FELIDA Big Cat Sanctuary is a FOUR PAWS space like no other. Based in the Netherlands, it provides specialist care to animals in the greatest need.

Now, we need your help to ensure we can support even more animals embarking on a new life.

FELIDA’s background

Whilst we built all our other sanctuaries from scratch, we took over the existing FELIDA site in 2014 after discovering the animals already living at the facility were in a bad situation.

Originally, 26 big cats were kept here, in just half a hectare of space. Their enclosures were small, and their health was suffering. The animals had no enrichment, no medical care, and no ability to express their natural behaviours.

Stepping in, we moved those healthy and socialised enough to a new home at LIONSROCK Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa, which is spread over 1250 glorious hectares of land.

Those needing extra care remained at FELIDA, where on top of providing dedicated medical treatment, we enlarged the enclosures and spaces, adding drainage, enrichment, platforms, and providing essential trust-building training, to improve the animals’ damaged relationships with human beings.

Why this unique sanctuary matters

When we took over FELIDA Big Cat Sanctuary, we found a number of animals with various long-term problems. Having never had access to medical care along with traumatic pasts meant they required specialised care. Since then, we discovered many more rescued animals were also in need of this treatment.

FELIDA Big Cat Sanctuary is dedicated to this sort of intensive rehabilitation, having the power to invest all the time that is needed to take care of each animal’s individual needs, and provide training that will support their development as they get a second chance at a happy life.

Our plans for the future

Whilst we’re so proud of how far FELIDA Big Cat Sanctuary has come, we want to ensure we’re offering the best for the animals here and guarantee it meets our highest FOUR PAWS standards. We hope to rebuild the sanctuary completely, doubling its size and offering the animals more space and better access to special care, daily observations and more. This new space would allow us to provide up to twice as many animals with complex health and behavioural needs a much higher standard and volume of individual care.

Along with the sanctuary and its enclosures, we also hope to build a new medical room, feeding kitchen, educational facility, and offices for the staff.

How you can help

The support of our Sanctuary Patrons will be vital in developing this important centre. Here, we can focus our efforts on transforming the behaviour and welfare of animals who have experienced the most difficult of starts in life. 

As a Sanctuary Patron, you can experience the impact of your gift with behind-the-scenes access to life at eight of our wildlife Sanctuaries, following the journey of the animals you are directly helping. 

With the development of this important sanctuary, more big cats will be able to grow in comfort and with access to the bespoke and dedicated care they need.