After Breakfast Tour to the Antelope Valley Cathouse

By David Witteried

After the March breakfast meeting in Lancaster a small group of Porsches departed for a short drive to the “Cat House”… otherwise known as the Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond. The biggest difficulty to running a tour through the Antelope Valley is trying to find some interesting Porsche roads! After talking with a few members I decided to run us up Highway 14 to Silver Queen Road then on to Mohave-Tropico Road which allowed us to stretch our Porsches legs and offered a few interesting turns and vertical changes before arriving at our destination in Rosamond. It is amazing how many people have lived many years in the area and never visited this facility. I suspect that is because most of us assume the facility is going to be an unpleasant compound with smelly cages. However, the Feline Conservation Center as a well-maintained grassy compound with clean and well kept pens for the animals. The facility is run on donations as a nonprofit agency and is home to over 70 of the world’s most endangered felines; the Feline Conservation Center is a breeding zoo and research facility. Depending upon when you visit you may see different felines in the enclosures as the cats come and go from various zoos around the country. When a cat is out and about you can get very close to them with just a rail between you and the cage. Unfortunately, we arrived in the middle of what appeared to be nap time and many other cats were out of sight. We did get to see several others though including the reclusive Fishing Cat which I’d never seen before. It turns out it is best to time your arrival to right around feeding time when the cats are most active. In addition to the cats the compound has a collection of peacocks which several the members found quite fascinating. It was a beautiful day and everybody had a great time! If you are interested in learning more about the Feline Conservation Center please visit their website at

http://www.cathouse-fcc.org/.