MELROSE, Fla – In this week’s SnapJAX stories, it was a picture of a smile that got my attention, but it wasn’t human. So I went to Melrose Florida to get the story behind the picture and that’s when things got wild.
Carl Bovard runs Single Vision, Inc. alone with only a few volunteers. The first animals I met were New Guinea Singing Dogs and they really sing.
“They were thought to be extinct in the wild for many years, but there have been recent sightings, they’re just the rarest,” says Bovard.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of rare animals, Bovard explains his mission is to conserve endangered species and to educate people on how special and at risk they are to becoming extinct. One way he does this is through school tours.
“This is where we have a lot of our small exotic animals that we do our tours and educational programs through here,” says Bovard.
Smiling owl monkeys, codemunde, ringtail lemurs and kinkajous are some of the smaller animals at Single Vision.
“There’s about 130 different species on Madagascar. Sadly, every species is endangered. Mostly because of habitat destruction,” explained Bovard.
That’s his motivation making sure these beautiful animals still have a place in this world.
“Without human intervention, private ownership and captive breeding, we will be losing a lot more species than we are. And we really are in mass extinction time at this time in the world,” said Bovard.
He’s really passionate about big cats.
“There’s 10 lions, 6 tigers, 5 mountain lions, two Jaguars. And then we have the smaller species the Lynx,” explained Bovard.
There are many more big cats on the property as well. The animals eat about 400 pounds of raw meat a day and living amongst the cats are even bigger creatures. Several bears call this sanctuary home.
“All brown bears will be shaped like Bruiser. They’re going to have a big head and a hump of muscle between their shoulders,” says Bovard.
Bovard is always teaching as we walk through the sanctuary. Bruiser is a popular bear with millions of views online as the belly-flopping and surfing cub who loved the water. While these animals are secured behind fences, Bovard gets in the cages with all of them, while visitors watch on the other side of the fence.
“If a school group wants to come out, we do those during the week. And we make sure we have plenty of chaperones and volunteers because obviously here there are no barriers. So we keep the groups generally small and they’re always guided by us. So we get people close enough, where they’ve never been this close before, but also far enough away where there’s no chance of anybody getting hurt,” says Bovard.
Single Vision hasn’t escaped criticism, PETA has come after the wildlife facility, noting that in 2022 it was fined close to 9,000 dollars by the USDA for 18 alleged violations. Carl talked about the rules and says some similar facilities don’t get it right but he believes he’s one of the good owners.
“Yeah, they pop in at least three or four times a year unannounced, which is a good thing. I mean, it needs to be regulated. Everyone should not be able to own these animals, it should only be for responsible owners that abide by all the rules,” says Bovard.
Safety for the animals and humans is most important here because it truly is life and death. The story behind this picture was bigger and more powerful than I could have ever imagined.