This place has its ups and downs. Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good in our experience at the Olympic Game Farm.
Our visit: 2/18/12 (3pm)
They allow you to feed the animals an unlimited amount of wheat bread.
Started out good, lots of cute rabbits and peacocks roaming free. You drive up a hill to be greeted by gophers, cutely popping their heads out of their little holes in the ground. Then to the yaks -- really cute. Didn't think much of yaks until I was able to feed them a slice of wheat bread... very funny stuff, the way they take your bread ever-so-gently from your hands and into their mouths. Llamas, zebras, deer and eagles all had an adequate space to roam freely among each other's company -- all seemed pretty ok. Although I had no idea that that they ALL shared an appetite for wheat bread? Seemed unhealthy and very unnatural, but went with it... because the folks at OGF know what they're doing, right?
(Sidenote: They should add seagulls to their list of animals... because they swarm the place. )
Much like a horror movie, where everything starts out peachy-keen then quickly goes downhill... then came the famous "waving bears" that I have heard so much about. Saw the first bear - cute. Not a waver, but still cute. This is where I started getting suspicious. So many bears.... so little spaces! And low fences, with electric wires surrounding them. Lots of muddy puddles for bears to lay in, and trash cans filled with nasty water. Artificial "dens" are big enough for one bear at a time. No real stimulus within the "habitats" or more like cages. Most of the bears seemed out of it, wasting away, hopped up on cheap wheat bread.
THEN CAME THE CARNIVORE SECTION.
What do African Lions, Siberian Tigers, Bengal Tigers, Bobcats, Cougar, Lynx, Coyotes, Wolves and Arctic Fox all have in common? THEY ALL GET TO GO INSANE IN IDENTICAL, TINY, CAGED-IN 'HABITATS' THAT THE 'RESCUERS' OF THE OLYMPIC GAME FARM HAVE PROVIDED THEM WITH.
These poor carnivores are all confined in less-than-adequate areas where they are able to pace back and forth neurotically day in and day out, sharing a fence as a wall with other species of their own kind. Especially wolves, social animals who naturally live in packs, are neglected of social interaction. That goes for lions also. THESE ANIMALS COME FROM VERY DIFFERENT NATURAL HABITATS. The "caretakers" at Olympic Game Park don't seem to care. I'm sure they are outsmarting the Arctic Fox into thinking he's at home in the the Arctic tundra biome in his tiny cage with an even tinier pen with hay. Also the same jail cell that the lions get to compare to their home in Sub-Saharan Africa. But I guess if you drug the animals up enough, they'll believe anything right? Roofie-Coladas are probably coursing through their bloodstream.
And what a shame that the Bengal Tiger is an endangered species, with only 2,500 of them left in the world -- that one of them is sadly living out his life of pacing back and forth in a tiny cell in Sequim, WA. Might as well be dead.
None of these animals in these jail cells are able to run, as they would do in the wild, getting up to full speed to stretch their legs. Their bodies, I'm sure are all slowly wasting away.
Did I mention the lack of mental stimuli for any of these animals? What's play? No play time for the animals at the OGF. Especially for the poor carnivore section. Nothing to jump on, hide under... they are constantly exposed to cars passing by. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.
Felt a lot less sorry for the elks, but still weird to see a backyard full of roaming buffalo, herd of elk, one mangy emaciated horse and other small animals with no trees, or differentiation in terrain (no slopes, hide outs). Seriously, their habitat is a backyard.
I would never recommend this dungeon of a place to anybody -- because it's obvious that most of the money does not go back to the animals. THE CARNIVORE SECTION SHOULD BE CLOSED DOWN and the animals in this section should be taken to wildlife refuges or at least put in the hands of people who know what they are doing.
Again, the yaks were pretty great. But I would gladly give up hand-feeding yaks forever to see all animals be treated with respect and dignity. read more