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Dr. Jim Galvin plays with Sophie, a four-month-old Siberian tiger cub, in his garage in New Marshfield, Ohio. At age 60, the retired small-animal veterinarian decided to do something a little more exciting with his retirement: he bought 125 acres and began work opening a big cat sanctuary in his own backyard, providing stable homes for domesticated wild animals in need. He currently owns four tigers but hopes to rescue thirty within the next few years. |
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Dudley and Boomer, two of Jim’s four Siberian tigers, share a gaze between their cages in Jim’s garage. They remain separated at all times due to their differing personalities. "Boomer is very rambunctious. I think he acts like a kid that's on a sugar high or has ADHD, I mean, he's just unbelievable. Dudley's more laid back,” Jim said. “He’ll sit and chew his food a little bit, whereas Boomer tries to swallow it whole and sometimes gags on it.” |
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Jim and his full-time farmhand and assistant, Nathan Hale, give attention to Dudley and Boomer outside Jim’s garage. Nathan’s plans to become a special education teacher after getting his degree at Ohio University quickly changed once he began spending time with the tigers. “Being bonded to such a powerful animal is an amazing experience. It’s something that I’ll cherish with those cats for the rest of my life,” he said. Nathan has given Jim two years of his life to help him get the sanctuary up and running. In return, Jim has provided Nathan with a place to stay on his property. |
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Jim talks with his wife, Becky Galvin, on their porch in New Marshfield, Ohio. She always supported him and his sometimes "out there" ideas but does have her concerns. Because Jim is already 60 years old and has been to the emergency room twice in the last year, she worries he won't be able to take on and finish such a monumental project by himself. "I've been concerned about having some type of plan in place for, you know, if something happens to him," Becky said. Her concerns temporarily fade, however, when she sees the joy the tigers give him. “He is just so happy, you know. He was afraid of retirement and being bored, but now he has that old enthusiasm back,” she said. “He wants to get up every morning, and looks forward to going out and playing with the tigers and feeding them and cleaning up after them and doing all the chores associated with them.” |
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| Nathan Hale and Jeremy Cooksey, another one of Jim’s farmhands, use heavy equipment to lift a dead cow on Jim's property in preparation for the butchering process. Local farmers in the area occasionally donate cows to Jim in order to help him cut down the costs of meat for the tigers. The process of skinning and butchering one cow can take up to ten hours but provides two-weeks worth of meat for the tigers. |
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Nathan poses for a portrait before elk hunting in New Marshfield, Ohio. Nathan frequently hunts on Jim’s property, cutting, preparing, and packaging the meat himself. "We get, I think, close to two or three hundred pounds of meat off one animal, and that is a lot of meat, you know. Anything that can cut the cost down for Jim having to pay out of pocket, it really does help,” Nathan said. |
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Jim carries a cow carcass back to his truck at his friend Sy’s house in Vinton County, Ohio. Sy, also an exotic animal owner, often helps Jim obtain food from local farmers in the area. In return, Jim uses his veterinary medicine skills to routinely check the health of Sy’s tigers. |
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Jim’s first big project was to construct an outdoor pen to get the tigers out of his garage and into a habitat more like their own in the wild. Left: Jim stands in the area on his property where the first outdoor pen would eventually be built. Right: Jim stands outside the outdoor pen during its final stages of construction. While building the initial pen, Jim became aware of the reality of the sanctuary's future. “Veterinarians make a very good living but this is really something and I'm scared. I'm sixty-one years old and I'm sitting on a pretty big mortgage,” he said. |
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Nathan and his friend, Jeff Hensein, work to complete the outdoor pen in Jim's backyard. "Nathan promised me he’ll get that pen together, and that’s all I need. Once that first pen is done, I can start showing people that we’re not going to keep the tigers inside, and that this is a really good thing we've got going," Jim said. |
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Boomer explores the completed outdoor pen in Jim’s backyard. Jim completed the outdoor pen in January of 2012, marking the first of many he hopes to build on his 125-acre property. |
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Jim’s 125-acre property is shown during the spring. His land consists of open, grassy fields, ponds, and woods, resembling the habitat a wild tiger would typically live in. |
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A blueprint of Jim’s plans for his sanctuary, Midwest Big Cat Care, is shown. He hopes to eventually have over thirty cats, each having their own 1-2 acre outdoor pen. |
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Jim looks over a pile of paperwork and bills in his office that must be paid before he can continue building cages and expanding his big cat sanctuary. Jim admits that in the early stages of his project, he is already half a million dollars in debt due to the extreme costs of raising such an animal. His realization of his own mortality also calls into question the future of his tigers. “You start to realize, you’re not going to be here forever,” he said. “Life is very temporary.” |
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Boomer stares off into the distance from his old cage in Jim's garage. Jim's main goal with his sanctuary is to educate the public about just how close tigers are to extinction and what they can do to help. "If mother nature wants to take an animal extinct, that's fine. Let mother nature do it. But we sure as hell shouldn't be doing it," Jim said. Midwest Big Cat Care Timeline
By Susannah Kay |
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