Take Notes: Vision Quest Ranch 1-800-228-7382 or 831-455-1901 Website

Salinas is best known for its rich agricultural lands, booming housing industry and colorful literary history.

But there is one place not chronicled in any of John Steinbeck’s Classic tales.  It’s a place where bears greet guests, lions lie outside cages and elephants share their breakfast.

This is Vision Quest Ranch, a 51-acre property that’s home to dozens of exotic animals from all over the world.  It serves as an animal training facility and sanctuary, as well as a place for people to meet and learn about creatures of all kinds.

Vision Quest Ranch is located in Salinas about 20 miles east of Monterey and about 2.5 hours south of San Francisco , just off Highway 101.

The ranch offers a wide variety of ways for people to experience the animals.  There are daily public tours, special interactive programs and a bed and breakfast where guests can spend the night in luxury tent cabins and meet some of the ranch’s residents up close.

Vision Quest Ranch is actually the vision of one man, Charlie Sammut, who began taking in exotic animals back in the late 1980’s while serving as a local police officer,

“I was a cop taking exotic animals to schools for school programs EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS and stuff so I had no idea it was going to turn into this. 04:11:21 This was literally an accident, it was a hobby gone astray,” say Charlie.

His hobby has grown into a full time, all-encompassing operation with more than 100 animals ranging from lions, tigers and bears to lemurs, alligators and wallabies.  Charlie is able to run the facility with money from donations, tours and revenue earned by some of his performing animals.

“I would venture to say probably 60% of the animals here are retired or never worked in the first place but it’s the other 40% that if handled properly can still support everybody,” says Charlie.

Although using animals for commercial work is somewhat controversial, he’s careful about the kind of work his animals participate in,

“I am not so naïve as to believe that these animals can’t or don’t get abused in any industry but my belief is that you don’t shoot down the whole industry because of it and that there is a right way to ask an animal to perform to work in entertainment and make it a positive thing for the animal,” explains Charlie.

But these animals aren’t just employees to Charlie, they are part of his family that he helps care for everyday.  So today, Charlie is giving me a private tour of the facility and introducing me to some of his closest companions.

First I meet Roper, a cougar Charlie rescued from a poorly run facility he helped close down back in 1996.  Even though Roper purrs while we pet him, his mood can change quickly.  And with one growl he’s put back into his cage, which serves as a reminder that none of these animals are ever completely tame.

“I wouldn’t recommend anyone have an animal like this as a pet. This is the result of full time trainers seven days a week working with these animals to create an animal that I feel is if nothing else handle able at this point,” say Charlie

But there is one big cat, especially close to Charlie’s heart.  His name is Josef and he’s a 19-years old male African lion Charlie raised from a cub.  You may recognize his impressive profile from his many television and film credits. 

“Well, Joseph is actually the live model for Lion King.  We stood in front of the artists many many days in the studio and in location while they were drawing Lion King. His patience is unbelievable, he’s extremely trusting,” says Charlie.

Patience and trust are the foundations for all of Charlie’s exotic animal relationships, but it still can be dangerous work.  Charlie says five lions have come close to killing him. 

But one animal he doesn’t mind getting very close to is Brandi.  Brandi is a very well trained cinnamon-colored black bear.  She responds to many commands and is rewarded with lots of positive reinforcement from Charlie.  Understanding how to communicate with each individual animal enables Charlie to work effectively with all kinds of creatures including one unusually well-behaved primate.

Georgia is a baboon Charlie raised from an infant.  She loves to play fetch and mimic human expressions.  But there is one animal Charlie says baboons do not like to work with – elephants.  Georgia might not enjoy hanging around elephants, but Charlie does.

Charlie introduces me to his three resident elephants: Butch, Buffy and Lisa.  They are benefiting from an elephant sanctuary Charlie helped establish here called E.A.R.S. or Elephants of Africa Rescue Society, which is dedicated to securing a safe habitat for wild and captive elephants.

“They’re retired performing animals and thats what I do with the remainder of the property now is I donate it to elephants,” Charlie says.

Despite all of the dangers and hard work maintaining all of these animals, the rewards, according to Charlie, are worth the effort,

“You can never see extreme financial success from doing this because if you’re taking that money and not pouring it back into the animals, you’re doing something wrong so you know you’re riches have to be the animals.  We joke around all the time we go to a car show and we’ll look at somebody’s beautiful car and I’ll look at my girlfriend and say yeah, but I have an elephant.”

For more information about Vision Quest Ranch visit their Web site at http://www.wildthingsinc.com/index.html or call 1-800-228-7382 or 831-455-1901.

BAB 11.21.04

BAB Show #212