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, tigers, lions, jaguars, panthers and pumas). Almost immediately we started specializing in the predatory animals of the cats family (or Big cats). Bears and animals of dogs family are being taken care of by other centers. Being quite stubborn we, at Pantera Center stick to the original philosophy - Pantera is a refuge center specializing in Big cats. Sometimes reptiles can also be admitted to the center to some extent. Our organization is run only by volunteers. Besides the shelter facilities we are also actively looking for possibilities to relocate animals, and we already managed to do that worldwide – from China to Sweden, from Denmark to Pakistan, and from Spain to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. Scientific research of animal behavior has been one of the center's main activities from the first days of its existence. One of the most surprising results of that research was that cats show 60% more stereotype behavior when there are visitors around. This is one of the reasons why there are visit limitations to our center. GeneralRefuge Center Pantera is no joke with a tiger in the backyard, but an organization with a vision.Forming our vision has been a long process, and we keep on assessing and improving. We are ready to give up our opinion for a better one if the arguments prove that would be the best choice to do so. Hard work, angels’ patience and persistence were necessary to receive all sorts of permissions. We had certain objectives already at the beginning, but the importance of ecosystems, the information about them, and their work functions were added at a later stage. The mission statement is the basics of our thinking. Should that no longer be the case, we will close our organization: as we would then consider that our goal has been achieved. Mission statementA) A predatory animal born in captivity has the right to long life in a good health of body and soul. Putting animals to sleep only because of lack of space (management euthanasia) is excluded.B) Everything possible must be done to help predatory animals born in captivity to learn hunt so that they can always be released to the free nature if possible. How could you support us?You could support us in the following ways:
If you would like to receive more information on how to help us, or to know more about our organization, please do not hesitate to contact us: Dit e-mailadres is beschermd tegen spambots. U heeft Javascript nodig om het te kunnen zien. We would like to thank you on behalf of all our big cats and those who support them. |