I Share My Home With 250 Animals!

Pam Mansfield has taken in thousands of exotic animals. She speaks to Kate Chapman about what it’s like living with all creatures great and small

- Kate Chapman

Forty years ago, a man tried to return a snake in a pet shop. He threatened to throw it into a river when he was refused a refund.

That’s when Pam Mansfield stepped in. An animal lover, she couldn’t see the reptile come to any harm, so she borrowed the cash to buy the snake from him.

Since then, she has dedicated her life to caring for thousands of unwanted creatures at her home, which has become a thriving sanctuary.

Pam, 66, and her team of volunteers currently look after more than 250 animals at her Exotic Pet Refuge, including an alligator called George, a monkey, scorpions, wallabies, raccoons, wild cats, snakes and parrots.

She also works tirelessly to raise more than £80,000 a year to feed and care for her sanctuary residents.

‘My dad absolutely loved animals and it’s rubbed off on me,’ says Pam, who lives on the refuge’s four-acre site in the Lincolnshire fens. ‘My husband Mel was animal mad, too, which was great in one sense, but bad in another. If anything needed taking in, he would always say, “We’ll have it!”

‘The snake was the first exotic pet we had. I just remember thinking: what on earth are we going to do with it? But Mel went off to B&Q, bought some bits and pieces and converted our sideboard into a snake cage. It lived in our bedroom for a while.