Idaho Public Television to air ‘Ligertown’ documentary Thursday with never-before-seen video, photos
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LAVA HOT SPRINGS — The sun was starting to set on the evening of September 20, 1995. Just outside of Lava Hot Springs, Bruce Hansen was checking on his tomatoes when a large African lion walked across the road near his land. Within hours, law enforcement agents were swarming the hillside outside Lava Hot Springs, looking for more than a dozen lions that had escaped Ligertown Game Farm.
The lions belonged to Bob Fieber and Dottie Martin, the owners of Ligertown. The game farm was constructed from a collection of discarded wood, pallets, metal chain-link fence, and chicken wire. Fieber and Martin didn’t have money to properly build a game farm, so they took whatever they could get their hands on to build cages for a growing number of lions, a tiger and hybrid wolves.
The undersheriff at the time, Lorin Neilsen, says the couple mated male lions and a female tiger to create a number of ligers. Fieber and Martin hoped to one day open the game farm to visitors. Many thought it was a fun idea for southeast Idaho. Many in the community supported the farm by providing dead livestock as feed.
But it was only a matter of time before the cages weren’t enough to keep the hungry lions in. Featuring never-before-seen video and pictures, Idaho Experience looks at the week lions were on the loose. “Ligertown” airs Thursday, Feb. 16, at 8:30 p.m. and repeats Sunday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m. Watch a preview of the episode in the video player above.
It will be available for streaming on the PBS Video app and online at video.idahoptv.org.