Tigers for Tomorrow wins award

Etowah Counties Tigers for Tomorrow has received the Shining Example Award as the Escape to the Southeast Travel Attraction of the Year by the Southeast Tourism Society. The award was presented Wednesday during the STS Fall Forum in Charleston, W.Va.  Located on 140 acres near Attalla, Tigers for Tomorrow is a nonprofit exotic animal park and rescue preserve that is home to a variety of animals, including tigers, mountain lions, African lions, bears, wolves and black leopards.

Officials say the facility is not a zoo, but a last-stop preserve. Animals that come to the facility remain there for the rest of their lives.

More than 10,000 visitors, primarily from the Southeast, visit the facility each year.

Hundreds of school children also visit annually on field trips, and Tigers for Tomorrow makes educational presentations on wildlife in local schools.

One school raised money to help offset the costs of rescuing a lion from Guatemala.