BLOOMSDALE — Fifty miles south of St. Louis, tucked into the hills of Bloomsdale, lies a hidden gem: the National Tiger Sanctuary.

The sanctuary serves as a home and refuge for five tiger siblings. The tigers — Vincent, Paul, Max, Dee and T.J., a rare white tiger — enjoy a securely fenced 450-acre space where they can roam. Each tiger is equipped with his or her own separate protected area that includes an indoor pen and a large pool of water.

“How does a tiger say hello? Just listen to Paul,” said Keith Kinkade, co-founder of the sanctuary. “Do you hear that purring? … Wait for it …” ROAR!

“They seem like large house cats, but they are more than that,” said Kinkade. “Each tiger is their own individual creature and their own personality. They are all different.”

Dee, the only female among the cats, is gentle with people and keeps her fur and pen clean. Her brothers Max, Vincent and Paul are the first tigers to romp in the mud.

“T.J. is very shy but demanding when it comes to attention,” co-founder Judy McGee said. “If he is not the first one greeted, he will pout.”

Kinkade and McGee have had to meet strict standards to be able to show the tigers to the public. High, secure fences allow visitors to be within 3 feet of the animals. And they can get really personal by feeding them through the fence with a plunger-like device.

“They know when it’s time to eat,” Kinkade said. “They are spoiled tigers.”

The tigers eat a mixture of chicken, beef and pork. They are picky, too, because they will not eat boneless or skinless chicken.

But the most important thing tigers in captivity need is love, Kinkade said.

“We treat them with compassion and love them, but they are still wild animals.”

Kinkade and McGee use their tigers as ambassadors for conservation and preservation education.

“Tigers are endangered animals that are on the verge of extinction,” McGee said. “We try to stop the endangerment of tigers.”

It was that interest that led them to adopt the five tiger siblings eight years ago.

“A breeder in Chicago had eight tigers taken away from him,” McGee said. “One of the female tigers was pregnant with five cubs and was stressed from being moved. We thought she was going to kill her cubs. So we took in the cubs.”

Kinkade and McGee have been with the now full-grown tigers since they were 2 days old. Visitors can watch home videos of the cubs playing with the owners’ small puppy in the main lobby of the sanctuary. At that time, the puppy was bigger than the tigers.

The National Tiger Sanctuary began in 2000 in partnership with De Paul University in Chicago to create an education center about the environment in Ste. Genevieve.

There is a classroom on the lower level of the sanctuary that educates children and adults about the tigers’ habitats, health and poaching.

“We have many elementary field trips come in,” Kinkade said. “We even had Tigers For Tigers from Mizzou come in to help us raise awareness of this amazing animal.”

The sanctuary offers three different tours. The general tour costs $10 for those age 13 and older and $5 for children age 2 to 12. The general feeding tour costs $25 and $15. The personal feeding tour, which allows the visitors to actually feed the tigers, costs $75. Children younger than 2 get into the sanctuary free.

For more information, call 573-483-3100, or go to nationaltigersanctuary.org.