Isle of Wight Zoo by Cameron Wilson

“Everyone who works here loves Diamond”, says Charlotte Corney, pointing to the ginger cat stretched out behind her, yawning in the sun. “He’s got a lovely nature, but really it’s because, well, he’s not exactly the smartest tiger in the zoo”. I could hardly believe it; my first close-up introduction to a group of big cats, and already I’d found a soul-mate.

I stumbled upon the Isle of Wight Tiger and Big Cat Sanctuary while driving along the seafront and looking for a B&B on a busy holiday weekend. The island, which lies just three miles off the south coast of England, is a sunny retreat invaded on weekends by yachting enthusiasts and brigades of pasty, bucket-and-spade-toting Brits. It struck me as a highly unlikely address for a tiger sanctuary and at best I expected to find a couple of sad mangy cats. I was more than a little surprised to discover that the Isle of Wight is home to one of the most significant zoos dedicated to big cats in Europe.

Strolling around the tiger enclosures which Charlotte oversees together with her father Jack, I felt like I was meeting members of the family. “That’s Zena, she’s the zoo’s star attraction”. Zena could hardly have been anything else: a pure white tiger with the bluest of eyes, an aptly named princess of the tiger world. “The amazing thing is, she’s a complete tomboy – it’s her sister Zia who has the attitude. You’ll see for yourself when we give them a shower”. As if to prove the point, Zena was up and leaping at the spray the moment Charlotte turned on the hose, rolling on her back with all paws in the air. Meanwhile, Zia sat Sphinx-like on the wooden platform above, looking down her whiskers at the goings-on, clearly unimpressed by her sister’s undignified display.

Driven by his passion for tigers and a fear that we might one day lose them, Jack Corney established his sanctuary on the Isle of Wight nearly thirty years ago. His daughter Charlotte has spent her entire life around these animals. In fact, as a harried father with lively children and animals to raise, Jack found a novel solution to keeping both out of mischief: when Charlotte was very young and an orphaned tiger arrived in need of round-the-clock attention, Jack put daughter and cub in the same playpen where they would wear each other out before falling asleep side-by-side. Jack remains touchingly proud of his daughter’s affinity with the tigers, insisting that Charlotte knows much more about their behaviour and how to handle them than he does. “She knows instinctively when one of them is about to do something silly”, he assures me. “And before they have a chance to do it, she gives them a smack on the nose”.

The discipline of silly tigers notwithstanding, these cats look to be onto a good thing: they all appear fit and highly alert, bright of eye and bushy of tail; in fact you get the feeling they’re probably a bit spoilt, although local residents may be pleased to hear that Jack no longer takes a tiger or two across the road for a dip in the ocean. Not that the sight of a couple of 150-pound cats prowling the shoreline would raise much more than an eyebrow on the Isle of Wight. The place is crawling with ‘em, according to Jack, and he even has a credible explanation for the presence of a number of large feline predators that allegedly roam the island.

“For the first year or so I kept a diary record of sightings, but there were so many that I finally gave it up. People would phone and say ‘listen Corney, one of those damn cats of yours is loose’. I knew that all of mine were accounted for, and anyway people were describing either a black or tawny coloured animal with no stripes”. This accorded with stories several locals told me, of seeing a huge black cat or one that looked like a mountain lion, parading about on the grassy downs or slinking through somebody’s back yard.

“It all made perfect sense, because when I bought the zoo it was in pretty dire shape but there was one pair of black leopards and a couple of pumas. Two weeks later I took the place over, but the cats were gone. They’re expensive to feed, and I’d guess that someone just opened the cages and let them go.” Even as I digested this, slack-jawed with amazement, I found myself reflecting on the behaviour of the rabbits I’d seen while walking the fields. Although surely well used to the sight of humans, they raced from burrow to burrow and dived for cover in the brambles as though every move could be their last. If a few lawless leopards were in fact culling the rabbit population – while steering clear of farmers’ livestock – it certainly seemed reasonable for island residents to maintain a policy of live-and-let-live.

After spending almost two days around these extraordinary cats, it was inevitable that I would choose a favourite, and just as inevitable that it would be Diamond. Nowhere near as fashionable or sexy as Zena and Zia, Diamond nevertheless has a goofy charm all his own. I couldn’t resist adopting him – for £20 I received a handsome photo of him, and I can visit the zoo for free any time during the next twelve months. And while I’ve yet to see any of those renegade “ghost cats” for myself, I have to admit I like to think they could be out there on the island, somewhere.