We visited the Carnivore Preservation Trust in Pittsboro over the weekend. It’s a 55-acre preservation center for big cats, including a host of tigers, various smaller members of the cat family, and some cute critters called binturongs. The center started as a captive breeding program in the early 80s, but has since become a facility whose sole purpose is adopting rescued animals.

Our guided walking tour took about two hours and covered only a small portion of the expansive facility. We started off with a few caracals and ocelots, then proceeded to quite a few tigers. The two most interesting animals for me, however, were the binturongs and the kinkajous. The binturong reminded us of our fat cat, Savannah, with his chubby build, black fur, and affinity for begging. The kinkajou, somtimes called the honey bear, is agile enough to feed on the honey in flowers and acts as a pollinator in the process. We concluded our tour with an almost-white Bengal tiger, who was also quite a beggar. The tigers at the center get three chickens a day, plus various snacks (in the form of chicken drumsticks) when tour groups come through.

Before we set out on our tour, our tour guides warned us that the male tigers were quite territorial and have been known to mark visitors as their “turf” by spraying urine on them. Fortunately, that didn’t happen on our tour. When we walked past the enclosures for some of the recent arrivals, however, we had to stay very quiet and the men in the group had to stay to the far side of the trail so as not to rouse the male tigers.