Year in Review: 2015
December 31, 2015
2015 has been a very productive year at Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. Many BIG accomplishments have been made here, but this isn’t the end of our accomplishments and changes, only the beginning.
In 2015 we:
- Built a new road
This year we build a new road so that the staff could get around the refuge without using the ‘tour’ road. This way our visitors are safer. It also opens up more options for tours, since there is now little to no traffic on the tour road other than the tour trolley. - Started building a Veterinary Hospital on site
Thanks to donations from our wonderful supporters we were able to break ground and start construction on our new Veterinary Hospital. The hospital sits between our upper habitats and the lower Rescue Ridge Habitats. The vet hospital will allow us to make sure our animals get the best health care. We are still raising fund to equip the hospital and construction will continue into early 2016. - Purchased a new freezer
We can now hold on property 100,000 pounds of meat with the addition of the new freezer. We purchased it because when we get calls on donated meat and the other freezers could not hold the capacity needed. - Upgraded some staff housing, which was desperately needed
We had to replace three bathrooms in our staff housing. All of our animals staff and some other staff members live on the refuge. Making sure that their housing is in good condition is a priority. We do our best to fix what we can but sometimes we just have to do a complete rebuild. - Built enough habitats that ALL our animals could be in large, grassy habitats
This year we worked hard and now have a total of 57 habitat at our facility. These 57 habitats house all of our animals. - Watch the final cat put their paws on grass from the compound
We released Shasta and Izzy tigers into their habitat in September. This final freedom was a long time coming. We are so excited that all our animals are now in large, grassy habitats. - CRASHED the compound
We had decided a long time ago that the moment the compound was no longer needed we would demolish it. Rescues from that point forward would go directly into a large habitat. So with the help of some heavy equipment the old compound was turned into rubble in only a few short days in October. - Started the rebuild and refurbish our habitats
Habitats need maintenance, new paint, and a little love from time to time. Since we don’t need to build new habitats now that all our animals are in habitats, we have started refurbishing and rebuilding some of our habitats. Two habitats will be rebuilt in 2016 that have been standing since the mid 90’s. We should finish the refurbishing sometime early next year and then we can move onto building new habitats where the compound used to stand.
So much has changed, and will continue to change, at Turpentine Creek thanks to our wonderful supporters. We can only do what we do thanks to your donations and support. Thank you for a wonderful year! We cannot wait for all the amazing things that are coming in 2016! Happy New Year everyone!