Here comes Ruben’s summer!

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Yes, it’s officially summer in South Africa and Ruben is soaking up the sun and enjoying his first ever ice lolly! It’s another form of enrichment and stimulation for Ruben, and being made from glucose and electrolyte solution mixed with blood, these are cooling and helping Ruben’s hydration.

You can still be ‘Ruben Cool’ by purchasing his own special apparel raising funds for his lifelong care, including the veterinary treatment needed due to his years of confinement in a tiny zoo cell in Armenia. Order here

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Get well soon Jade

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Our beloved, boisterous, and naughty leader of the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary Spice Girls, Jade, is in hospital. Jade bounced straight into her travel crate, seemed content throughout the journey and is now settled in Old Chapel Veterinary Clinic. Dr Caldwell is checking out the cause of her limp and taking the opportunity to assess her spondylosis – which she, her sister Luna and Ruben all have. This was cause by malnutrition in the circus and causes her to have a goose-stepping walk. We are all hoping the limp is just down to over-zealous play and our very own Tigger will be bouncing around her habitat again soon.

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ADI Wildlife Sanctuary Staff Village

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A huge thank you to everyone who has supported our GivingTuesday appeal to complete our ADI Wildlife Sanctuary staff accommodations this week. We have raised a fabulous $14,222.57 so far, bringing us over a quarter of the way to our $45,400 target. THANK YOU!

The animals we rescue come from confinement, deprivation, and often horrific abuse. This takes its toll, and our team are there day after day with medications, monitoring, and specialist care.

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Emptying the cages

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We have a very special event next weekend (Sunday, December 10) in Los Angeles celebrating a decade of ADI emptying entire countries of circus animals. For those in the LA area, we do hope you can join us for ‘Inside Liberty‘.

As our Stop Circus Suffering campaign gathered momentum and countries started banning animal circuses, a question emerged – how to enforce the bans and where would the animals go?

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Next step is freedom

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Jade had been in her travel crate for over two days for an epic journey from Guatemala to South Africa. ADI had rescued her from a tiny circus cage and now green grass and a new life at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary stretched out in front of her. We wonder what she was thinking, as she took the biggest step of her life?

Join ADI’s Jan and Tim in Los Angeles on December 10th for the inside story, with previously unseen video, of ADI’s 18-month Operation Liberty that emptied Guatemala’s circus cages and brought Jade and others to a new life. Click here to book your tickets.

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Inside Liberty: Saving circus animals in Guatemala

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Please save the date – December 10th. ADI’s Jan and Tim will be in Los Angeles for a very special screening ‘Inside Liberty’, the inside story of ADI’s Operation Liberty, the 18-month mission emptying Guatemala’s circus cages.

After rescuing all the circus animals in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, we arrived in Guatemala to set up camp and help enforce the ban on animals in circuses. It turned into a grueling 18 months with raids on circuses, fierce negotiations, threats, confrontations, lawsuits, water shortages, an emergency evacuation of the big cats, and an airlift of tigers and lions that took us through 5 countries on 3 continents to get them home.

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Animals need special care

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The injuries inflicted on circus survivors like Lupe, Sasha lioness, and Simba can follow them for life and they need special care at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary.

Tigress Lupe suffers seizures due to malnutrition and inbreeding in a circus in Guatemala. Our team gives her medications each day, and she is monitored in case of any problems.

Sasha suffered a brutal declawing operation in a Guatemalan circus, which led to cancer and spreading up her leg. In our care, she had ground-breaking surgery removing diseased bone and replacing it with a titanium implant. She is now pain free but years painfully limping in the circus saw her tendons shorten and now our team’s priority these days is giving Sasha physiotherapy with different toys and treats encouraging her to use her titanium leg.

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Help care for those who care for our animals

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Come rain or shine, heat or cold, our dedicated ADI Wildlife Sanctuary team are always there to tend to our rescued animals’ needs. They give our residents their food and medications, create the fun enrichment you see them enjoy, fight fires to keep them (and the community) safe, and more.

When we share images and videos of our big cats looking peaceful, happy, and content, it’s a testament to the hard work of our team. And we hope, with your help, we can now say ‘thank you’ for all they do.

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Upcycled enrichment is a win-win

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ReyA is clearly enjoying his hay-filled coffee bag enrichment at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary. Our thanks to Highland Coffee Roastery for donating their empty coffee bags so that we can turn them into giant enrichment bags filled with hay and various scents the lions and tigers love. Although they have huge enclosures where they can chase, play, stalk the local wildlife, this kind of enrichment adds extra interest and variety and maintains their relationships with their carers. Remember how much fun they had with their Halloween pumpkins? You can still sponsor a pumpkin today, and part of it will go towards a day’s care for a lion or tiger. Let’s see if we can give them more pumpkins throughout the rest of the year. Sponsor a pumpkin

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Save the Date: GivingTuesday, November 28

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Since the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary was founded in 2018, our efforts have gone into providing state-of-the-art facilities for the animals – from huge habitats fed with spring water, to night houses, food storage, security fencing, and guards. This GivingTuesday, we hope you can help us to care for our staff who care for our rescued residents seven days a week to provide food, medications, love, respect, and protection.

Please show our carers how much you appreciate them by helping us to complete their Staff Village to make living on the Sanctuary easier. This is a gift to the animals, too, because they need our team to be at the top of their game every day.

Those of you who follow our Facebook lives will know our team, but what you may not know is that they have been temporarily camped in an old farmhouse. They deserve a comfortable place to retreat after a long, hard day.

You can also start your own GivingTuesday Facebook fundraiser here.