Red meat wanted. Cash will work too, as California big cat sanctuary seeks donations

Project Survival’s Cat Haven has the full collection of big cats on display in its 100-acre property west of Kings Canyon National Park.

There are lions and tigers, jaguars and leopards, cheetahs and cougars, plus a few bobcats and lynx and a trio of servals.

In all, there are 40 cats needing to get fed each day.

When the sanctuary’s supply of red meat donations started to dry up this winter, it became an issue.

Cat Haven executive director Dale Anderson says “it’s pretty precise, what we do. It’s not just cut off a slab of beef and throw it in the cage.”

The food — typically some mix of chicken, red meat and whole prey animal — is weighed and charted out for each cat. Vitamins and supplements like fish oils are then added.

Over the past couple of months, the sanctuary in Dunlap in eastern Fresno County stopped getting red meat from the farms and ranches that usually donate. It’s been able to supplement the supply by buying slabs of beef shoulder from Restaurant Depot in Fresno, but even at a discounted rate, the cost per pound of food went from .75 cents to $2.75.

At 120 pounds of food per day during the winter, “you can imagine the cost difference,” Anderson says.

The cats aren’t going hungry. They’ve been getting a lot of chicken, which can be bought in bulk. But “if you’re eating Chicken McNuggets every day, sometimes you’d like to have a Big Mac,” Anderson says.

Last month, Cat Haven put out a call for donations on its social media to try to offset the change. A few individuals reached out, people who had meat in their home freezers, as well a fast-food franchise and the food company Cargill. But those donations haven’t yet materialized, Anderson says.

If and when they do, there’s still no promise they will occur on a continual basis.

“This source will dry and then we’ll need to find another source,” Anderson says.

“It doesn’t ever end.”

Anderson bought the property for Project Survival’s Cat Haven in 1993 with the idea of building more than a sanctuary for cats that have been orphaned in the wild or otherwise needing to be re-homed. While it operates much like private zoo (it is open to visitors 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday to Monday) its mission is to educate the public about the plight of endangered cat species, and to raise funds for the conservation projects in the wild.

Monetary donations are being accepted.

Information is available on its website, cathaven.com, where you can learn more about the sanctuary and meet all of its cats.