Nice kitties

In-Sync Exotics in Wylie is dedicated to letting exotic cats live their best lives

Tammye Nash | Managing Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com

It all started with a cougar abandoned at a vet’s office, explained Angela Culver, board and media director for In-Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue and Educational Center.

Vicky Keahy was working as a vet tech at that clinic when, in 1991, someone brought their “pet” female cougar named Tahoe in for treatment. But when the vet called to let the owners know that Tahoe was ready to go home, no one came. They waited. And waited. And waited some more. The owners never returned for Tahoe.

During all that waiting, Keahy had become pretty attached to the 18-month-old Tahoe. And she was determined that the cougar would have a good home — even if that meant she would provide that home herself.

“Unlike with domestic house cats, you can’t just put out a flyer looking for a new home for a cougar. And by that time, Tahoe couldn’t just be released back into the wild,” Culver said. “And Vicky was not about to let the cougar be euthanized. So she started doing the research to find out what she needed to do. She talked to the experts and got all the permits she had to have to do this legally, and she built an enclosure for Tahoe.”

Keahy also talked with veterinarians and animal experts and folks at Texas Parks and Wildlife, doing everything she could to learn everything she could about how to provide the best life for Tahoe. So, in 1994, when TP&W learned about another cougar that needed help, they went to Keahy. This time it was a male cougar who was sick. Keahy took him in, named him Ranger and nursed him back to health. Ranger and Tahoe soon became inseparable, and Keahy’s big cat family had grown to two.

Four years later, Keahy learned about a three-week-old tiger cub, owned by breeders who determined that the cub — injured and neglected — “was just too ugly to sell,” Culver said. Rather than leave the cub to be left to die, or worse, Keahy rescued her and named her Kenya.

With the addition of Kenya, Keahy realized that this feline family was getting too big and too involved for her to do it all on her own. So she decided to start a nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing, caring for and educating people about “exotic” cats.

And, in 2000, In-Sync Wildlife Rescue and Educational Center was born. It sits just outside of Wylie, on County Road 384, on the southern end of Lake Lavon.

“That was 20 years ago, and here we are now. We have a staff of paid keepers and a vet tech, and more than 100 volunteers,” Culver said. “And we have, let’s see, 74 residents [animals] now.”

Of the 74, there is one horse, three goats, two lemurs and 68 exotic cats: lions, tigers (orange and white ones), leopards, cheetahs, cougars (of course), serval cats, bobcats, lynx. There have also been ocelots in residence and even a coatimundi (which isn’t a feline) for awhile.

The horse, Culver explained, belongs to Keahy. One day a goat wandered into the compound across a cattle guard in the driveway. The folks at In-Sync did their best to find the goat’s owner, but when they were unsuccessful, and the horse and the goat bonded, the goat got to stay. Then folks noticed how, well, chubby the goat was getting. And before they knew it, the goat population had grown to three.

“They have their own special little happy family,” Culver said. “The horse and three goats. It’s an unconventional family, but that’s cool with us.”

In-Sync does in a few rare instances, have a few “temporary” residents — animals, usually cats, that stay there for a bit on their way to somewhere else. Most of the residents there, Culver said, are “geriatric” cats — older animals that have been rescued from some situation, including those rescued from other so-called sanctuaries or shows or breeders or even private owners.

At least two of the tigers there were rescued as cubs from smugglers. And there are four cougars – Outlaw, Sage, Scarlett and Malice – that were rescued as very young cubs, too.

“These cougars came to us from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Outlaw, Sage, and Scarlett were abandoned by their mother for unknown reasons; she may have been hit by a car, shot by a hunter, or something else happened. The department contacted us to ask if we could take them, Culver explained. “Since they were wild born, we did research to see if rehabilitating them for release back into the wild was a viable option. We were, unfortunately, not able to find any evidence of success for long-term success with any of those programs.

“Cougar kittens stay with their mothers for up to two years while she teaches them how to survive on their own. So we agreed to take them,” she continued. “We were then notified that another cougar kitten, Malice, had been found in Washington state, alone in an area recently devastated by wildfires. She was only a little older than the other three kittens, so we agreed to take her as well. The four have grown up together and are quite happy together.”

And some animals came to In-Sync from reputable conservation breeding programs after they “aged out” of those programs.

But, except in a few rare cases, no matter where they came from, when they came to In-Sync, they came home. “Once they come here,” Culver said, “they are with us for the rest of their lives. And our whole goal is to make sure the rest of their lives are as good as they can possibly be.”

Culver, who lives in Bedford, came to In-Sync about 10 years ago and has worked her way up through the volunteer ranks to a seat on the board. She explained that she has always loved animals of all sort, especially cats and especially amur leopards. She learned about the amur leopards — the most endangered of the big cats, with only 55 left in the wild and only about 100 left total — while studying conservation and biology. She was looking for a sanctuary that had an amur leopard “because I wanted to see one before they were all gone.” She heard about one sanctuary, but when she contacted them to ask about volunteering, they never got back in touch.

“Then I heard about In Sync. I came to see it, and I knew, yes! These people really care bout the animals!” she recalled.

Culver, who works Mondays through Thursdays as an admin for a group of psychologists in Bedford who do therapy and testing, joined the board about three and a half years ago. These days, she spends her Fridays at In-Sync, where she works on a number of projects, including livestream presentations featuring her different feline friends to help hold up the educational side of In-Sync’s mission.
Culver — who says that the members of her own unconventional family like to come out and help when

In-Sync holds special events — is also in charge of handling all the media requests from folks, especially those who want to include the sanctuary in some sort of broadcast program or documentary. And, she said, In-Sync has seen a definite up-tick in those kinds of requests over the last several months, in the wake of the wildly popular Netflix docu-series Tiger King featuring Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin. In-Sync Exotics values its reputation as a top-notch rescue and sanctuary, Culver said, and they aren’t interested in exploiting their animals for that kind of drama.

And speaking of Tiger King and drama and exploitation, Culver said there are actually a number of establishments calling themselves big cat rescues and sanctuaries, but not all of them actually put the animals first. How do you tell the difference, though?

First and foremost, Culver said, steer way clear of any place that offers you the chance to pay to pet and have photos taken with the animals. And stay even further away from any place that breeds the cats and sells the cubs.

In-Sync Sanctuary usually has a number of special programs throughout the year, including two times a year when a limited number of visitors can actually camp out overnight at the sanctuary. This year, the In-Sync crew had planned a big party to celebrate the sanctuary’s 20th anniversary. Thanks to the COVID pandemic, though, those plans had to be put on hold.

“But that’s ok,” Culver said. “We will just do it next year, bigger and better.

Right now, In-Sync Exotics is open for self-guided tours on weekends. Visitors can also schedule special guided tours on weekdays, including special “feeding tours,” where they get to go along and watch as employees and volunteers feed the cats, and even “bone tours,” that special time each week when the cats get a special treat. (Again, employees and volunteers do the feeding.) Tours start at a suggested donation of $12 for adults and $8 for seniors over 65 and children under 4.

But if you can’t get out to Wylie to visit in person right now, checkout the In-Sync Exotics website, InSyncExotics.org, or the sanctuary’s Facebook page where you watch Culver’s livestream programs each Friday.

FOR ADDITIONAL PHOTOS
click here