The next day, “she just crashed,” Amber Sculac said. 9, she e-mailed Colvin, agreeing to see a physician if she didn’t feel better by the weekend. Assuming she had a worse version of her infant granddaughter’s cold, Sculac kept her relentless routine. When she fell ill with strep throat in early August, Karen Sculac “did the same way she did everything else – just powered through it,” Colvin said. Karen Sculac, along with the help of Collette Colvin and other volunteers, took on the taxing work of feeding the cats, cleaning their cages and handling the other chores.

With their home in foreclosure, the Sculacs moved onto the property, living in a house they once envisioned using as a bed-and- breakfast for paying guests. In 2005, Nick Sculac suffered a massive heart attack and lost the contracting business that helped supplement the sanctuary’s $250,000 annual expenses. The Calhan property whittled down to 17 acres as the Sculacs sold off the land to pay for the cats’ food, medical care and other expenses, and added more enclosures for new feline refugees. She acquired the requisite federal licenses, solicited donations of cash, road kill and food, and used shovels and bleach to clean the earth-floored cages. While he supported the family with construction jobs, Karen Sculac ran the rapidly expanding sanctuary. “People looked at us, figured those guys are suckers, and started sending their animals to us.” “After we took the Alamo tigers, it snowballed,” Nick Sculac said. That marked the Sculacs’ shift from a commercial breeder to rescue organization. The Sculacs offered to take 12 of the cats. “You can love ’em with all your heart, but you cannot make them into cocker spaniels,” she would say.Īt about the same time, they learned that 24 exotic cats needed homes when the Alamo Tiger Ranch abruptly closed after being charged with 50 federal animal abuse offenses. Outraged, the tiger never quite forgave Karen Sculac for relocating him. Reluctantly, the Sculacs relocated the tiger to one of the tennis court-sized cages on 320 acres they owned between Peyton and Calhan. As he grew bigger, he discovered that he could leap over the kitchen counter, and developed a habit of chewing on furniture. When he was tiny, he hid in the dishwasher, allowed himself to be dressed like a doll and napped on the sofa. He lived in the Sculacs’ home over a year. The cub, a Bengal tiger, was adopted as a kitten in 1995. They talked about the day when they could resurrect Nick Sculac’s onetime vocation of working with exotic animals used in movies and commercials. In the late 1970s, the Sculacs ran a livery in Central City. “We went out to dinner,” Nick Sculac said, “and the next morning we woke up and went back to her place to get her clothes, and we’ve been together ever since.” Through her brother, who worked at a Colorado Springs body shop, she met Nick Sculac.

Karen Brill Sculac grew up in Scottsbluff, Neb., and moved to Colorado when her father, Jerry Brill, established Merit Company Real Estate in Colorado Springs.

“She sacrificed that house to keep the cats going.” “She loved that house probably as much as she loved me,” said her husband, Nick Sculac. Given a choice last year between rescuing the Sculac’s house from foreclosure and cutting back on the Big Cats of Serenity Springs facility, Sculac relinquished the house. Only about 5 feet tall, with a wavy mane of hair, her small size stood in dramatic contrast to her willful spirit. 12, once imagined breeding lions and tigers, but instead found herself running Colorado’s largest feline rescue facility.

Karen Sculac, who died of complications from pneumonia at age 47 on Aug. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu

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