Investigators now believe Wednesday's lion escape from the Ligertown Game Farm Inc. wasn't so unusual.
"We have reason to believe the cats frequently roamed free," said Bannock County sheriff's detective Andy Thomas. "This time they just got caught."Thomas said investigators found trails leading from the homemade cages to a creek where they believe the lions visited often.
"We've pretty much discovered this is an ongoing thing," Thomas said.
Officials began an investigation into the treatment of the facility after several lions were discovered outside Ligertown on Wednesday night.
The incident began when a rancher who lives next door to the animal compound shot and killed a male lion on his property and then called police.
Later that night, the lions' owners, Dottie Martin and Robert Fieber, were attacked when they tried to escort police onto the property to check on the lions. Both were treated at a local hospital and released that same night.
Authorities saw other lions outside of the property and killed them. They banned Martin and Fieber from the property and hunted the animals that were outside the zoolike facility.By 1:30 p.m. Thursday, all 15 lions that authorities believed were out of their cages had been killed. Officials went inside Ligertown for the first time on the authority of a search warrant later Thursday to rescue five kittens that were inside the couple's home.
Friday morning, animal experts began anesthetizing the huge cats so they could be moved out of their cages, which officials described as "disgusting."
Authorities took dozens of photographers and reporters up to the facility's fence Friday afternoon. Officials now believe there are still about 30 lions inside the makeshift cages.
The cages look more like children's clubhouses, with pallets strung together with different types of wire. Pieces of plywood, cardboard, carpet and corrugated metal make up most of the walls and ceilings of the small, dark cages.
"It's a series of mazes and connections," said David Pauli, director of the Intermountain Region of the Humane Society of the United States.
The floors of the cages and the aisle separating them are covered with bones, feces, garbage and fur, sometimes more than an inch deep.
One wolf sits in the back of an old pickup truck with no wheels.
Thomas said when he got there Wednesday night the wolf had no way out, no food and no water.
Pauli said the conditions are a sign that there's "no disease control, no disease containment" at Ligertown. Those who work with the animals found a male lion dead in a cage and said other lions had been eating its carcass.
Anesthetizing the African lions is going very slowly, Pauli said, and officials don't plan to have all of the live animals removed until sometime early next week.
Martin and Fieber have housed lions and hybrid wolves since the mid-1980s. A friend said the cats mean everything to the couple.
"They're very dedicated people," said Jo Ellen Norkevich. "Those cats are their whole life. Right now, I bet they're just devastated."
She questioned the need for authorities to kill the lions.
"They love their cats. The biggest problem is that they don't have any money. They drive 45 to 50 miles one way just to get (donated) meat scraps. (Fieber) cannot even have a regular job because taking care of the cats takes all of his time."
Officials plan to decide late next week whether to charge the couple with cruelty to animals. Authorities have been criticized by many people for not doing something about the private farm earlier.
Thomas said because the farm is on private property and laws about exotic animals are vague, law enforcement officials didn't have any leverage to head off the problems for which Ligertown was headed.
"It's an accident waiting to happen," Pauli said. An accident that's left a couple homeless, at least 17 animals dead and dozens more animals displaced.