November 17, 2022

LION HABITAT RANCH

382 Bruner Ave, Henderson, NV 89004

“Several lions & a giraffe live at this sanctuary with optional guided tours & feeding experiences.” – Google

I tried to find a more in-depth description online, but then I thought about my visit, and the one sentence pretty much sums up the experience, other than there were tortoises, emus, ostriches, and other tropical birds along with the lions and giraffe. 

According to signs around the property, “The Lion Habitat Ranch is the retirement home for the lions you would have previously seen at the MGM exhibit.  The exhibition closed in 2012, and we opened to allow the general public to continue to connect with and be inspired to conserve wild lion populations.”  Around the property there were several chain-link enclosures housing lions, probably between 15-20 of them.  I wasn’t surprised when I found most of the felines sleeping, as lions spend between 16-20 hours a day asleep.  Some were alert, and when food came around, some were very active.  For the most part the lions seemed oblivious to the people gawking at them.  In between some of the lion enclosures were Macaws and Cockatoos in sturdy cages.  You could tell the birds liked attention, one macaw called out, “Hello” as people walked by.  Ozzie, the giraffe, was used to keep visitors entertained.  For $10 one could feed Ozzie.  On the half-hour, everyone was beckoned to watch Ozzie be an artist, having been trained to hold a paint brush in his mouth and drag it across a tablet held by a worker.  Ozzie’s artwork was on sale in the gift shop.

There wasn’t much to see, but I ended up spending about 1.5 hours walking around the enclosures.  Would I return?  I don’t know, possibly if I didn’t have anything else to do.