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Tiger Creek Animal Sanctuary and Tiger Creek Safari Resort representatives Brian Werner Ferris and Emily Owen have begun misleading and deceiving the public in order to hide their illegal activities.
The father-daughter pair own and manage the sanctuary located in Tyler, TX. They've now made public comments regarding the recent critical violation they received from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) over the death of 11 big cats who they failed to provide veterinary care to, according to a USDA report.
“All 11 of the deceased animals showed clinical signs for weeks, sometimes months, without being examined by a veterinarian,” the April 2021 report said.
Owen blamed the pseudo-sanctuary’s USDA violation on former staff members.
“It’s not that vet care wasn’t provided,” Owen said. “It’s that documentation of said vet care was missing. Ironically, those records were in the custody of a disgruntled former employee.”
Blaming their animal neglect on disgruntled former employees is a common tactic roadside zoos use to deflect from their harmful behaviors. In a public Facebook post, Werner Ferris said Tiger Creek Animal Sanctuary may not have had the veterinary records, but said their veterinarians had a copy and he said they provided 82 pages of records to the USDA.
Presumably, the USDA has reviewed those records, but the critical Animal Welfare Act violation at Tiger Creek Animal Sanctuary remains on the USDA Animal and Plant Inspection Service Public Search website.
Werner Ferris said the USDA inspected Tiger Creek Animal Sanctuary again on June 3, claiming they received a “perfect report.” He posted a USDA Inspection report that said, “No non-compliant items identified during this inspection.”
The June USDA inspection report does not resolve the critical violation the facility received two months earlier, and it certainly doesn’t bring back the 11 animals that went weeks or months without medical care before passing, according to reports.
Aside from the medical neglect issues, numerous animals at Tiger Creek Animal Sanctuary are missing from both the April and June USDA animal inventory including a kangaroo, a rhesus macaque, a ringtail lemur, a red fox and two sloths.
On Werner-Ferris’ Tiger Creek Safari Resort Facebook page, he has made numerous posts boasting how much his facility has raised in donations since the article by Roadside Zoo News about the USDA violations was posted June 1.
One post announced Tiger Creek Sanctuary raised $43,800 in donations in the first four days of June. Another post included an image of a whited-out check made out to “Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge” for $10,000. Today, Werner-Ferris posted he received $11,637.00 in donations.
Werner Ferris posted an award his organization supposedly received which says, “Tyler 2021 Award.” However, the name of the organization responsible for the award is illegible and numerous internet searches turned up no award by that name.
Another post reads, “So called accredited HSUS Black Beauty Sanctuary violated USDA Laws on Veterinarian Care and Animal Care.” The post is accompanied by images of a 2015 inspection report that gave Black Beauty Ranch, Murchison, TX, a non-critical violation for having perimeter fences that were only five feet tall. He also posted screenshots of inspection reports from 2011 that are so old, they’re unavailable on the USDA website.
In an attempt to mislead the public, Werner Ferris even created a copy-cat Roadside Zoo Facebook page.
Former sanctuary employees say Werner Ferris and Owen’s efforts to mislead the public are an attempt to draw attention away from the past and ongoing animal welfare violations and the mishandling of financial resources occurring at the non-profit.
“Brian is a narcissist and a pathological liar,” one former sanctuary employee said. “Deflecting from the awful USDA inspection report from April shows that he is scared and realizes that his days of manipulation and abuse are coming to a forefront for everyone to see. All of the individuals involved need to be punished for what they have done.”
