Being in the United Kingdom when I say “I will be going for one days shooting of the Big the Cats in the garden”, I do get some funny responses, until I explain that the shooting is only with a camera and the garden is the English county of Kent which is know as the “Garden of England”, the Big Cats are also protected from harm.
I have attended a photography day at the Wildlife Heritage Foundations Big Cat Centre in Kent every year for the last three, this centre is not open to the general public and is not a zoo, the big cats are a mixture of cats that have been born in captivity, and have retired from public showing or been rescued from a zoo or a circus.
I like many others do feel uncomfortable with animals in captivity, but for these animals of which most have been in captivity all their lives, releasing them to the wild is not an option as they just would not survive, as the centre is not open to the general public the animals will only get about 200 visitors in a week, compare this to the life of an animal in a zoo or circus and it does not seem so bad.
The centre has a number of sponsors and different community focused groups that visit the animals, to help top-up funding the centre allows sponsors and a few organised photography groups to also attend the centre for the day, the centre gains funds and the sponsors and photographers have a good day, where they can take their time to observe the cats and capture images of the animals in their habitat, by getting closer than they ever could at a zoo.
The only noise that we hear on our day, is from the trains and planes, there is an airfield close by and we see the planes practicing stunts and dropping parachutist.
The centre itself is not signposted from the road and is situated at the back of a small industrial area, which is through a small Kent village called Headcorn, when we arrive the Lions are lazing on a raised platform and do not even stir or take any notice of the next set of visitors to the site, the fence that keep the animals away from the public has quite a large 6cm (2.5 inch) square mesh, this is enough for me to get my old Cannon 75-300mm lens through, I setup for AV with an almost fully opened aperture, as I prefer portrait shots with an out of focus background, it looks more natural to me.
We are greeted by Mark the centres resident Photographer, and we go through a safety briefing, we are told that some of the cats can get their paw through the fence by about a metre, when crouching down be prepared to jump back and never use the mesh as support if you would like your fingers to stay attached to your hand, the bigger cats will also eat your lens if you poke it through the mesh so be aware.
We start our tour with Mark as our guide with a bucket of raw meat to entice the cats, Mark will throw small pieces of the meat like treats you might throw for a domestic pet, the meat is thrown over the fence which the cats eat, when people have seen some of my Big Cat shots they have asked how do they get the cats to look up, well it is just the cats expectation of the meat coming over the fence that is the secret.
So we set off to see the new arrivals for this year which are the two Puma’s, When we arrive at their pen the puma’s come out to see us as they know there will be food treats.
The water is also no problem for this cat as it dips it’s head in the water to find a piece of meat that had sunken.
Our next stop is to see the Cheetahs, there are two in separate pens and they were not enticed on the day by the meat treats, and they just chilled and relaxed in the warm sunshine, soaking up the rays and paying no real attention to the visitors.
The Cheetah is not a lazy cat as many small animals like rabbits that make the mistake of running through the pen find out to their cost.
Then it was on to see the Sumatran tigers these are some of the larger cats and were very calm with one just brushing itself against the fence post, just like you may see a domestic cat do, the other jumping up on the fence to get a meat piece Mark had put there.
The Sumatran Tiger is the father of the cubs you will read about later.
The Amur tigers were next, they used to be called Siberian tigers but are now called Amur tigers simply because Amur is the region where they come from just like the Amur leopards you will meet next, the Amur region where these Big Cats can be found is now protected by law.
The area is well policed and to enter the Amur region where you find these cats in the wild, you will need a government permit, anyone including game hunters that do not respect the government and try to poach the animals for their fur will find that they are the hunted and not the hunters.
There are five Amur leopards at the centre two of which are the cubs of the adults and were born at the centre they are now about a year old, although their young age they are already as big as their parents.
We then went on to meet four more Tigers, two male cubs with their mother and an adopted aunt who mothers them as well and keeps them all in check.
You can see here just how close we were able to get to some of the cats, with Mark commenting on just how close you could or could not get to each cat or species, with the smallest the Pallas cat being one of the cats most to watch most.
The Pallas cat above is one of my favourites, it looks just like a large domestic cat with a fatter face and those wonderful large eyes.
Next to the Pallas cats high on a platform was the Snow Leopard also know as the Ocelot.
There was not much of a reaction and the cat just sat there posing for the photographers.
A new arrival last year was the Lynx or Bobcat, this was the first time I was able to photograph it and it obliged by coming out walking up and down and sitting on a platform a real catwalk super star.
Last on our tour was the Serval this very lively cat has to be thrown meat continual or it will just go and sulk away in the long grass.
I hope you have enjoyed this little tour, the favourite image I have taken in the three visits is this one from 2007 from my first visit, he looks so relaxed but just look at the paws and you realise just how powerful these cats are, if you want to know more about the cats and how they are related to each other, the links above will take you to web pages with names and more information.
All images in the Blog Post are straight from the camera, two are cropped but all are un-edited, they were taken by David Cox between 2007 – 2009 and are subject to the authors copyright, please contact me if you would like to use my images.
