Dressed in a leopard-print blouse, Ronel Smuts sits proudly behind the desk in her office at the new Abu Dhabi Wildlife Centre. Her daughter and assistant, Chrissy, sits across the room, the word ‘Meow’ emblazoned across her T-shirt, nose-stud glistening in the half-light. A parrot shrieks loudly, and next door, a hand-reared baby gazelle clips cheerfully across a stone floor. The Smuts are not your average family. In fact, the American Fox Network has just commissioned a 13-part TV series about their lives called Big Cat Rescue; it follows the family in the run-up to the new Centre’s grand opening, and the crew is due to arrive imminently. The TV opportunity was pure serendipity. A visit to the Centre by British thespian Sir Ben Kingsley led to a chance meeting with a friendly director – the series was sold just a year later.
One doesn’t like to mention Steve Irwin, but around large predators, TV-worthy incidents are rarely far away. Its manager concurs: ‘You don’t create drama in this household. They did the trailer and one of the lions got my son on the leg when we were filming. They got some blood and gore. He was OK,’ she adds. But Ronel has more pressing matters to hand than TV ratings. The Centre is still in the process of moving to its new site, lying about 60km out of the city. The finished Centre will have its own veterinary clinic (open to the public), landscaped camps, quarantine and rehabilitation facilities, a petting area and education centre. School groups will visit, even overseas students will spend time gaining experience at the Centre – an important revenue stream as it moves away from private ownership.
The three of us pile into an SUV, crank the air- conditioning up to hurricane, and set off to look at how it is progressing. Many of the animals who find their way here have been confiscated, but their stories differ wildly. Some arrive abused, others simply exchanged with similar sanctuaries. The African baboons were found abandoned in a car in Dubai, I’m told. A pair of wolves have just arrived: ‘We’re still trying to find out whether they’re Ethiopian or Arabian,’ Ronel explains.
As to how a Somalian cheetah finds its way to the UAE, the story is a depressingly predictable one. ‘Somalia is a very poor country and the market for exotics is huge,’ claims Ronel. ‘They capture the animals and sell them on. This is what you do when you don’t have enough money for food.’
The cheetahs were where it all started for the South African divorcee, who moved to the UAE some 12 years ago. A group of young cheetah cubs literally landed in her lap, and having previously worked at wildlife centres in South Africa, she turned her villa into a cross between a nursery and the Serengeti before she found the backing of Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (of Man City fame), who built and financed the first wildlife centre on his private grounds. A children’s picture book written by her friend loosely depicts the story.
‘We are not a zoo,’ Ronel is quick to point out. ‘Zoos have exhibits and here it is mostly about breeding, rehabilitation and education.’ There are no cages, only camps. She brandishes a few sketches depicting how the air-conditioned dens are to be transformed into caves and jungle habitats. Meanwhile, we drive past wolves, caracals, crocodiles, tortoises, tigers and lions, all sheltering from the unforgiving sun under large umbrellas, or retreating into their air-conditioned huts.
‘We believe in animals working,’ says Ronel. ‘They’re not a collection. At the moment we have an Arabian leopard called Sultan on loan at Sharjah Breeding Centre – there are only 300 left in the world.’
One of the most difficult tasks has been to transport the animals between sites. It is a work in progress and has been done entirely without the use of tranquilisers. ‘Every time you tranquilise an animal for movement, it brings down the immune system. Then when they wake up in a new environment, it is even more traumatic.’
We soon pull up at one of the camps. Behind the fence, Shaggy and Chance, a pair of gangly teenage lions, vie for attention. Both were hand-reared by Ronel: ‘They used to go for Chrissy’s shoes, but they’re too big to play with now.’ She means it. The large, clumsy-looking cubs are imposing enough at nine and seven months; it is galling to realise that they won’t be fully grown until twice that age. ‘Lions go for the weak and injured,’ warns Ronel, gesturing to her leg (battered in a car accident two years ago). ‘I’m sure one day I’m going to die this way. They’ll just find a blonde tuft of hair floating in the wind.’ She laughs.
There is little that is vulnerable about Ronel. To raise white lions in your own home requires a certain authority. Certainly when madame issues an order, stout, uniformed gentlemen move at speeds contrary to the stifling heat. ‘I’m a woman and I work only with men. I have a very bad reputation for being difficult,’ she chuckles, ‘but it’s taken me 10 years to build it.’
Ronel is a woman who dearly loves animals. ‘This is not a job, it’s a way of life for me and my kids,’ she tells me. ‘When you’re bottle feeding a baby gazelle all night, as Chrissy did, it takes over your life.’ Her slim, blonde 23-year-old daughter is already lined up to take over should Ronel ever call it quits. I can’t see it happening anytime soon, but the future of the Centre and its animals is assured thanks to this extraordinary family.
The Abu Dhabi Wildlife Centre is due to open in early 2009. Contact Ronel Smuts on 050 614 4024 for more information
