The Tiger Mountain Refuge Hospital & EdZOOcation Center
The mission of the future Tiger Mountain Refuge Hospital & EdZOOcation Center will be to treat & rehabilitate our ailing animals and to allow licensed veterinarians to use our facilities & equipment for benefit of their patients. To advance scientific knowledge and to inspire students of all ages to learn and understand more about the natural world around them, care about it's future, and ultimately take action in support of worldwide conservation programs!
Their “EdZOOcation” will soon start in Rainelle, WV!
The Tiger Mountain Refuge Hospital & EdZoocation Center Project consists of purchasing a vacant 30,000 sq. ft. building located in the center of the industrial park in Rainelle, West Virginia and transforming it into a unique learning environment & state-of-the-art veterinary hospital. Visitors will arrive at the front of the facility, which will be designed to resemble an ancient stone building.
Once inside, our visitors will stroll through more than 328 weaving yards of specially designed corridors containing more than 106 beautiful animal habitats. In these habitats, visitors will be amazed to find displays constructed to closely replicate the natural habitats of poison dart frogs, giant sulcata tortoises, American alligators, giant snakes, beautiful parrots, various aquatics and many other endangered species who call Tiger Mountain Refuge home. Perhaps our biggest “tourism draw” will be by visitors who come specifically to see our indoor/outdoor Big Cat habitat displays. Outside of these special habitats, visitors will be able to come face-to-face (via special security rated glass) with a tiger, lion, leopard and other big cats. All revenue generated from visitors will go to provide for exotic animals in needs… This facility will also be the home of the Tiger Mountain Refuge Animal Hospital - one of the best equipped zoological hospitals in the world!
The Hospital & EdZOOcation Center Building will have six (6) functional areas:
1- Big Cat & Exotic Species Animal Hospital & Laboratories
2- indoor/outdoor EdZOOcation Center with animal habitats, interactive displays and hands-on demonstration areas
3- bookstore / gift shop with educational items
4- offices, freezers & other infrastructure spaces
5- class rooms
6- multi-purpose room for educational programming, exhibits and meetings. This room will be available for community use.
The Visitor Experience
The visitor experience will begin on the plaza outside the entrance of the center. Here visitors will see and touch, life-size replicas of many various species of animals we commonly provide care for - and they are likely to see inside. Weatherproof panels that describe the animals, their biology, ecology, migration patterns, feeding strategies, and etc. will accompany each. Individual focused sound systems will bathe the viewer in the life like sounds of the animal. The plaza will be visible from the parking area and promises to become a gathering point for the town of Rainelle.
For the general public, area residents & tourists, the Tiger Mountain Refuge Hospital & EdZOOcation Center (TMRH&EZC) exhibit corridor & habitats will have exhibits and interactive displays that inform the participants about:
· Characteristics of each of these animals
· Physical descriptions: size, weight, size at birth, stages of maturation, etc.
· Migration patterns
· Feeding strategies
· Breeding, birthing, parenting
· Historical evolution - adaptations they have made to survive as a species
· the human impact
· Advancement of knowledge about animals and their care
· Contributions to species conservation
· Importance of animals to the quality of human life
· Advancements of medical equipment in veterinary medicine
· The human impact, pollutants, contaminates & habitat reduction
For school groups, TMRH&EZC will construct a three-part experience:
1. Activities/information in the classroom before a visit.
2. A visit to the center with organized inquiry-based activities
3. Follow-up activities/information for the teacher to use in the classroom after the visit. Materials and activities will be developed with the assistance of professionals from the Greenbrier County Board of Education.
Our Hospital
Our hospital & laboratories will be designed specifically for our Big Cats & Exotic Species Animal Care, - to accommodate the growing number and different kinds of animals that call Tiger Mountain Refuge home. Our veterinarians, veterinarian technicians and volunteers will tend to our animals until they are healthy enough to be returned to their permanent habitats at the Refuge. We look forward to inviting licensed veterinarians & board certified specialist, who may need to use our equipment for their special cases. We also desire to share our equipment with veterinary technology students of Fairmont State University to learn on. Our doors will always be open to any official governmental agency requiring use of our equipment or laboratories.
In the hospital will be unique in that - most treatment habitats & medical areas will be visible to observing students via a viewing gallery that is sound-proofed, one-way viewing glass and with special lighting. Changeable exhibits on the walls of the gallery will provide daily medical reports of the animals in care, diagnosis & prognosis, previous medical histories & the known particulars of significant events in each animal’s life.
Departments that can be observed by students via the gallery will include:
·Operating Room
·Nuclear Medicine Suite
·CT, MRI, & Radiology Department
·Nursery
·Laboratory
·Ultrasound
·Endoscopy
·Food preparation area
Our 10,000-square-foot Veterinary Hospital complex will hosts a central treatment area, research laboratories, an animal quarantine wing, and administrative spaces. In the center of the hospital will be a spacious treatment room that can handle all Zoo animals except adult elephants, rhinos, hippos and giraffes - various imaging suites containing state-of-the-art equipment, a surgery suite with scrub room, sterile prep room and laundry and a pharmacy will be located in the complex.
Five (5) total laboratories will be constructed and specifically equipped for projects such as embryo transfer, animal behavior, in vitro-fertilization, radio telemetry, semen analysis and nutrition studies. These laboratories will also be used for hematology, parasitology, bacteriology and histopathology.
One (1) clinical pathology laboratory will allow for the careful study of diseases. Blood work, cultures for bacteria, fecal analysis and urinalysis will be performed for every animal in the collection on a routine basis. A necropsy room will be used for postmortems. Our animal tissue bank will include an ultra low freezer (70° below zero) for storage of tissue or serum samples which will be available to researchers from around the world.