The Slice from PBS North.

Right now with fall, it is the cat's happiest season of the year.

I'm Tammy Thies, I'm the executive director and founder of the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota.

We are a last hope rescue shelter for big cats.

And we have 160 residents right now.

They're getting a lot of pumpkin enrichment where they can sink their teeth into it, carry it through their habitat.

The staff have given them big piles of leaves to jump in.

Here at the Wildcat Sanctuary our enrichment program is really critical.

And so what might look like having fun, you know, playing tearing packages apart or carrying around a pumpkin is really about psychological stimulation.

The cats we rescue can never go back to the wild.

And so it's really on us and our responsibility to make sure they have a quality of life.

And that's much more than vet care habitat, full bellies.

It is about keeping their mind stimulated and bringing out species specific behaviors.

So when they're chomping into that pumpkin, it looks cute to us.

But really what it is, is they're getting that predatory behavior out there, being able to sink their teeth into something and destroy something and carry it around.

You know, the biggest question we get asked is how do these rescued big cats do in Minnesota winters?

They love the cooler temps.

Running a sanctuary in Minnesota is like running four facilities because every season comes with a different change.

The staff are setting up heated water buckets.

We're testing all the boilers.

They'll actually even get TVs put in doors in case they want to spend some more time indoors.

The Slice from PBS North.