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About Us

About
Exotic Pet Wonderland

At Exotic Pet Wonderland, our goal is to provide a home for the captive born wildlife and difficult exotic pets who have no other place to go and help to prevent difficult exotics from ending up needing homes by educating owners and potential owners. Additionally, we want to educate the public on our local wildlife and ecosystem and help to leave the planet a little less polluted and more wildlife friendly place.

As much as we would like to, we aren’t expecting to end world hunger or bring world peace. However, Exotic Pet Wonderland is hoping to change the world for as many of these amazing animals as possible. The animals we take into our sanctuary are animals that other sanctuaries and shelters overlook or are unable to take.

Our Staff

My name is Linsey, and I am the President and Director of Exotic Pet Wonderland.

I started Exotic Pet Wonderland here in Knoxville, Tennessee with a couple of amazing, likeminded people. Why did we start this sanctuary? All of us here at Exotic Pet Wonderland grew up rescuing and loving animals, from the time we could walk. In fact, the first time my husband and I spoke our conversation was about rescuing a dog! We each started out as animal and nature lovers and cared for lots of different animals, but in 2014, my husband and I brought home our first fox. Our fox was a handful and we learned a lot from him, and in January of 2017 our lives changed in a way we never guessed it would. That’s the year we rescued our first fox in need, a Red Fox named Mordecai. Bringing Mordecai home and earning his trust is what made us want to educate and rescue these animals.

This is Taylor, the Vice President of Exotic Pet Wonderland

This is our wonderful Vice President, Taylor, who immediately jumped in and said, “Count me in, I want to support this!”, the second we mentioned the idea of starting an exotic pet sanctuary. Taylor is a very busy lady, helping animals every second of the day, either with Exotic Pet Wonderland or at her own personal safe haven filled with many exotics, wildlife, and farm animals. Taylor also runs a neonatal rescue for kittens and puppies, where she cares for abandoned or surrendered babies and adopts them out after they are fixed, healthy, and old enough, even offering to fix the parents of the animals in some cases.

This is Tim, our Habitat Construction Manager

And most importantly, my (Linsey) husband. Without Tim, none of this would be possible. He is generally hidden behind the scenes, but is our biggest support system. Tim has been caring for animals of all kinds his entire life, and when we brought this idea to him about opening a sanctuary for difficult animals, he wasn’t even surprised, and has supported us from day one. He makes it his top priority to create the best, safest enclosures and enrichment for all the animals here at Exotic Pet Wonderland, and also helps with all the day to day care.

This is Nessie, our Assistant Director

and resident raccoon biologist who started as a very hard working volunteer in 2021. Nessie is full of wonderful, creative ideas and is always willing to step up and help wherever she’s needed. We met through our mutual love for responsible raccoon care and immediately became great friends. Like the rest of our staff, Nessie has been around animals all their life, and has been keeping animal records and educating in public settings about proper animal care since she was a middle schooler in 4-H. Nessie is currently working on her Master’s degree in Biology and is studying tourism’s impact on the critically endangered pygmy raccoon. More about Nessie can be found here.

This is Tim, our Habitat Construction Manager

This is Brianna, our Accountant and Data Analyst

Brianna started sponsoring Zoie the raccoon in 2021, and frankly we were a bit confused as we rarely posted about Zoie (she was new at the time) and we hadn’t done much to market our sponsorships. Little did we know what a big help Brianna would turn out to be for the sanctuary! Our staff got in touch with her in early 2023 after she expressed interest in doing some non-animal related volunteer work, and the rest is history. Brianna is the kind of person who will drop what she is doing and show up right away when we need her help, whether it be helping with inventory and running a booth at a con or taking notes and going through records and receipts after a major intake. She is a brilliant and talented accountant with a true passion for numbers and uses those skills to help the animals here at EPW. Seriously, we have never seen someone get so excited about creating spreadsheets!

This is Nessie, our Assistant Director

and our resident raccoon biologist who started as a very hard working volunteer in 2021. Nessie is full of wonderful, creative ideas and is always willing to step up and help wherever she’s needed. We met through our mutual love for responsible raccoon care and immediately became great friends. Like the rest of our staff, Nessie has been around animals all their life, and has been keeping animal records and educating in public settings about proper animal care since she was a middle schooler in 4-H. Nessie is currently working on her Master’s degree in Biology and is researching tourism’s impact on the critically endangered pygmy raccoon. More about Nessie can be found here.

This is Ariel, our Curator and Nutritionist

Ariel came to me in June of 2018, full of energy and questions about pet fox ownership. At that time I had no idea that I was speaking to someone that would not only become an amazing fox caregiver and educator, but an irreplaceable friend and wonderful asset to Exotic Pet Wonderland. Ariel is the voice of responsible ownership, and is an incredibly talented animal nutritionist. Like the rest of us, she is also a huge animal lover and on top of her foxes and reptiles, she also has a few special needs animals that have stolen her heart.