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Searching for sanctuary of their own

Dozens of exotic animals with nowhere to go thrive at a place in Wimauma. But can the sanctuary survive with the passing of its founder?

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published August 27, 2006

When Ted Greenwood died earlier this year, he left behind a family that eats 100 pounds of chicken a day.

There are the lions, Sabrina, Aries and Casper, and the tigers, Kelly, Chuff-Chuff, Shadow and Cheyenne.

There are an aviary's worth of mixed cockatoos, a pack of capybaras, servals, three lynxes, some lemurs, and the bears: Buck, Pansy and, of course, Elmira.

Then there are the leopards, so many Robin Greenwood always loses count.

"Carrie," she asks, "how many leopards do we have?"

Carrie Krumroy is wearing a sundress and waders and holding a baby fox in her hands.

She starts listing them: Monju and Meaner, Yelson and Jet, Mommy and Poppy, Mystique, Selena, Zakkary, Tequila ...

Robin Greenwood is 49, with short brown hair and pale scars up and down her arms. They're from the big cats and the bears.

She was in college when she met Ted the animal lover. Robin had grown up with a vicious little dog, but she was coming around.

They married and moved to Wimauma in Hillsborough County. Ted made a living as a taxidermist, stuffing alligators and stag's heads and jackalopes and something he called a "gatorcuda." He got a silver fox for a pet, then a prairie dog.

Then he met David Kitchen, who had a fish farm farther out in the country. Kitchen had a wildlife license from the state and kept a few bears and some big cats. He offered to let Ted train with him to get his own license and keep his own animals on Kitchen's land.

Slowly, Ted got to know the people in the area who kept exotic animals, a network of private menageries, public sanctuaries and rescues.

But almost nobody who keeps exotic animals gets to keep them forever. Baby animals get too big and rough.

People die, and their kids don't want to keep the lemur or the timber wolf. Sanctuaries shut down, and suddenly a pride of lions are homeless.

But the word always got around: Ted will take them.

Robin got used to being around the big animals.

The scars on her arms came from raising Elmira from a cub.

"People were always kind of flabbergasted because we didn't do normal things," Robin said.

Other people spent their weekends at the mall.

Not Ted and Robin. "We'd be out here messin' with the animals."

* * *

Carrie Krumroy had always wanted to work with animals. As a little girl, she wanted to go to Africa and study lions and tigers.

The next best thing was working for Amazing Exotics, an animal sanctuary in Umatilla.

From there, Kitchen hired her to look after his animals. Before long, she was looking after the Greenwoods' animals, too.

"They have a love of animals, a deep love, that some people don't have," she said. "Ted always treated me like I was his little sister."

Together, they took care of the menagerie. But covering the costs of food - about $2,000 a month - was hard.

Ted got the idea of incorporating as a nonprofit - Elmira's Wildlife Sanctuary Inc. - in 2005.

Maybe they could ask for donations, or even get licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a public attraction.

He would call it Elmira's Wildlife Sanctuary, after the bear.

"That was his baby girl," Robin said.

* * *

Ted had been sick for a long time. His liver and heart were weak, and he had cancer.

When he was feeling bad, Robin remembers, Ted would go and just sit with one of the animals, usually Elmira.

In December, the incorporation papers came through.

In February, Ted got sick for the last time.

His funeral was the biggest Robin had ever attended.

A month after Ted died, Robin started looking for help.

She needed volunteers to help clean cages and care for the animals, but more than that, she needed money.

Not long ago, she held a fundraiser in the clubhouse David Kitchen built near the animal cages.

"I think the animals are going to eat," she said this week. "That's good, that's number one ... but I'd like to be a little more secure."

In June, she took in a pair of newcomers: two wolves, Juno and Searchlight. Their owner couldn't keep them anymore.

Robin says she doesn't want that to be her. She doesn't want to give away the animals.She worries about the future. But she has no regrets about the past.

"I wouldn't give this up for anything," she said.

"How many people get a chance to raise a leopard in their house? You know? I wouldn't have passed this up for anything."

Elmira's Wildlife Sanctuary can be reached at 634-4115.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 26, 2006, 20:48:07]