A breeze stirs the tall prairie grasses, gulls soar overhead, the low sun warms the landscape’s rocky outcroppings, and a not too distant ow-ow-owwwwwww rings out—a single wolf song that soon becomes a chorus of howls.
This is the scene as you step onto the Wild Animal Sanctuary’s 1.5-mile-long viewing platform, stretching out across the Colorado plains, just 45 minutes outside of downtown Denver.
But before long, you’re bound to spot a massive, striped tiger lumbering below you or catch the thundering sound of a lion’s roar—and suddenly, this pastoral Colorado scene transforms into an exotic adventure.
There are more than 460 rescued animals at the Wild Animal Sanctuary, many of them large carnivores, such as tigers, bears, lions and leopards. And you’ll be able to look down into their spacious, natural habitats to observe them playing, napping, swimming and roaming their territories.
The Wild Animal Sanctuary was founded in 1980 by Pat Craig. After going behind the scenes at a zoo where “surplus” lions were kept in depressingly small cages, he decided to take action and began successfully rescuing animals in distress.
Today, his organization is the world’s largest non-profit sanctuary to rescue large carnivores that have been mistreated, neglected or housed illegally. The sanctuary recently expanded with the purchase of an additional 9,000 acres in southern Colorado near the town of Springfield, Colo. (though this new section of the sanctuary is not open to the public).
Early on, Craig noticed that when any humans came within the line of sight of one of the traumatized animals, it would send them into a panic. But one day, while he was working on the roof of a shelter, unnoticed by the animals, he realized a raised viewing platform would allow visitors to see these majestic animals without causing them fear. The sanctuary now boasts the world’s longest footbridge, from which visitors can unobtrusively view the resident refugees.
