Lions, Tigers, Even Rhino All At Home On Olympic Range

SEQUIM, Clallam County - This is the home of Bozo, the grizzly bear who portrayed Ben in the television series Grizzly Adams, and Ricky, a rare white rhino with a five-foot horn.

Forty-three species live at the Olympic Game Farm, not including the waterfowl that winter at the Olympic Peninsula site.

"With the mountains and sky and the animals walking by, it's an ever-changing portrait, something you never get tired of," said manager Rick Dallmus.

Maintaining the animals is the job of trainer Marinho Correia.

A native of Brazil, Correia worked with a Disney film crew on "The Jungle Cats," and it was there he met game farm owner Lloyd Beebe.

That was 1958. He's been at the farm ever since.

He works with wolves, cougars, leopards, bears, tigers, lions and wolverines - all potentially dangerous if not handled properly.

Correia takes the newborn animals home with him for the first few weeks of their lives. Away from their parents, they "imprint" on Correia, meaning they come to think of him as a parent.

Still, there's an element of risk.

"I have to watch myself and be careful," he said. "If you cooperate with the animals, it goes OK."

In winter and in summer, Correia feeds and cleans the dozens of pens on the farm. Grazing animals, like the bison and deer, get grain and a nutritive supplement.

The carnivores get something else.

Peninsula farmers donate "soon-to-be-deceased" cattle and horses, which become food for the wolves, bears and big cats, Dallmus said.

Correia also handles the animals for many of the film and photography projects the farm handles each year.

Between 85,000 and 90,000 people visit the farm annually, Dallmus said.

In the winter, only drive-through tours are available.

"Typically it's the bison that get the biggest reaction in the winter," he said. "People will show up in their Sunday best, all buttoned down, and when they come back they've got mud and bison slobber all over their car."

Bison are shameless beggars who know many of the visitors have bread in their cars. Loaves are available at the farm's visitor kiosk on the way in.

Another star attraction in the winter is the farm's rare white rhinoceros, Ricky. Most visitors are a bit taken aback by his five-foot horn - much longer than those of wild rhinos.

Visitors often wonder if it's humane to let the horn grow so long, Dallmus said.

"You have to remember, this thing has a brain the size of a golf ball. It barely knows what planet it's on," he said. "And besides, you're talking a huge animal. To him, that horn is like a fingernail."

Pens at the farm are a quarter larger than federal standards dictate, Dallmus said. And most of the animals have never known the wild.

"It's important to remember that they've been born in captivity - these pens are what they know. The best way to describe them is that they're content. You're basically talking more mellow animals here," he said.

And the grazing animals get plenty of quiet, wide open space, just what grazing animals like.