It all started with a newspaper ad in the local Sunday paper in 1987. "Six-month-old cougar cub for sale. $1,000.00."

Out of curiosity, I went to see it and what I found broke my heart. This little cougar cub was in a small dog pen, very thin with badly infected paws from a botched declaw job. Although he was so despondent, he already had proved to be too much for his owners to handle.

I had just moved to Mississippi and I didn't have a job yet nor much money. I told the guy that I had a 1947 Farmall D tractor (it never did run very well) that I would trade for the cub, but he said "No, I want the money!" I told him that if he should change his mind, I lived about a mile down the road.

Two weeks later he arrived with a trailer for the tractor and the cougar chained in the front seat of the guy's truck. After days of phone calls trying to find Zack a home at a zoo, I came to the realization that I either had to build an enclosure for him or have him euthanized. Zack was the beginning of Cedarhill Sanctuary, which has since become my life's work and greatest challenge.
http://www.cedrhill.org/aboutus.htm