It’s natural to assume that moving 50-plus animals, plus their humans, to a new location would be a somewhat stressful experience.
But the 52 animals of Critter Encounters Animal Sanctuary — everything from a lop-eared bunny to tarantulas and a pair of fennec foxes — recently moved from one end of Ramona to the other without missing a beat.
Travel is a part of life for these animal ambassadors, said Andrea Burgan, president of Critter Encounters.
On a near daily basis, Burgan takes her creatures to schools, parties, retirement homes and events. The close-up, interactive encounters help educate the public on local and global animals and their ecosystems.
“The animals are not stressed in a new environment, since they often go to one every day,” she said.
The Critter Encounter sanctuary is home to several raptors and birds, such as great horned owls, red tailed hawks, a barn owl and a kookaburra; mammals such as a raccoon, opossums, chinchillas, and fennec foxes; a number of reptiles, and a pair each of Julianna pigs and Nigerian dwarf goats.
For Burgan and her husband, Matt, moving the menagerie across town involved three months of searching for the right location, planning, relocating and rebuilding enclosures..
She estimates it took about 30 trips to get all the animals to their new home.
Individual crates were the mode of transport for nearly all the animals except for the snakes, which were placed in pillow cases.
“The pillow cases are knotted at the top so the snakes can’t escape,” Burgan said, pointing out that it would be easy for the reptiles to wiggle out of crates.
After operating the sanctuary as a non-profit since 2021 on a 5-acre property on the east side of town, they decided to move for several reasons, according to Andrea Burgan.
“Our old area was high on a slope, and it was getting a bit more difficult to continue to build down the slope, and was hard for people on tours,” she said. “We wanted to move to flatter land.”
And it wasn’t just a matter of finding new housing for the animals — the Burgans also needed a home. As part of their permits to have restricted species through the U.S. and California Departments of Fish and Wildlife, someone must live on the grounds to care for the animals.
She said their new property near the Four Corners area of Ramona and the Cleveland National Forest has the flatter terrain they were looking for and is double the size, at 10 acres. Humans and animals moved into their new digs in mid-January.
Normally, it might take several months of training animals to get into a crate or trailer for transport, and even more training to get them used to a new location.
But since most of the animals are used to hitting the road — and were going to be living in their original, specifically-built enclosures — the move was much easier than it might have been with less socialized animals.
As part of the move, all the enclosures had to be broken down piece by piece, wall by wall, relocated and then rebuilt. Although changes sometimes had to be made to adapt the structures to their new terrain, the Burgans were careful to recycle as much of the building material as possible.
It wasn’t just a matter of convenience; each animal has specific requirements for their enclosures — including height, width and flooring — based on federal or state wildlife regulations.
Burgan said Matt, her husband of 24 years, has built all of their animal enclosures.
“He’s a psychotherapist by trade, and when he has a spare moment, he’s my construction guy. He loves animals and does the majority of the building,” she said.
“The enclosures we have are amazing and perfect for the animals. They are built to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service standards minimum requirements, although we usually go bigger.”
Raptor enclosures, known as mews, for example, must be a minimum of 12 feet by 16 feet.
Beyond the specific requirements, the Burgans then customize the enclosures to the animal’s individual needs.
For a raptor unable to fly, they might include a low stump the bird can hop onto. Then they add a number of perches set at different heights so the animal can move around and even look out the provided windows.
For the move, the Burgans dismantled a large 50 by 50 foot, 17-foot-high bird flight cage.
“The flight cage is an opportunity for them to stretch their wings and hop around a bit more,” Andrea Burgan said. “We use it for hawks during the day and then the owls use it at night.”
“We had to disassemble it and move it in small sections. We will rebuild it bigger and better,” she said.
The new location features a climate-controlled chinchilla room, with two-story condos for the animals, as well as tunnels, tubes and ball pits for them to explore.
A large RV barn on the new property has been transformed into a reptile house, complete with daylights, heat lamps and other creature comforts.
Each enclosure costs between $3,000 and $5,000. The flight cage was more because of the increased amount of netting and poles it required.
“We were able to build the original flight cage because of the donations we received,” Burgan said.
One thing hasn’t changed — the $3,500-a-month food bill is still a huge expense for the sanctuary.
While they receive a lot of donated excess produce from Jimbo’s Natural Food Store, Burgan still spends $1,000 every three weeks for frozen mice and other animals for the raptors and carnivores.
“We definitely need donations right now as we try to rebuild. It’s a lot,” she said. “And I shop for fruit and veggies every other day.”
Monetary donations, as well as gift cards from Kahoots and Albertsons are appreciated, she said.
Critter Encounters animal ambassadors can be seen every Saturday in January and February beginning at 10 a.m. at Hawk Watch, 18528 Highland Valley Road, as well as at Ramona Ranch Winery the third Friday of every month from 3 to 4 p.m., beginning Feb. 21.
Private tours of Critter Encounters Wildlife Sanctuary are available by appointment only. For more information, visit: www.critterencounters.org or call 619-985-2415.
