PAHRUMP -- Sandy Alman's menagerie of wild and underfed animals may have put her in the hospital, but a close friend and self-described animal handler insisted the six tigers and three leopards she kept on her ramshackle compound outside Pahrump were their "children."
But by the time she is expected to return to the home eight miles outside of Pahrump, the animals will not be there. Instead, all but one were loaded onto a trailer Tuesday afternoon bound for the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio, Texas.
Steven Benson, the friend who watched the property while Alman was gone, stood on the gravel road that leads to the fenced property, near a faded yellow "Keep Out" sign by the gate as workers for the nonprofit animal advocacy group moved the tranquilized big cats into the trailer. At times he was summoned to where the animals were penned to soothe them.
"These are our children," he said of the large felines he helped care for. "There's just too many cats for two people."
Benson said he and Alman contacted the animal sanctuary, which runs mostly on donations from the Hyannis, Mass.-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, to remove the animals, whose cages had become flooded and unclean from recent rains that deluged Southern Nevada.
Tuesday's stop was the first of two scheduled by International Fund for Animal Welfare. The group is expected to take custody of more wild animals -- tigers, lions, wolves and monkeys -- at the Betty Honn Animal Adoption Ltd. in Henderson this morning. That shelter has not been financially solvent since founder Betty Honn's death and has lost its lease, according to the San Antonio-based organization.
In Pahrump, Alman had effectively inherited the animals, which were kept in seven separate cages behind two trailers on the roughly one-acre property. Former Nye County animal control contractor Karl Mitchell, whom Benson said was Alman's boyfriend, had been in charge of taking care of the animals but Mitchell was arrested in May on bail violations stemming from a theft charge.
Alman was unavailable for comment Tuesday. She was in a Las Vegas hospital because Anthony, a leopard at the compound, had bitten off much of her index finger. Anthony can't be transported to Texas with the other big cats because Nye County Animal Control officials, citing the injury to Allman, ordered it to remain quarantined on the Pahrump property, Chris Cutter, a spokesman for the International Fund for Animals, said.
In recent months, the cost of caring for the big cats -- which can run into hundreds of dollars a week for each animal -- had become more than Alman could pay, and each of the animals become skinny and sick, Benson said.
Mitchell had operated the site as the All Acting Animals sanctuary, which had warehoused the animals for film and photo shoots, according to International Fund for Animal Welfare. Mitchell's USDA license to operate such a business was revoked in 2001 for failure to meet minimum federal standards for the care of animals, the group said.
No state law prevents a private individual from owning a wild cat, so charges are unlikely for Allman, Cutter said. The group had been an active lobbyist for more stringent laws governing ownership of wild animals and is expected to launch a push for such a law in Nevada, he said.
Eight of the Pahrump animals were expected to return to full health, but one suffered from a clubbed foot and curvature of the spine brought on by malnourishment, said Carol Asvestas, director of the animal sanctuary.
"It's too commmon," for people to buy wild animals without knowing how to take care of them, Asvestas said. "It's all too common. There's no guidance. That's the breakdown."
Josephine Martell, a captive wild animal specialist for International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the market for such animals has become saturated with Internet outfits selling tigers for less than $1,000.
Real estate appraiser Rick Neal, whose home sits next to Alman's on Jesse Road, said he had lived next door to the animals for more than a year. In that time, he said he did not remember the cats getting loose or posing any problems for neighbors.
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