Tiger World

Tiger World is not aptly named. It should be named something more like awesome carnivore rescue/place. I suppose that doesn't have as nice a ring to it as Tiger World, but I digress.

They offer a carnivore tour during the summer on Thursday evenings where they take you from cage to cage and talk about their animals as they chuck the animals' dinner over the fence. It. Was. Awesome.

As we walked through the gift shop the first thing we saw was this guy on the left laying in the window (the other side of the very thick glass but still pretty cool).

There are a lot of tigers here, but there are also wolves, wild dogs, lions, bears, baboons, bobcats, and a few other animals.

Oh, right, and there was a liger. He was the biggest cat at the conservation. Ligers apparently don't live very long, and it's not preferable to have lions and tigers mate. (I think they just didn't want us breeding them for their skills in magic.) They also suffer from a disease where they grow larger than they're organs can support. Really, ligers are tragic. Not magical.

They assured us that the fences were up to code, and that we were safe on the other side of these fences. It was still a little disconcerting as you heard a whole chicken's bones crunch as the animals devoured their meals.

You could judge this place and assume that cages meant they didn't take care of their animals because they don't have million dollar exhibits, but it couldn't be further from the truth. These keepers love their animals, have been trying to raise money and funding for years, and have slowly but surely been building better habitats for each of the animals. Most of the animals are rescues from zoos that have closed or people who thought they could really manage having a tiger as a pet and then really couldn't do it. One thing is for certain--there is no doubt in my mind that Tiger World is doing good by these animals.

This place makes a short, fun trip, but the best way to see this facility is to take this Carnivore Tour on Thursday nights and learn the backstory about the animals and watch them go nuts on some raw meat.

Riverbanks Zoo and Garden

For my birthday this year, my family gave me something that truly showed how well they know me.

They gave me a membership to the zoo.

If anyone knows me, they will know about my love for animals. When I lived in Philadelphia, we would visit the zoo atleast once a month, and I had a membership for every year that I was there. I was excited to try out the zoos near Charlotte (which unfortunately are not that close to home), and my birthday membership to Riverbanks allowed me to experience this.

My membership allows me to bring one guest with me for free every time I go so I, of course, brought Matthew along for another day of looking at animals. I saw on the Riverbanks website that you can do an animal adventure tour and choose from Galapagos tortoises (some of my favorites!), the grizzly bear, the elephants, the flamingos, and more. The amazing thing is that these encounters are only $27 for guests and $22 for members. Most zoos in the country charge atleast $100/person for these!

We chose the penguin encounter which was being offered that day, bought tickets on the website, and showed up at the zoo that morning excited to meet some little guys.

First thing to note--this zoo is not very big, but it is very interactive. There are birds to feed nectar, giraffes to feed lettuce, kangaroo habitats to WALK THROUGH, and bird shows to attend. We loved feeding the animals, watching the grizzly bears roll on their backs and play, and I even got to see a koala in person for the first time in my life.

The penguin experience was incredible. It's one hour long, but the first twenty minutes are spent on a behind the scenes tour of the food preparation area, which wasn't exciting but was informative. For the penguin part, you actually walk right behind the door that opens to the exhibit itself, and when the keeper opens the door, the penguins can waddle in and out as they please. Atleast five or six of them came in to greet us right away! We got incredible close-up pictures and were allowed to pet one especially friendly penguin named Scout and take pictures with him.

To wrap-up:

This is a really fantastic zoo, and while it is not the largest, it is one of the most educational and interactive.

Get a souvenir cup. They are large & you get $1.00 refills all day on it.

If you're driving all the way out from Charlotte, you should absolutely spend the $27 on one of the adventure tours.