Rajani Ferrante has raised a lot of liger cubs. In fact, she has raised more liger cubs than any other female big cat trainer in the world. Rajani Ferrante has personally raised 11 liger cubs over the span of 20 years. She has been raising liger cubs, since 1990s. Rajani Ferrante works as an animal trainer at Myrtle Beach Safari, which is located at South Carolina, USA. She is currently the director at Myrtle Beach Safari and she has raised dozens of other big cat cubs at the Safari. World's biggest and famous liger, Hercules the liger, is also the part of Myrtle Beach Safari as well. As of 2016, Rajani Ferrante has more than 26 years of experience of raising liger cubs and cubs of other big cats. She is the only woman to have this much amount of experience to raise the ligers and their cubs as a whole.
The very first litter of liger cubs, which Rajani Ferrante raised was Sudan and Samson the ligers. Both Sudan and Samson were one of the biggest ligers in the world during 1990s. On second occasion Rajani Ferrante raised a litter of 4 liger cubs at Myrtle Beach Safari. The names of these liger cubs were Hercules, Vulcan, Zeus and Sinbad the liger. Rajani Ferrante has raised these liger cubs from the time of their births and made them huge big cats weighing more than 900 pounds. Rajani Ferrante raised these liger cubs from 2002 onwards. As of 2017, all of these 4 liger cubs (now fully mature ligers) are still alive and they are living at Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina, USA and at Jungle Island in Miami, Florida, USA.
In January 2014; Rajani Ferrante appeared with one of the world's rarest and first ever white liger cubs. A white liger cub is born to a male white lion and a female white tigress. World's famous media groups such as Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, The Age Australia etc. all published the news of these white liger cubs. The names of these white liger cubs were Odlin, Apollo, Samson and Yeti the liger. Rajani Ferrante appeared as holding one of these four liger cubs in a group photograph along with Moksha bybee, China York and Kody Antle. As soon as the liger cubs were born at Myrtle Beach Safari, Rajani Ferrante was one of the key persons to take care of these white liger cubs.
Rajani Ferrante has appeared in various television channels i.e., National Geographic, The Daily, Animal Planet, CNN etc. in which she educated people about ligers and liger cubs. In one of her interviews on television, Rajani Ferrante stated that she raised them (Hercules and his brothers) right from their birth. Now they have grown up as the biggest cats in the world but she never feels afraid of them. Hercules the liger is officially declared as the biggest (non-obese) cat on earth in Guinness Book of World Records. She further quoted that she might be scared of jumping out of plane but she is never scared of working with her liger cubs. The ligers in fact consider Rajani Ferrante as their mother.
Rajani Ferrante maintains a very close interaction with the liger cubs. This helps her to tame her liger cubs very easily even when they grow up as well. She has been observed as, swimming along with liger cubs in pools, feeding them milk, playing with them and even hugging, cuddling, caressing & kissing the liger cubs. She also trains them for under water swimming as well. Myrtle Beach Safari has a huge glass aquarium which allows, the visitors to watch her swim with the liger cubs. Such a profound interaction with liger cubs helps, the animal trainers like Rajani Ferrante to maintain a positive relationship with the liger cubs. This positive relationship makes a big impact to boost their health as well. A trainer and caretaker holds the key for the future behavior (either aggressive or mild behavior) of the big cat cubs.
Rajani Ferrante is just like a mother for the liger cubs at Myrtle Beach Safari. Rajani looks after them almost 24/7 and they stay with her for the first 5 months during which they become huge very quickly. Rajani Ferrante even knows the favorite music of the ligers and according to her they love mostly the Jazz music. In a very famous photograph Rajani Ferrante is seen driving a Safari cart and a white liger cub (Yeti the liger) is sitting on the back seat of the safari cart. The picture was taken at Myrtle Beach Safari and it became a huge social media sensation. Similarly, on ABC News Rajani Ferrante is seen feeding a liger cub which is believed to be Hercules the liger when he was a small liger cub.
Birth Record of Liger Cubs in China
Liger Cubs at Myrtle Beach Safari