The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A sanctuary for the animals
A couple renovated the Lilburn game ranch and gave new life to the attraction.
Matt Damon starred in a 2011 film called “We Bought a Zoo.” He played a widower seeking a new life with his two kids by buying and fixing up a zoo despite zero knowledge of how to run one.
The Ordway family of Lilburn in 2018 ended up buying a zoo themselves — or in this case, the Yellow River Game Ranch, a 58-yearold operation just five minutes from their home. The night they closed the deal, Jonathan Ordway celebrated by watching a DVD of that film with his wife and four kids. But as Damon’s character struggled with renovations, Jonathan’s joy slipped away.
“I had a panic attack,” he said. Indeed, many of their friends and family thought they were crazy to embark on such a risky venture, but they were undeterred.
Jonathan, 42, and his wife Katy, 40, immediately renamed the place Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary, a more apt name for 2020. At first, Jonathan thought he could build a few fences and have the place reopened in three to six months. But repairs ended up taking two full years.
“We first had a two-page list of things to do,” he said. “It eventually became 25 pages.”
The Ordways, who manage about a dozen apartment complexes, townhomes and condos with no background in running zoos, invested their life savings into the operation, and finances forced their hand.
“Katy said we’re just about broke, so we gotta get open,” Jonathan said.
Guests began entering again May 14, six weeks later than expected because of the COVID19 pandemic. They are currently open four days a week and have limited attendance to encourage social distancing. There are no walk-up sales — just online reservations.
Despite the challenges, Jonathan said he’s OK with fewer people on the grounds.
“I want it to be an enjoyable experience,” he said. “The crowds are good. I don’t want this to be Six Flags. I want people to leave here feeling calmer and better than when you came in.”
Visitors at Yellow River last Saturday were impressed by the makeover, many coming west from towns such as Sugar Hill, Monroe and Covington. They preferred Yellow River over Grant Park’s Zoo Atlanta as more convenient, less costly, more interactive and far shadier.
Gregory Hall, a systems engineer from Decatur, stopped by Yellow River after driving his 7-year-old son, Mason, to swim class a month ago. Mason loved it so much, they visited four more times in the past month.
Hall remembered what the place was like before the Ordways took over.
“It looks so much better,” he said, while watching his son play in the rabbit yard. “They’ve paved the roads. They have more exotic
animals. The place looks more manicured. There’s hand sanitizer everywhere. It’s a lot cleaner. It smells better. The animals look much healthier.”
The sanctuary’s roots go back nearly six decades.
Art Rilling, now 92, opened what was originally the Stone Mountain Game Ranch in 1962 at Stone Mountain Park. It was more a petting zoo than game ranch, but he was from Texas and liked the “game ranch” name better.
It became a popular attraction in the 1960s and 1970s. Visitors hand-fed tame deer wandering around the ranch and oohed and aahed as a caged black bear named Fuzzy would open a can of Coke and guzzle it. But as his 20-year lease came up, Rilling said he knew the Stone Mountain Park officials were eyeing to push him out, so he found a new space in Lilburn off I-78 in 1982. He renamed it Yellow River Game Ranch.
On his own, Rilling had to up his marketing game. He’d hold buffalo chip throw- ing contests and Easter egg hunts. But his best idea? Turning a tame groundhog named Gen. Beauregard Lee into a Dixie version of the weather-prediction Punx- sutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. He received an annual dose of publicity from that event.
Rilling said he never tracked annual attendance all that carefully but peak days could bring in up to 4,000 people. School field trips were reliable income.
But over time, the place lost some of its luster. Animal rights groups targeted Rilling’s treatment of the animals, which he said he tried to address. A massive flood in 2009 damaged many of the enclosures and took six months to fix back up. In 2010, due to changing regulations, he said he was forced to fence in the deer. “We lost some of our appeal then,” he said.
And as Rilling entered his 80s, his knees made it dif- ficult for him to walk and supervise staff. So in 2013, at age 86, he handed dayto-day operations over to an employee Cody Reeves, who purchased part of the ranch as well.
Unfortunately, under Reeves, attendance continued to drop, repairs were deferred and animal care suffered. (Reeves did not respond to texts and calls for comment.)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture cited Yellow River for poor treatment of some of its animals and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called for the place to be shut down. Reeves at the end of 2017 did just that. Most of the hundreds of animals were relocated to other sanctuaries. Gen. Beauregard Lee found a new home at Dauset Trails in Jackson.
Enter Jonathan and Katy, who grew up going to the game ranch as children and continued to visit once they had kids.
So when the place shut down, they took a major leap of faith, negotiating a deal to buy the property from Rilling and Reeves in 2018.
Jonathan became the idea person. Katy was the money person. “We make a good team,” Jonathan said.
They first had to get the guts fixed. Piping and electrical had to be replaced.
Another major change was the bear sanctuary. Previously, the four female teenage black bears lived in tiny metal enclosures on concrete.
The Ordways created a two-acre fenced space with hills, trees and a watering hole for the bears, simulating their natural North Geor- gia habitat.
Another rebuild was the worn-down petting zoo — which now has alpacas, goats, lambs, pigs, a steer and a donkey named Donkey.
Once they took over, only the bison, the peacocks, vultures, pot-bellied pigs, turtles and bears remained. Over two years, the Ordways have been building and rehab- bing enclosures to accommodate new animals. Spider monkeys and lemurs came from a breeder leaving the business. A serval, an Afri- can wild cat, was found as an illegal pet in Buckhead. A red-tailed hawk was previously owned by actor Wade
Williams (“Prison Break”). Others arrived via wildlife rehabbers, animals deemed too tame to place back in the wild.
The Ordways sought advice from three agencies they needed to ensure the sanctuary could reopen: the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the USDA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They had to jump plenty of hurdles to get proper licenses and permits from all three.
But they eventually won over the skeptical officials at the agencies.
“They were idealistic when they came in,” said Sgt. Wayne Hubbard, special permits unit for the DNR. “But they asked the right questions, listened and did a good job hiring employees with experience. They didn’t proclaim to be animal experts, so they hired some.”
The sanctuary has about a dozen full-time employees, 45 maintenance and construction workers from their apartment complex business and no shortage of volunteers.
Clint Murphy, Yellow River’s 52-year-old animal manager and curator, has 20 years experience in zookeeping. Disillusioned, he almost left the business but was enticed by the Ordways to jump aboard in 2018.
“It’s clear this place had a dedicated fan base going back decades,” Murphy said. “I want to continue that great family feeling and bring things to modern standards.”
That includes adding fans and heating units for many of the animals to deal with climate extremes in Georgia. They do daily enrichment training for many of the animals including the spider monkeys and wild cats to keep them mentally stimulated.
He and the Ordways have a five-year plan to add more attractions and create educational programs and camps. “It’s an amazing place with an amazing set of possibilities,” Murphy said.