Podcasts about florida wildlife commission

In this episode of Animal House, we talk to Elizabeth and Mike McAleenan, the owners and operators of Little Bit Wildlife Rescue, the only licensed permitted Wildlife Rehab facility in Lake County listed on the FWC, the Florida Wildlife Commission's website, to locate Wildlife Rehabbers. Elizabeth and Mike talk about their organization and how a podcast scam has affected the number of followers on their Facebook page. To show your support and to learn more, go to www.littlebitwildliferescue.org or give them a call at (561) 270-9328.

In this episode of Animal House, we talk to Elizabeth and Mike McAleenan, the owners and operators of Little Bit Wildlife Rescue, the only licensed permitted Wildlife Rehab facility in Lake County listed on the FWC, the Florida Wildlife Commission's website, to locate Wildlife Rehabbers. Elizabeth and Mike talk about their organization and how a podcast scam has affected the number of followers on their Facebook page. To show your support and to learn more, go to www.littlebitwildliferescue.org or give them a call at (561) 270-9328.

Marion County Commissioner Carl Zalak on the Bob Rose Show 9-5-24 discussing activities in the County. Blue Run Park will be managed by the County, in a partnership with the City of Dunnellon. The gator hunting season with the Florida Wildlife Commission ends Nov. 1, and Marion County has some prime harvesting areas. The County is honoring area non-profits benefitting cancer research and local families affected by cancer during Childhood Cancer Month in September. And Marion County is holding a 9-11 remembrance ceremony on Wednesday

The 33rd annual Gainesville CCA fundraising banquet and auction is Thursday September 12th. Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) Florida is a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of Florida's marine resources. Mark Hurm discussed the event benefits water protection, fishing, and cleanup efforts, and their work with the Florida Wildlife Commission to improve the state's important waterways. Tickets at https://ccaflorida.org/event/gainesville-banquet-and-auction-2/

S2E045 - Agents from the Florida Wildlife Commission make an unannounced raid on a Florida reptile farm and proceed to kill nearly 40 snakes housed there, including a perfectly legal pregnant boa. Joe shares the story of the two times he was bitten by a 11-foot Burmese python.

20 Year Plan 2005-2025   It is a working document that was last updated in 2013 so it's time to re evaluate where we are and how to get where we are going.  I inaccurately predicted that by 2014 we would have passed the Big Cat Act.  I originally thought we would have it introduced by 2010, but it was 5/21/2013 before we managed to get in introduced and my new prediction is that it will pass in the 2019-2020 session.   Turns out I was way too optimistic about having Florida, the worst state in the union when it comes to big cat ownership, pass a law to ban private possession by 2009.   The next worst state, Ohio, did pass such a law in 2012 and the third worst state, Texas, finally did require that owners register and be overseen by local authorities, but no one really does that.  Howie has had the facts, for many years, to prove that legislators CAN pass a bill to ban private possession in Florida (despite the Florida Wildlife Commission's claim to the contrary) but we put it on a back burner because the federal ban will make that point moot.  Recently Howie has been working more on the Florida constitution issue by engaging the Florida Bar Animal Section.   My new prediction is that Florida will pass such a ban after the federal bill passes in the upcoming session, just to save face.   I had predicted that the circus would meet with its demise in 2011, so I was off by 7 years if you consider Ringling's closure this year to be the death nell in the U.S.  For the past several years similar bans have been passing in 40 other countries.  I think by 2020 it will be gone everywhere.   I thought we could end fur farming and trapping by 2007 with our campaign that focused on “Fur makes you smell bad and look fat.”  The photo is me in 2005 protesting in front of Westshore Mall on Fur Free Friday (an annual November event).  2018 turned out to be the year that fashion turned its back on the barbaric use of fur and it became a shameful act of selfishness to wear fur.       In some ways, I'm glad to have been wrong in my prophecies, because in 2005 I thought that by 2012 all wild cat species would be in such peril that they would all be on the IUCN Red List.  I thought that the resultant protections for wild counterparts would result in such intensive inbreeding in zoos that they would not be able to breed and exhibit big cats by 2013 or any species of exotic cat by 2015.   Where I was sadly wrong is that I thought people would be so much better educated by then that they wouldn't patronize zoos.     Zoos have been around for 190 years under the auspices of furthering our education and concern for preserving habitat starting with London's Regent's Park in 1828. Zoo attendance had started to decline but lately is increasing.  I'm not too concerned though because I think it's more a matter of zoos changing their business model from jail cells full of languishing wildlife to theme parks with roller coasters and rides to be playgrounds for children to run wild.  I think zoos are uniquely positioned to make the most of 360, immersive, virtual reality and will transition from prisons to edu-tainment meccas.  For big cats; I am going to predict that none will be displayed in zoos by 2023 and smaller cat species will no longer be held captive in zoos by 2025.   Given my overly optimistic projections in 2005, where I thought exotic cats would no longer be held in private possession, zoos or circuses by 2015, I had reasoned that all of them in cages would have died out by 2025.  Now I have to push that back a bit so here is my updated timeline:   2020 - Ban on private ownership results in most captive cats going into sanctuaries where they will die out by 2028.  Fur farming and fur trapping will end because 2018 saw massive adoption of a NO FUR policy across most popular designers and brands, with some cities even passing bans.    2023 - Zoos ditch the last of their big cats to make space for more lucrative experiences on that valuable real estate.  Those cats end up in sanctuaries where most will die out by 2031.  Since there are currently about 800 big cats in AZA zoos and maybe another 1000 in non accredited zoos, there are plenty of sanctuaries who can manage the cast off cats.    2025 - Zoos ditch the last of their small cats to make space for more lucrative experiences on that valuable real estate.  Those cats end up in sanctuaries where most will die out by 2033.   Since small cats are not a big draw in zoos, I believe their numbers to only be about 1/3 of the big cat census.  There are very, very few small cats in private possession and plenty of sanctuary space for them.  Heck, Big Cat Rescue alone could probably take in all of the currently possessed for the rest of their lives.     Hunting wasn't a topic I'd included in the original 20 year plan.  Hunters and anglers combined are 3% of the population and although I couldn't find exact stats, I believe that hunters are only about 1% of our population.  Recent reports based on hunting permits indicate a 1% net loss in hunters as fewer begin hunting and more stop hunting.  What will cause those 3-3.5 million (mostly men) from killing for sport?  Public opinion.  As new fathers fail to introduce their children to the concept of killing animals for fun, it will die out within the next generation.  I think sport hunting for cats will be a thing of the past by 2024.  Yesterday Apple News listed their top 6 stories for the day and one was the public outcry at a hunter killing a cougar.  We are on our way. But will it be in time to save them in the wild?   At our current rate of poaching, tigers will be gone in the wild by 2024.  Leopards will be gone by 2027 and lions will be gone by 2030.  I could begin backdating from those inevitabilities with plans to change the outcome, but climate change may make that all pointless.  Most scientist now concur that by 2030 we will already be experiencing the point of no return, with oceans dying, sea levels rising above coastal cities, and our food sources being wiped out due to the loss of bees, uncontrollable fires and droughts.    The world has warmed more than one degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. The Paris climate agreement signed on Earth Day in 2016 hoped to restrict warming to two degrees. The odds of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are one in 20. If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world's tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “a prescription for long-term disaster.” Long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario. Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: the loss of most coastal cities (Tampa).  Four degrees: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; Polynesia swallowed by the sea; the Colorado River thinned to a trickle; the American Southwest largely uninhabitable. The prospect of a five-degree warming has prompted some of the world's leading climate scientists to warn of the end of human civilization.   If human beings really were able to take the long view — to consider seriously the fate of civilization decades or centuries after our deaths — we would be forced to grapple with the transience of all we know and love in the great sweep of time. So we have trained ourselves, whether culturally or evolutionarily, to obsess over the present, worry about the medium term and cast the long term out of our minds, as we might spit out a poison.  As Jim Hansen said, “From a technology and economics standpoint, it is still readily possible to stay under two degrees Celsius.” We can trust the technology and the economics. It's harder to trust human nature. Keeping the planet to two degrees of warming, let alone 1.5 degrees, would require transformative action. It will take more than good works and voluntary commitments; it will take a revolution. But in order to become a revolutionary, you need first to suffer.   The earth is now as warm as it was before the last ice age, 115,000 years ago, when the seas were more than six meters higher than they are today.  We can't just cut back on emissions to stop the race toward our own extinction.  We have to extract more carbon dioxide from the air than we contribute to it.  Stats from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html     I believe that people will save the tiger when they won't think about saving the planet.  The two are intricately interlinked because healthy wild tiger populations can only happen where there are healthy forests and drinkable water.  Some people may think I have a very limited focus and have mis spent my life protecting exotic cats when our planet may soon be uninhabitable, but I've always believed we have to save the tiger to save our own life support system.

Joe Schreibvogel is just one of several exotic cat exploiters who has threatened my life. The Florida Wildlife Commission's stated mission is to Protect and Serve, but in my experience they only protect their right to kill animals and preserve that right at all costs.  Most of the physical attacks on me have happened while trying to speak up for animals at FWC meetings.  In the past they have typically turned a blind eye to it.  I'm hopeful that considering the actions of the USFWS and FBI on the Schreibvogel case, that it will become safer for those advocating to protect animals at these meetings.   One case, in particular that leaps to mind is where I was walking down a long hall to a set of double doors where the FWC was holding a stakeholder meeting.  That is usually a crowd of hunters and fishermen lobbying for more ways to kill animals and me and two or three other women who would attend to oppose the land grabs and free for all hunting regs.  There would always be a lot of intimidation at those meetings, but this time was worse.   Coming down the hall behind me this time was Vernon Yates.  He was a trapper that FWC could call on to pick up any kind of nuisance animal or for any seizure of illegally kept exotics.  We were told Vernon Yates would then sell those animals back into the pet trade or feed them to his growing collection in his backyard, but we could never prove it.  His yard was less than 2 acres and borders a grade school playground.  He had something like 75 big cats, bears, and other exotics there at the time.   I was there to ask for a ban on the private possession of exotic cats.  Vernon Yates was there to make sure no ban took place.  He is a violent man and has physically attacked me twice. I was gathering up all my courage to go through those double doors, knowing I would be greeted by a room full of hostility.  I didn't hear him come up behind me and lunge for me, until just as I opened the doors.   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  These are my views and opinions. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.  Closing graphic with permission from https://youtu.be/F_AtgWMfwrk

Growing up in Florida in a family of hunters and hunting/fishing myself has presented me with an opportunity to appreciate the amazing habitats and wild environments that the sunshine state has to offer. My good friend and avid hunter Nick and I talk about the beauty of our home state, the essential role of hunting in conservation and how our place in this incredible ecosystem can benefit or harm every link in the food chain. I hope conversations like this can help bridge the divide between hunters and non-hunters and illuminate the respect and passion that we have for the animals we share this great land (and water) with. For more information about the Florida Wildlife Commission, hunting and conservation efforts in Florida check out https://myfwc.com/For more conversations that cut through the noise stay right here and subscribe on whichever platform you prefer! Links to audio and videos of my episodes are included here, and for more content I create outside of the podcast (gaming videos, music and news) follow my YouTube channel: https://linktr.ee/tindelsrazor

Hawthorn Circus Tigers John Cuneo I sent this to the USDA and FWC:   I've been asked by John Cuneo's personal care givers to take his last 9 tigers.  They say he is willing to cancel his USDA and any state licenses, in exchange for me taking them off his hands immediately.  There seems to be quite a bit of urgency on his part, so I want to be sure I am not interfering with anything you guys may be planning.   I also want to ask for your direction on HOW to legally transfer them from him to us.  His caregivers don't seem to understand, or know anything about the FWC requirements for possession or transfer.  They say they will contact their HQ in IL on Monday to see if they have anything that will satisfy our/your requirement that the cats be transferred to Big Cat Rescue by someone who is legally permitted to have them in FL.   Do you know what kind of permit they have, or we need, in order to move the cats here Monday afternoon?   Below is my correspondence w/ the caregivers:   Dear Chris and Suzanne, on behalf of John Cuneo; I got your inventory list, so I can create the USDA transfer form if this info is correct:   THE HAWTHORN CORPORATION    23675 W CHARDON ROAD    LAKE    GRAYS LAKE  IL  60030   33-C-0053   The part I don't know and would need before I can take them is the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) permit info.  It is a state permit in addition to the federal USDA permit.   In the state of Florida, in order for me (or anyone in FL) to legally accept a tiger from someone, they have to either be brought in via an Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) import permit OR the owner of the tiger has to have a Florida Wildlife Commission permit to house them in the state.   I'm guessing that if the cats came in, just to do some shows, then they had to have an import / travel permit from the Florida Wildlife Commission (myfwc.com) but that may not be what is needed to actually transfer them to a Florida licensee permanently.   I am not aware of Michael Ramos having an FWC permit to possess tigers, but he might. I just don't know how that works when cats are expected to just be here for a while and then go back.   Unless the tigers are possessed by someone who has an FWC possession permit, I might not be able to take them, unless I can get the FWC to allow us to take them based on their existing travel permit.  The FWC won't be open until Monday for me to confirm that though.   Can you text or email me what you can find so we can see if we have what we need to make this happen?   Please advise.   For the cats,   Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue   The FWC asked for me to gather all the info I could on where the cats were, which I could only presume were with Ramos, and then followed up with:   Happy to help in any way I can.  If you can't find the tigers, I am willing to try and force the issue of my inspection of them, which you will be invited to attend of course. :-)   We have 9 empty tiger enclosures open and waiting for the cats, so if you seize them, we are prepared to take all of them, and hold them if there is any litigation, but my sense of the matter is that John Cuneo is ready to let them go.   According to news reports dating back to 2003, John Cuneo has been trying to unload his tigers and elephants for a decade, with no takers. He tried to pay me $1000 per cat to take his cats from him years ago.   In 2015 he asked me to take his last 28 tigers, via Glenn L. Hamilton who is the Vice President of Real Estate at Bank of America, Private Wealth Management (US Trust) in downtown Chicago.  It's my understanding he is John Cuneo's money manager.  At that time Glenn was fearful Cuneo may sell them into a worse life than they have.  Mr. Cuneo's family started Bank of America and his vast amount of wealth (or what's left of it) is still held under Trust at Bank of America.  Some say he started the white tiger trade in the United States.   Our goal is to end it.  Cuneo's driver told us they already placed 7 tigers who were in IL and that these are the last 9.  As you know any tigers coming to us will be spayed, neutered or housed separately to prevent adding to the big cat crisis in America.  To that end, I ask that you keep our correspondence anonymous, so that the lawbreaking dealers and usual suspects do not obtain this email thread and move Cuneo's cats into situations where they will perpetuate the abuse.   Once the cats are safely in our possession, we will be happy to go public in any lawsuit the state may bring against John Cuneo and Hawthorn Corporation.   Later note:  These cats ended up at a different sanctuary that agreed to Cuneo's terms.   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.  Closing graphic with permission from https://youtu.be/F_AtgWMfwrk  

Welcome back to the Thirty Tude Podcast! Today I am joined by my fellow coworker Marissa and we are breaking down the Grammy's, KRAVIS, and the latest in pop culture. We also essentially become the Florida Wildlife Commission during this episode, and I love that for us. Below are the current trending stories! KRAVIS gets Married! (TMZ, E! News) Bruce Willis Stepping Back from Acting Amid Aphasia Diagnosis (E! News) Kanye backs out of Coachella (Variety) Elon Musk Takes Largest Twitter Stake (Instagram) Follow Marissa @arbitrary_anything Follow me @thirtytudepod on Instagram/Tiktok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thirtytudepod/message

I'm proud of Jamie and Justin  for trying to derail the plan to delist the Florida Panther but it failed.  At 5 am she texted me to say, “The downcast of the panthers was a collaboration between Canada and the U.S.  When it came time to present their proposal the U.S. said that because of the feedback from constituents here they now reject the proposal but recused themselves from voting.  Half of the neighboring countries voted against it.  Mexico and some European and Asian countries voted for it.  It ended up passing.  The Florida Panther has now been down listed to Appendix II.  We tried.”   Call me cynical, but here's my read on this:   The USFWS was no help at all to the Florida Panther when the Florida Wildlife Commission tried to change the rules in Florida so that the panthers could be killed if they were in the way of Florida Wildlife Commissioner Priddy's planned development in the heart of Florida Panther territory.  The people of Florida were so outraged that I believe the USFWS went to Canada and said, "Hey, you guys like offering trophy hunts of endangered species, like wolves and polar bears, so how about we let you guys continue to export those into the U.S. and you help us pave Florida under by proposing to delist the Florida Panther?"  Why not?  Canada doesn't have any Florida Panthers.  No state, other than Florida has any Florida Panthers.  That's why they're called Florida Panthers.   But, the USFWS isn't expecting anyone from the U.S. to be there and see what's happening until they get called on the carpet by Big Cat Rescuers, Jamie and Justin Boorstein.  To save face they rally plenty of other countries who want to consume every last wild animal on the planet, to assist their virility, because goodness knows there aren't enough of them, so that the U.S. can say, "oh, we didn't know Americans cared about the Florida Panther, but since they do, we will just sit this one out"...even though it was their plan from the beginning.  And don't let them tell you they didn't know.  As soon as the ill fated plan was made known we have been all over it, along with a number of other leading non profit organizations.   cites-letter-opposing-canada-proposal-downlist-florida-panther   South Florida developers must be licking their chops now as there is far less standing in their way of building more cities and killing more wildlife in Florida.   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.  Closing graphic with permission from https://youtu.be/F_AtgWMfwrk

2015 Annual Report   This is a playlist of our most recent videos and an easy way to see what we have been doing at Big Cat Rescue.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QKQ3naQyag&list=PLsmHBgbkKIERsX0faHHQWq9UdQskxJnVJ   With your help we are winning in the battle for compassion! Up until 2003 the number of requests for rescues we had to turn down due to lack of space or funds had roughly doubled each year, to 312 that year. We feared it would double again to over 500 in 2004. Instead, it has steadily declined since then thanks to the passage of a federal bill and several state bills that restrict the ownership of exotic cats. This year there were “only” 19 big cats who came to our attention as being abandoned. We were able to take in  4 tigers, 1 leopard and 7 rehab bobcats.   We offered to take 3 more of the cats if their owners would contract to never own another exotic cat.  The cats we did not take were those whose owners refused or another sanctuary offered space first.  There is no point to our taking in cats just so an owner can go buy another cute cub to use and discard.   Another great result of more bans on private ownership is that the number of killings, maulings and escapes are on the decline in the U.S. as well.  In 2015 there was one mauling in NE, 6 escapes (CA, IN, MI, NC, OK & WA) and 13 confiscations (OH).  These events involved 14 tigers, 1 lion, 1 liger, 1 leopard, 1 cougar, 1 cheetah, & 1 serval.   Animal Care   Abandoned Big Cats 2015   2015 was the second best year for big cats.  “Only” 19 calls for rescues came to our attention and the only year with fewer was 2011.  As more states pass bans and partial bans, fewer and fewer big cats end up in peril.   Rescues   Rescued 12 exotic cats, including Tigers: Emily, Jessica, Lily and Teisha, a Leopard named Shadow and Rehab Bobcats: Journey, Phoenix, Captiva, Rain, Dancer, and Mr and Mrs. Claws.  Emily, Jessica, Lily and Shadow (NKA Sapphire, Duchess, Jasmine and Jinx)are still part of a lawsuit, so they are just boarded here until it is resolved.  We were called out on a total of 12 bobcat calls this year, which is three times higher than any previous year.   Newborn kittens who are brought to Animal Control are routinely killed because with their immature immune systems they do not survive in the shelter environment.  So we began a foster kitten program with our interns as the fosters in 2013  We have saved 275 kittens from being killed.  We raise them until they are 2 pounds and healthy, then bring them to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay to be fixed and adopted out.  You can watch our foster kittens in their play room live every day at http://explore.org/live-cams/player/big-cat-rescue-kitten-cabana   By the end of this year,  we have 88 exotic cats and 66 of them are over the age of 12.  56 of those are over the age of 15; and 20 of those are over the age of 20. This is well beyond how long they are designed to live in the wild and much older than most zoo cats. This is a testament to the excellent animal care we provide, but we are dealing with many more age related illnesses and are losing more of our big cat friends every year.   Windsong Memorial Hospital   Thanks to the generous donation of an X-ray machine, followed by many donors chipping in to fund a proper building for it, the Windsong Memorial Hospital broke ground in 2014 and had its first big patient by January 2015.  We have had over 90 veterinary procedures since then, further validating the need for this wonderful hospital.  Thank you to everyone who helped build and outfit it so that our cats don't have the stress and danger of travel to an off site clinic.  We still need a sonogram machine to be fully self contained, but that requires specialists to operate them, so it was last on our list. Award Winning Sanctuary   Top Rated Non Profit at Great Non Profits   We have received this award every year since they started awarding it in 2010 due to the many great reviews we get from visitors and donors each year.   2015 Give Day Tampa Bay as the winner of the most prize money and winner of the most donors on that day.   We again received Charity Navigator's highest four star rating and are the highest rated wild animal sanctuary in their numeric scoring system.   Outreach: Education & Advocacy   In 2015 we hired Jennifer Leon as the Director of Outreach. Jennifer manages our education programs, advocacy campaigns, and community outreach activities.   Education   We gave 70 educational tours to school and community groups last year and did dozens of on-site presentations at schools throughout Tampa Bay, including 27 presentations provided by senior BCR volunteers through Hillsborough County Public Schools' SERVE Volunteers in Education program.   We once again participated in the Great American Teach-In. Big Cat Rescuers spoke to over twelve hundred students between kindergarten and eighth grade at schools in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Pasco, and Manatee counties.   We also engaged with students from across the country and globe assisting and collaborating on school projects and university research papers, as well as facilitated school and scout fundraising projects to help the cats and educate students.   In an effort to educate broader audiences about the plight of captive big cats and reach those who can vote for and promote legislation to protect big cats, Big Cat Rescue was represented at conferences across the United States. We were very successful at actively engaging new supporters and getting wide spread support for our federal bill.   Advocacy   Prior to bringing back the Call of the Wild in Fall of 2015, visitors to the sanctuary had two opportunities to advocate for big cats. At the start of the year our guests submitted hundreds of comments to the FWC in support of stricter regulations for captive big cats in Florida. Throughout the Spring and Summer, 2,670 guests took the Pledge to be Circus Free upon returning from their tour. These actions are in addition to the thousands that signed the pledge online and hundreds of AdvoCats who submitted comments electronically to the FWC.   We have also expanded engagement with our AdvoCats. There is now an active AdvoCats Facebook group where AdvoCats can be part of the big cat community, posts action alerts, discuss the issues, and take action on alerts and activities led by Big Cat Rescue. It has also become a forum for us to highlight the many successes of our AdvoCats – from hosting protest rallies and tabling events to publishing books and blogs promoting the welfare of big cats.   Community Outreach   Big Cat Rescue continues to be a valued member of the Tampa Bay community. We participated in a variety of free family events such as EcoFest, VegFest, and St. Francis Day blessings. We've had the honor of speaking at various philanthropic clubs and collaborated with groups throughout the state for the benefit of big cats and community.   BigCatRescue.org gets about 2.5 million unique visitors per year. Our website is primarily an educational tool and according to Alexa we are ranked 113,078 worldwide and 34,572 most visited website in the U.S. in 2015 which was more than doubling of our site's popularity over 2013. We have 998 other sites linking to us.   Our web site addresses local and global concerns about environment and has over 10,359 pages of information, movie clips, sounds, safe interactive online games with a conservation theme and photos. In any given week the visitors will be from more than 200 countries outside of the U.S.   The information provided has helped wildlife rehabilitators identify animals and obtain proper care instruction and helped officials in smuggling cases to identify rare species of exotic cats being illegally traded.  Those are just a few of the ways that we know the site has had an impact this year.   Legislation   The steady increase in legislation banning private ownership represents recognition by our society that private ownership leads to widespread abuse.  Social values evolve.  It took decades to ban slavery in England and for women to win the right to vote in America.  Those ideas started out as “radical” and were held by a small minority.  Gradually more and more people understood and agreed until they became a part of our value system that we take for granted today.   The same trend is happening with private ownership of exotics.  Gradually more and more people are realizing that this simply leads to widespread abuse of these animals.  The best evidence of this is the accelerating trend in state laws.   Just since 2005 nine more states have passed some level of ban.  Internationally 40 countries have banned or restricted the utilization of big cats in circuses.  It is time for the U.S. & South Africa to do the same!   We invited our on site guests to call their Senators and Representatives asking them to support the Big Cats and Public Safety Act this year, resulting in 1,100 calls made from guests at Big Cat Rescue and many more that they made from home afterward.   One of the most painful things we did this year was to change service providers for our advocacy and customer management.  We really liked Voter Voice and Blackbaud, but the two platforms just didn't play well together and after much agonizing we decided to move our entire database of visitors and donors and all of our advocacy work into Salsa.  That happened in May, so the figures below are only from about June through the end of 2015.   While we wish that more than 14% of animal lovers on our mailing list would take the time to speak up for the animals, the ones who did were awesome.   Some of the wins from these campaigns were:   1. 46 Representatives joined the 2 bill sponsors by co sponsoring the Big Cat Public Safety Act (HR3546) 2. Delta agreed to stop shipping in big cat trophies. 3. A lion cub who was being beaten up by his father at a backyard zoo was transferred to another facility. 4. More than 2,000 people spoke up for the Florida Panther when the Florida Wildlife Commission tried to abandon their recovery.   Imagine what we could have accomplished if just 25% of our mailing list were to take action for the animals?  This is an easy, no cost way for us to have a huge impact collectively.  If you have not yet been active in taking action when we send alerts asking you to email a legislator, regulator or venue hosting an abusive animal exhibit, please make 2016 the year you join in.   You CAN make a difference – the many supporters who do send these emails have proven it!   The most vivid example is our having gotten owners of over 200 malls to agree not to allow cub petting exhibits, saving all those cubs from a miserable life on the road and being sleep deprived as they are handled or restrained for photo opportunities hour after hour.   You can make ending big cat abuse part of the legacy of your life with just a few emails each year.   Big Cat iBooks and eBooks   LaWanna Mitchell is an amazing woman.  She started out as a volunteer and became a remote contractor for us years ago.  She lives in Missouri, out in the country with her horses, and I get emails from her telling me that she just spent the last two hours, up on a step ladder with a blow dryer trying to melt the ice off her antenna because she doesn't want to lose another day of working online.  On those days when she is just completely snowed in, she just can't stop working and has taught herself how to build books in iBooks for iTunes and for Amazon.   The iBooks currently in iTunes are: • Common Myths That Fuel the Cruel Big Cat Selfie Trade • The Dunking, Two Tigers & A Lesson in Friendship • The Elusive Sand Cat • The Black-footed Cat • Shaquille Shattered Dreams • Who Is Big Cat Rescue? • Tigrina or Oncilla • Black Panthers Fact or Myth • China Doll Loves Her Pumpkin • What Do You See? • Meet JoJo a Wildcat Hybrid • Lions of Big Cat Rescue • Bobcats of Big Cat Rescue • Big Cat Attacks • Big Cat Care: How To Start A Sanctuary • The African Wild Dog •  • The Kindle Books currently in Amazon are: • Bobcats of Big Cat Rescue • The Dunking • The Elusive Sand Cat • The Black-footed Cat  • Big Cat Attacks • Lions of Big Cat Rescue • What Do You See? • The African Wild Dog   Wins for the Big Cats in 2015   11/3/15  WA voters on November 3, 2015 overwhelmingly approved Initiative Measure 1401, introducing state-level felony penalties for the purchase, sale, and/or distribution of products made from elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, sea turtles, pangolins, sharks and rays.   10/22/15 Elkhart, TX passes a ban on dangerous wild animals, including nonhuman primates, skunks, jaguars, leopards, lynxes, tigers, lions, panthers, bears, coyotes or any other carnivorous wild animal or reptile within the city limits or one mile of the city limits. This ordinance is retroactive with no grandfather clauses and the fees are also retroactive as well.   9/25/15  Netherlands became the tenth country to officially ban the use of wild animals in the circus! The ban, which was drafted back in 2014, went into effect this week and includes big cats, elephants, giraffes, zebras, sea lions and primates.   9/22/15  Shriner and head of “Fun Time Shows” Bill Cunningham joined forces with PETA to stop using wild animals at the Shrine Circus. http://cw33.com/2015/09/01/shriners-peta-heated-battle-over-animals-in-shrine-circus/  Cunningham said the trailers that had been used to haul wild animals to shows will now emptied and covered in banners to advocate against the use of wild animals in performances.   9/15/2015 Missoula, MT is the first city in Montana to ban the use wild and exotic animals in shows and non-educational displays.  The City Council approved the measure on an 8-3 vote, saying it was time to apply what “we know versus what we do” regarding the treatment of animals.   8/3/2015  “Effective immediately, Delta Airlines will officially ban shipment of all lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo trophies worldwide as freight.” VICTORY!! Big Cat Rescue asked you to let Delta Airlines know that animal lovers do not want international airlines to continue to transport exotic animal trophies such as Cecil. More than 5,000 of you took action for the big cats!!! And today Delta has finally agreed. This is fantastic news for all endangered and threatened big cats and other animals being hunted across the globe.  Its announcement came as a group of airlines including Air France, KLM, Iberia, IAG Cargo, Singapore Airlines and Qantas signaled last week they would ban the transport of trophy-hunting kills.   8/1/2015  Zimbabwean wildlife authorities say they have suspended the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in an area favored by hunters following the killing of Cecil the lion.   6/27/2015  Costa Rica just became the first country in Latin America to ban hunting for sport. Costa Rica's Congress voted unanimously to approve the ban, which will protect the country's wildlife – including several species of native big cats. Any hunters caught breaking the new law will face jail time or hefty fines.   3/14/2015  South Dakota became the final state (50th) to enact a felony provision for animal cruelty.  These laws typically do not protect wild animals or farmed animals, but it's a start.   3/5/15  Ringling announces that they will phase elephants out of their acts and we are all hoping tigers are phased out as well.   2/4/15  Hollywood Animals announces they are getting out of the big cat rental business because CGI has replaced their industry.   2/5/15 Asheville, North Carolina for banning circuses with wild animals! Read an article about it: http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2015/02/04/asheville-animal-cruelty-circus-ban-us-cellular-center-elephant/22889259/   2/5/15 Graystone Ranch in GA surrenders their USDA license and gives their wild cats and other animals to sanctuaries citing that they are tired of the business.   Fundraising and Marketing   We continue to be very happy with Zerve as our ticket retailer.  In 2014 Zerve sold 18,553 tickets that netted the sanctuary $712,093.00.  In 2015 Zerve sold 22,494 tickets that netted the sanctuary $871,626.90.  The increase was due, in part, to selling more of the higher priced tours.   Big Cat Rescue was reported favorably in the news 280 times in 2015.   Some of our national press has included shows on  CNN,  MSNBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery and the History Channel in addition to such publications as USA Today, National Geographic and the New York Post and major media coverage in several other countries as well.  Big Cat Rescue has been in the press in 42+ states including AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, GA, FL, HI, IA, ID, IO, IN, IL, KY, LA, MA, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI & WV and dozens of programs of national or international coverage or in countries other than the U.S.   YouTube and Discovery's Revision 3 continue to send us a lot of traffic.  Thanks to this partnership and cross promotions with Animal Planet, we are experiencing more than 3 million views of our YouTube videos per MONTH!  By 2015 year end we had 602 videos with 262,474 subscribers and 124,022,664 views.   YouTube Mini Clip Site:  DailyBigCat was launched Nov. 20, 2010 to provide a channel for the mini clips we upload directly from our iPhones.  By year end this site had 685 videos, 11,946 subscribers and 2,320,523 views.   Facebook:  We surpassed 1,836,499 fans on Face Book   Google +:  This is a new social site for us in 2013 and we have already reached 473,854 fans on this venue.   Our Education Director took on Twitter to ramp it up and ended the year with 17,100 followers.   A huge shout out to everyone who has donated items from our Amazon wishlist and who has chosen Big Cat Rescue as their charity of choice in https://smile.amazon.com/   Got Roku?  If you do, then you have more than 600 episodes of Big Cat TV waiting for you for FREE in the Channel Store! Series include our best videos from each year going back to 2007. Big Cat Vets, Cat Chat Show, and Big Cat Rescuers, our weekly big cat reality show.   Big Cat Rescue has an Endowment Fund to provide a secure future for the cats. The Fund resides at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.  Periodically the Community Foundation offers a matching program where the nonprofit sets a fundraising goal and when 75% of the goal is reached, the Community Foundation provides the remaining 25%, which effectively is a 33% match of the funds provided by donors.   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats   In 2015 Big Cat Rescue donated $23,100.00 to conservation programs.   $3,000 to Build a Boma via Nat Geo initiative in S. Africa (from our Wildcat Walkabout event)   $3,000 to Lion Guardians in Africa (from our Wildcat Walkabout event)   $9,100 to the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation   $8,000 to Felidae Conservation Fund   Plus we are the largest retailer of Erbis Enterprizes products which are made in snow leopard regions, by local craftsmen.  The funds they get from our gift shop sales of their handicrafts enables them to sustain periodic loss of livestock.  Villages must ensure that no snow leopards are poached in their areas in order to benefit from the program, so it makes everyone a park ranger.   Helping Other Animal Groups   Saving Lions.  Our Wildcat Walkabout may have just seemed like one heck of a party, but thanks to everyone who came and fundraised for the event, we were able to net $6,066.63 and we wanted to spend it on ways to help lions outside our gates.   $3,000 was donated to Nat Geo's Build a Boma Project and $3,066.63 was donated to Lion Guardians to protect lions in the wild.   One of our Senior Keepers went to help a troubled sanctuary in the U.S. twice as they had no staff and helped implement training programs, such as those taught at ZooCollege.com to insure their ability to train future staff.  She also helped run a sanctuary for big cats in Ethiopia for Born Free, while they were seeking a qualified CEO.   Created 23 Intranet sites, which are sort of a sanctuary-in-a-box site, for other sanctuaries to use.  These came complete with every training video, training manual, chart and idea that we use to run Big Cat Rescue.  We do this for free for sanctuaries that do not breed, buy, sell, trade nor allow contact w/ wild animals.   We donated countless tickets to other animal rescue groups to use in their fundraisers.  We often will host volunteer appreciation parties for them at no cost as well.   We are so pleased to provide assistance to organizations that are saving big cats (and little cats) across the globe!   Then and Now   Visit http://bigcatrescue.org/about/finances/ to get copies of our 990's and Audited Statements.  We pride ourselves in keeping our fundraising and administrative total expenses below 20%. Because our tour revenue exceeds our fundraising and administrative costs, 100% of donations go to Program Expense.   The majority of the increase in Program Expense in 2012-2013 was the cost of lawsuits we filed in furtherance of our mission against what we believe to be one of the most notorious exploiters of tiger cubs.  We won a million dollar judgment against this breeder/exhibitor for violations of our copyright and trademark in 2013.  He filed bankruptcy personally and on behalf of his zoo.   However, by consent agreement his personal debt to us is not to be dismissed in bankruptcy, and the zoo bankruptcy has been dismissed.  So currently we are working through the process of seeking to recover our judgment against whatever assets we can.  Without the generous support of our donors we could not have sustained this successful effort. Thank you!   The Board met 4 times in 2015.   All of our animal care is done by volunteers or by staff who also volunteer time before & after work.   Volunteers:   Big Cat Rescue had 80+ volunteers at the end of 2015 who clocked in 33,262 man-power hours, in addition to 49 intern sessions who clocked 29,400 man-power hours. In total this amounted to 62,662 man-power hours provided roughly the equivalent workforce of 30 more full time staff.  This figure did not include volunteer hours of the President and CEO which is about 5,000 hours more.  Between paid staff, part time staff, contractors and volunteers we averaged the equivalent of 50 full time staff.   We have 92 volunteers; 79 women and 13 men. The youngest 18 years old, the oldest 87 years old.   Between January 1, 2013 and September 1, 2015 Big Cat Rescue provided $783,783.00 in scholarships to provide housing, transportation, utilities, food, training and entertainment to 117 interns arriving in Tampa, FL from 15 countries and 27 states.   Staff and Volunteer Training   Several of our staff attended the Safe Capture Course, as we do any time they are in Florida.   Continued turning our volunteer training classes into video classes.

My presentation to the FWC drew deafening applause from the crowd. This was the testimony I offered to the Florida Wildlife Commission in an unsuccessful effort to protect the Florida Panther. My name is Carole Baskin and I am the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue. I urge you to discard your plan to undermine the Florida Panther recovery program and instead to fully support your partners who are working to protect our state's most treasured icon. I've been coming to these meetings for 20 years urging you to ban the private possession of wild animals. I participate, at considerable peril to my family and self by those who seek to use wild animals, because I love this state. Florida is the top travel destination in the world, generating in excess of 67 billion dollars annually. Tourists come here to enjoy our sunshine, beaches and natural resources so it is in the best interest of the state to protect our wildlife. It is as simple as supply and demand. For the Florida Panther to thrive they have to eat. The amount of land necessary to support a viable population is dependant directly upon the availability of food. No person in Florida HAS to hunt to survive, but the Florida Panther does. The very first thing the Florida Wildlife Commission should do is prohibit hunting in existing and potential panther habitat. The very next thing that needs to be done is to ban the private possession of wild animals in Florida. Failure to do so has wreaked havoc on our state. Escaped and released pythons have sucked virtually every other living species out of the Everglades. Opening a hunt on them, while exotic animals are still openly traded in Florida is ridiculous, at best. If you just took those two steps, the Florida Panther would begin to recover, as would all other wildlife that would benefit from the protection given the panther. If hikers didn't have to worry about being shot by hunters you could charge for access to natural areas that would far exceed what you can make by selling permits to maim and kill our state's wildlife. Only 3% of our population are hunters, and yet they seem to be the only stakeholders that matter to this commission. In all the meetings I've attended, it has been loathsome to have to listen to this commission, spend the vast majority of their time, trying to devise more ways, to sell more permits, to maim and kill more animals. If you went home today to find that your child tortured and killed the family pet, you would probably worry that they are on their way to becoming a criminal. And yet, when adults do it under the banner of "hunting" or worse "sportsmanship" it has some perverse sanctity...at least in the minds of other hunters. Cecil the lion's death raised awareness about the entire hunting industry and the public outcry makes it clear that it is time to set aside the brutality and work together to protect our wildlife. I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/ I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet. You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

    100 Things Howie Brought Into My World or The First 12 Years Howie Anniversary 100 things I didn't have before you.   The day I met you:   1. Some of our cats still lived in small runs in the parking lot and on concrete. 2. We had 10,000 visitors and were down 12% from the year before due to 9/11. 2002 3. We had never created an annual report.  2002 4. Our name was Wildlife on Easy Street and didn't say what we did.  2003 5. There was no prohibition on selling and transporting big cats across state lines. 2003 6. We had no audited statements and could not qualify for larger grants.  Our largest outside gift had been $10,000.  2003 7. Our gift shop was a single room in a 1970's trailer and our register was a tool box in a metal cage.  2003 8. Our front gate was a chain link panel that kept falling off the tracks.  2003 9. We had never had radio ads.  2003 10. No retailer had ever proudly announced they would cease to carry fur.  2004 11. People still defanged and declawed big cats to make them more pliable for cub handling.  2004 12. We didn't have proper zoning and were in danger of developers running us off.  2004 13. We didn't have an Admin branch of the Volunteer Program.  2004 14. We didn't have an Intern Program.  2004 15. We didn't have an Operant Conditioning Program.  2004 16. We didn't have an Education Director.  2004 17. We didn't have a Point of Sale program.  2004 18. We didn't have a way to connect our supporters to their lawmakers.  2004 19. Food prep was a truck body with one row of sinks, one row of tables, and 6 people slinging machetes.  We could only store a couple days' food.  2004 20. We didn't have a dumpster, so we had to carry hundreds of pounds of trash each day to the end of the street and clean up the mess made by people and animals.  2004 21. We had not yet been reviewed by Charity Navigator, but achieved their highest rating right out of the gate.  2004 22. There was no national conference for animal advocacy.  2005 23. We had never had a golf tournament.  2005 24. We needed to increase our budget for whole prey so we could rehab our first baby bobcat, named Faith.  2005 25. We didn't have a recycling program.  2005 26. We had never had a $10,000 in tours.  2005 27. We had no rear entrance and were trapped if a tree fell across Easy Street.  2005 28. We had never created and sold a Big Cat Calendar.  2005 29. We had never had a corporate giving campaign.  2005 30. We had never been able to qualify for the Federal Combined Federal Campaign.  2006 31. Ringling had never attempted a season without tiger acts.  2006 32. We had never been listed in Charity Guide's List of Volunteer Opportunities.  2006 33. YouTube didn't exist.  We had no regular video presence online.  2006 34. People were petting, hand feeding, swimming with and having their photos made with adult lions and tigers.  2007 35. It was still legal to walk lions, tigers, leopards and cougars on leashes in public.  2007 36. Federal rules were finally written to enforce the 2003 Captive Wildlife Safety Act.  2007 37. There had never been an online resource that showed where big cats were kept.  2007 38. The USDI had never defined a sanctuary as a place that did not buy, breed, sell, trade nor allow public contact.  2007 39. Florida did not require any sort of liability insurance or bond for Class I owners.  2007 40. We had never been able to rally advocates enough to halt a big cat exhibit at a fair.  2007 41. We had never been in U.S. News and World Report.  2007 42. We could not afford a proper cemetery nor memorial plaques for our cats.  2007 43. We had not been able to provide meaningful conservation funding for snow leopards, African wildlife nor South American ecosystems.  2007 44. We had never had our PSA's run on T.V.  2007 45. We didn't have a rehab cage that was state of the art.  2007 46. We didn't have worker's comp, so we only had 3 employees.  2008 47. No country had yet banned the use of big cats in circus acts.  2008 48. We had never been a finalist for CFO of the year.  2008 49. Our perimeter wall had been a hodgepodge of chain link until our first solid wall began to go up after 4 years of fundraising.  2008 50. We had never been featured in Encyclopedia Britannica before.  2008 51. There had never been a comprehensive study on captive tigers until TRAFFIC quoted us extensively in Paper Tigers.  2008 52. Our website had never been available in any language other than English.  2008 53. There was no law against killing wild animals by remote control over the Internet.  2008 54. Tony the truck stop tiger had never had a lawyer before.  Nor had any other exotic cat.  2008 55. We didn't have a Legacy Society and had not been effectively soliciting bequests.  2008 56. There was no Twitter.  2008 57. White tigers were all the rage because Siegfried & Roy were deceiving the public into thinking they were Royal White Bengal tigers and zoos were breeding them because the public would pay to see them.  2009 58. There were no written standards for sanctuary accreditation.  2009 59. We didn't have a consolidated Intranet site for storing documents, training staff & volunteers and recording animal records and observations.  2009 60. CITES had never clearly stated "operations breeding tigers on a commercial scale shall implement measures to restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers; tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives. 14.69" after we funded the Tiger Coalition's presence.  2009 61. In Florida people could still have Cougars as pets.  2009 62. We didn't have FIOS high speed Internet.  2009 63. We didn't have security cameras.  2009 64. We didn't have a fenced parking lot to keep people from getting out of their cars and getting in trouble.  2009 65. We had never had a member voted Citizen of the Year by the chamber of commerce.  2009 66. We had never been able to afford a development person.  2009 67. We had never had a credit card program where our cats were featured and user's were able to donate with every purchase.  2009 68. Facebook didn't exist.  2009 69. The Florida Legislature had never had to force the Florida Wildlife Commission to enforce their own rule, re: the 10k bond for Class I animals.  2010 70. PetSmart had never taken a position and banned exotic cats from their stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  2010 71. We had never won national awards for Best Non Profit.  2010 72. In Florida Bobcats could be legally used as bait in fenced areas where hunting dogs were trained to chase them down and rip them to shreds; all in the name of good, clean, family fun.  2010 73. There was no major animal welfare organization that understood the big cat crises was caused by cub handling.  2011 74. There was no one drawing the obvious line between cubs handled by tourists and lions killed in canned hunts.  Hardly anyone even knew what a canned hunt was, and even those who did, didn't know that exotic cats were killed that way.  2011 75. There had never been a coalition of major animal protection groups working together to save the tiger.  2011 76. We had never had a volunteer hour tracking system, like Volgistics, to accurately account for volunteer hours.  2011 77. We had a static website but needed a content management system.  2011 78. We had never won a new truck before.  2011 79. We had never hosted a sanctuary workshop before.  2011 80. We didn't have outside professionals on our board of directors.  2011 81. We didn't have a generator to protect our food supply.  2011 82. There was no Google Plus.  2011 83. Malls throughout the midwest had cub handling displays every week of the year.  2012 84. We didn't have an endowment fund.  2012 85. We didn't have a Public Relations Director.  2012 86. Oprah had never taken a stand on fur.  2012 87. No city had ever banned the sale of fur.  2012 88. There had never been a federal bill introduced that would ban the private possession and public handling of big cats and their cubs.  2012 89. We had never been the main sponsor of Taking Action for Animals.  2012 90. We had never been able to use solar power.  2012 91. We had never been able to pursue my first passion of saving domestic cats and kittens from euthanasia.  2013 92. We could never have even considered building a 2.5 acre play yard for the cats.  2013 93. We had no way to insure our tour guides were giving accurate and relevant tours until implementing the automated tour and Vox system.  2013 94. We had never orchestrated an advocacy Fly In to D.C.  2013 95. We had never gotten a million dollar judgment against one of the bad guys.  2013 96. I had to supplement Big Cat Rescue's payroll.  2013 97. No one had ever done a study on the state of captive big cats around the world.  2013 98. I had never been able to go to the Animal Care Expo.  2014 99. We had never had our own lobbyist.  2014 100. We had never been able to understand each other on our radios.  2014 101. We had never had our own X-ray and Sonogram equipment.  2014 102. We never had a sufficient barrier between us and urban sprawl.  2014 103. And there was no way I could do much about it because as of the day I met you the sanctuary had been running in the red every year and it was all I could do to keep the cats fed.   The day I met you:   • I suffered from chronic back pain, a psychosomatic symptom of feeling unsupported.  I can't remember any lasting back issues since I met you. • I'd never met a man who loved and supported me. • I'd never known what it was like to not feel frustrated and angry all the time.  I used to journal all the time to try and work out the anger, but have had no reason to write, since meeting you. • No one ever took me to the beach for my birthday. • I'd never had anyone make me coffee. • No one ever spoke from their heart about our love in front of an audience and got choked up when saying, “To love someone is to see the face of God."   I turned this into a printed book for Howie called The First Twelve Years.   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

When Rose Was Born She Reminded Me of a Rosebud   (The last photo of Momma Jacquie and me dated 2/11/13.  This was the day we moved her from Aunt Carole's condo to the Cougar Camp at Big Cat Rescue to live with my parents)   Tiny, delicate and fiery red. But a name like Rosebud conjures up cows, so Rose became her name.  She was born into a chaotic time at the sanctuary, so I didn't get to spend much time enjoying her kittenish ways. It was a decade before we were on solid footing at Big Cat Rescue and I finally had the chance to just observe her.   I envy the time our volunteers spend with the cats. It's a luxury I've rarely been able to afford. In a rare moment, where no one was pulling at me to deal with a personnel issue nor answer a phone call, I walked past Jamie who was trying to comb a knot from Rose's fur. Jamie was using the telescoping back scratcher.   At first I hurried on by, but then turned around, deciding this was a great teaching moment, to show through a video how we groom the cats. It's possible to give the cats some pleasure without risking a bite or scratch. Rose was clearly loving the good scratching she was getting in that hard to reach area behind her ears. I'm glad stopped and enjoyed this precious moment in time. In just another day or two Rose was gone.   Never a Boring Moment – Escaped White Tiger “Sighting”   I was about nine years old and was perched in the highest branches of the pine tree next to our home on Larwood Dr. in Charleston, WV, looking out toward the airport where my father was the private pilot for Gov. Arch Moore.  It was my favorite spot.  I could see for miles across the hills and valleys.  I was watching planes take off and land at long intervals.  I was bored out of my mind.  “God,” I implored, “never let me be this bored again!”   Well you have to be careful what you ask for because I don't think there has been a boring moment since.  Today was one of the weirder days.   At 1:24 am the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office called me (apparently) but my ringer was off, so they called our Operations Manager, Gale, and said that a caller had reported a white tiger loose on Van Dyke Road and they wanted her to see if our tigers were all here.  Gale did the rounds, even though we only have one white tiger, just to be sure that all of the cats were accounted for.  Thankfully, she didn't bother me with it and let me sleep.   At 8:52, 8:56 and 9:00 am I get (and miss) three calls back to back from Tallahassee, but I am out cleaning litter boxes and the caller didn't leave a message, so I am unaware, until just now, that these calls were in my “Recent Calls” list.  Probably the Florida Wildlife Commission.  850 717-14XX   At 9:06 am I get a call (also missed) from the Homestead area 305 247-80XX and they didn't leave a message this time, but I see that the same number did leave a message at 1:25 am, saying that they were a Deputy with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office reporting a white tiger sighting on Van Dyke Road in NW Tampa.  I find it odd that a sheriff's deputy in Tampa would have a Homestead area code, so I call the real Hillsborough County Sheriff.   I tell them who I am and about the call and the Captain said they did get such a call last night, but that he has no idea who called me or why they would have a Homestead area code on their phone. No one else has reported the white tiger and we all just figure it was a drunk or a prank caller. Our enemies, the people who abuse big cats for a living, think it is fun to annoy us and the local police with their stupidity on a regular basis.   I told him that we have a new, high power dart rifle if they do see a cat and that we would be happy to help them capture the cat alive.  I texted Gale after the call and that's when she told me that she had been called in the middle of the night and had done her head count.   At 11:11 am I get a call from 813 735-93XX and it is a young man who is telling me that he was the caller to the Sheriff last night and that he had been to Big Cat Rescue with his girlfriend and hoped that he had not gotten us in trouble.  I told him that all of our cats were in their cages, so there was no trouble to be in.  He then told me that he loved Big Cat Rescue and that he was sober when he saw the white tiger running along side Van Dyke Road at Lakeshore.  He said that he often sees white tailed deer along this stretch of road and that he was no big cat expert, but that it was definitely a cat, with a body about five feet long, and it was white.   He said that after visiting Big Cat Rescue, he knows that people often have such pets and he felt like it was important to let someone know it was running loose.  He said he was really embarrassed to make the report because he could barely get up the nerve to even tell his girlfriend what he had seen.  I told him he did the right thing.   He said he had checked the news this morning, fully expecting a huge media blitz over the discovery of a white tiger, but was surprised that no one else seems to have seen the cat.  I told him that it's pretty hard for a white tiger to hide, but if the owner knew the cat was out, maybe they had managed to round it back up.  Unfortunately there are thousands of big cats in private hands and very little government oversight.   Curiosity got the better of me, so I called the Homestead number and the person who answered was not a Hillsborough County Sheriff, but rather runs a seedy little roadside zoo called the Everglades Outpost where they have been known for their cub petting display.  I know the name because I have a photo of someone petting a full grown white tiger at the Outpost.   So, now I am wondering, why the Everglades Outpost would call me, pretending to be a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy reporting a loose white tiger in Tampa when they operate a zoo 200 miles away?   2:30 pm  A few hours after reporting this to USDA and the FWC my Inspector says that the Sheriff's office often will mask the area code of their cell phones, and it is likely just a coincidence that the number on my phone matches the Everglades Outpost.  Apparently there were 9 HCSO deputies, 1 Helicopter w/ 2 occupants, and 3 FWC personnel involved because of this crazy call.  A huge waste of taxpayer dollars and yet another reason why the U.S. needs to ban the private possession of big cats.  Not that there was a privately owned cat involved, but if it were not such a likely scenario, there would not have been such a huge number of people and resources called to action.   This was my response:   Dear XXXX, When I made these screen shots, I see what you mean.  The Sheriff's office main number is 813 247-8000 so perhaps it is just a coincidence that the fake area code 305, attached to that number would just happen to be a place (Everglades Outpost) 200 miles away with a white tiger petting scheme.  What are the odds of that?   OK, so it sounds like this was all just because of some local report.  That is a lot less suspicious to me, then.  Here are the screen shots of the calls.  I can't figure out how to save the voicemail to send to you, but if that really was a H.C. Sheriff's Deputy, then you probably don't need it.   5:18 pm a frantic woman calls and asks if I can tell her the name of their local, big cat rescue, because “there are two black saber panthers under a bridge in Burbank, California.”   Is there a full moon?   Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.  

2012 Annual Report    Big Cat Rescue is more than just a place that provides permanent care for big cats.  It is a movement;  a change in the tide of human perceptions and is the combined effort of more than 79,000 supporters.  If you are one of them, you are a Big Cat Rescuer and the following is the great work YOU did!  If you haven't helped yet, you can do so now at the top right of the screen or here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/donate   Big Cat Rescue's Mission Statement:  Big Cat Rescue's dual mission is to provide the best home we can for the cats in our care and educate the public about the plight of these majestic animals, both in captivity and in the wild, to end abuse and avoid extinction.  We are Caring for Cats and Ending the Trade   Advances:  With your help we are winning in the battle for compassion! Up until 2003 the number of requests for rescues we had to turn down due to lack of space or funds had roughly doubled every other year, to 312 that year. We feared it would double again to over 500 in 2004. Instead, it has steadily declined since then thanks to the passage of a federal bill and several state bills that restrict the ownership of exotic cats. This year there were “only” 85 big cats who came to our attention as being abandoned.  Note that 69 of them came from failed pseudo sanctuaries.  We were able to take in 7. We offered to take all of the cats who were cougar size or smaller, if their owners would contract to never own another exotic cat, but the rest refused.  We just do not have enough Senior Keeper staff to take on more lions or tigers than the three we took this year.   Volgistics became our new time tracking service on Jan 1, 2012 and has replaced our use of Freshbooks.  Everyone seems to like the big buttons and easy check in and check out process.   Animal Care:  By the end of this year, 96 of our 101 exotic cats are over the age of 12;  80 of those are over the age of 15; and 19 of those are over the age of 20. This is well beyond how long they are designed to live in the wild and much older than most zoo cats.  This is a testament to the excellent animal care we provide, but we are dealing with many more age related illnesses and are losing more of our big cat friends every year.   We use operant conditioning to enable much of our vet care without the necessity of anesthesia, which is very hard on the cats, but despite that, 43 of our animals had to be sedated for vet care in 2012.  We also performed 6 Necropsies:  (most performed for interns, all with Dr. Justin), had 4 high ticket Special Surgeries at Blue Pearl, had 2 intricate specialized surgeries by Dr. Hay, 4 on-site dentals by Dr. Peak and vaccinated 84 cats, in addition to countless trips to Ehrlich Animal Hospital to have the cats treated by our volunteer vet, Dr. Liz Wynn.   Rescues:  With the help of some very special donors we were able to rescue 4 bobcats, two Savannah Cat hybrids and two kittens that were reported to be bobcats, but who turned out to be tail-less Manx.  One of those bobcats was Rufus who came in to a Rehabber on Dec 5 weighing 4 lbs, with a broken jaw, split canine and comatose.  They figured he had been hit by a car, but at 4 lbs couldn't believe that he survived.  After he woke up from the coma he was pretty loopy, but they figured the impact had done brain damage.  They had to wire the jaw shut, tube feed him and removed the broken canine. He appeared to be blind and was having bad and frequent seizures, that ultimately cut his life short, but he touched all of us deeply.   On 12/12/12 we had another perfect USDA inspection.   3 of our Cat-a-Tats were expanded with room additions, four of them had major renovations and five tunnels were installed to join cages to give the cats more room, including our first overhead tunnels.  We constructed new Outdoor Recovery Cage and made major renovations to the Hospital Recovery Cage.  We provided emergency rescue for a fox and a hawk, in addition to the bobcats.   Education:  Our website, BigCatRescue.org underwent a painful renovation from a static html site to a WordPress CMS site during 2010 and 2011.  All of the page names had to be changed to fit the new system which meant a huge drop in traffic and initially a huge drop in inbound links, although, by the end of the year we had gained more than a thousand more inbound links than we had before, so it is going to prove a worth while move.  The site has suffered some major issues and has had to be moved to larger and more powerful servers as our traffic is back up to about 1.5 million new visitors per year.  Our website is primarily an educational tool and according to Alexa we are ranked 445,200 worldwide and 102,750 most visited website in the U.S.  in 2012.  We have 1,110 other sites linking to us.   Our web site addresses local and global concerns about environment and has over 9,213 pages of information, movie clips, sounds, safe interactive online games with a conservation theme and photos.  In any given week the visitors will be from more than 200 countries outside of the U.S.   The information provided has helped wildlife rehabilitators identify animals and obtain proper care instruction, helped officials in smuggling cases to identify rare species of exotic cats being illegally traded and those are just a few of the ways that we know the site has had an impact this year.   We offer about 200 outreach and field trips per year and have committed to offering 12 of them for free each year to lower income schools, but have given 18 such free tours this year and expect that demand will continue to rise with the cost of transportation.  Even when we offer the tours for free, many schools cannot come because they cannot afford the $200.00 fee for their busses.  Our Education Department has been writing grant proposals to raise the money needed for the buses.   Big Cat Rescue has been in the press 125 times, in 42+ states including AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, GA, FL, HI, IA, ID, IO, IN, IL, KY, LA, MA, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI & WV and dozens of programs of national or international coverage or in countries other than the U.S.   Award Winning Sanctuary:  Great Non Profit 2012 at Great Non Profits.  We have received this award every year since they started awarding it in 2010 due to the many great reviews we get from visitors and donors each year.  Named as Top Day Trip for Families.  2012 CBS Tampa ranks BCR as one of the top “Day Trips for Families” http://tampa.cbslocal.com/top-lists/best-day-trips-for-families-around-tampa/  Best Place to Work:  Big Cat Rescue was nominated to The Tampabay Business Journal as one of the best places to work.   Legislation/Education:  The steady increase in legislation banning private ownership represents recognition by our society that private ownership leads to massive abuse.  Social values evolve.  It took decades to ban slavery in England and for women to win the right to vote in America.  Those ideas started out as “radical” and were held by a small minority.  Gradually more and more people understood and agreed until they became a part of our value system that we take for granted today.  The same trend is happening with private ownership of exotics.  Gradually more and more people are realizing that this simply leads to widespread abuse of these animals.  The best evidence of this is the accelerating trend in state laws.   Just since 2005 nine more states have passed some level of ban. Sweden, Austria, Costa Rica, India, Finland, Bolivia, Greece, China, the UK and Singapore have all banned or restricted the utilization of big cats in circuses-it's time for the U.S. & South Africa to do the same!   Wins for the Big Cats in 2012: Ohio Bans Private Possession of Most Exotic Cats: On June 5, 2012 the state legislature banned the private possession of dangerous wild animals, including most exotic cats. Those who have the animals must register them but cannot buy or breed more. The only exemptions for breeding are AZA accredited zoos (and ZAA for now, but that needs to change) and sanctuaries that are accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries can continue to rescue wild animals. Up until now Ohio was second (behind FL) in the nation for the number of killings, maulings and escapes by big cats.   • Oprah Announces No Fur in Her O Magazine: The October 2011 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine announced its decision to never feature real fur in the magazine and only use cruelty free materials in its stories, including no leather or exotic skins. This decision was broadly embraced by the readership. • CA, West Hollywood Bans the Sale of Fur: West Hollywood, CA became the first city in the nation to ban the sale of fur. With a three to one vote (with one abstention) the City Council approved the ordinance. The rule faced opposition from the local Chamber of Commerce, whose main trade group, The Fur Information Council, happens to be based in West Hollywood. Nearly half of the 200 stores in town sell at least some fur items and it is estimated to account for approximately $2 million in revenue each year. The measure will take effect on Sept. 21, 2013. • NY, New York City Bars Ban Fur Clad Customers: Bar owner Johnny Barounis, a vegetarian, refuses to allow patrons wearing real fur to enter his trendy bards in Manhattan. His bards include Revision Lounge and Gallery in the East Village, the Back Room on the Lower East Side, and Auction House and Fetch, on the Upper East Side. ”We tell people, you are welcome to come in, but the fur stays out” said Barounis. • Holland: The Holland Circus will no longer include wild animals in their shows. Here is a link to the dutch article: http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2992728/circus-renz-stopt-met-wilde-dieren.html • UAE Ajman: Jan 2012 became the first emirate to ban the keeping of dangerous animals in private homes. Last July, a two-year-old girl was attacked by a lion cub in Ajman and had to be rescued by a maid. • Greece: Feb 3, 2012 The Greek Government has banned the use of all animals in circuses following a campaign by ADI and the Greek Animal Welfare Fund (GAWF), backed by over 50 local animal protection groups across Greece. The new animal protection law also addresses a number of important issues concerning stray animals. • Bogata, Columbia and Paraguay Ban Wild Animals in Circus Acts June 2012: Hot on the heels of the news last week that the Colombian capital Bogota is to ban all animals in circuses, Paraguay has announced a nationwide ban on wild animals in circuses. Animal Defenders Intenational (ADI) applauds Paraguay for becoming the latest country to ban the use of wild animals in circuses under Resolution 2002/12 passed this week by the Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment (Secretaría del Medio Ambiente). Since ADI launched a major undercover investigation of animals in circuses in South America in 2007, a series of bans have swept across the continent as Governments have acted decisively to end the suffering of these animals. Bans are in place in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and now Paraguay. Legislation for a ban passed its second reading in Colombia earlier this year and legislation for a ban is well advanced in Brazil. • China July 20, 2012: Wildlife conservation and forestry departments of northeast China's Heilongjiang province announced that visitors will soon not be allow to pay for pictures with Siberian tiger cubs in a tiger park.   When our CapWiz account came up for renewal on Dec 31, 2012 we switched to VoterVoice for our CatLaws.com site.  At the time of the move we had 73,503 supporters in our AdvoCat database.  We loved CapWiz, but VoterVoice promises all of the same great tools for half the price so we are going to try them out for 2013 and see how they compare.   Animal Abusers Exposed, Shut Down and / or Fined:  Big Cat Rescue enabled several under cover operations to gather evidence of exotic cats being abused, bred without regard for where they may end up, violations of the Animal Welfare Act that pertains to the cruel treatment of big cats and endangering the public.  This information was presented to the authorities along with affidavits and supporting evidence that we hope will bring an end to much of the suffering in the facilities we selected as being the worst abusers.   • Dade City's Wild Things had complaints about shoving 8-12 week old tiger cubs in the pool and forcing them to swim with patrons who pay 200.00 that resulted in the Florida Wildlife Commission initially taking the position that it was not safe, but then the FWC reversed themselves and said DCWT may continue, what many people find to be cruel abuse, as long as they didn't shove the cubs back in the pool if they climbed out.  Now DCWT staff hold the poor cubs by their tails so that they cannot reach the side to climb out, but the FWC, despite numerous complaints, has failed to shut down these activities. • Inside Edition exposed Joe Schreibvogel of GW Park and the fact that at least 23 tiger cubs died at his facility. • The BBC's Show called America's Most Dangerous Pets with  Louis Therous suggested their show should have been named, America's Most Dangerous Pet Owners. • Animal Planet's Fatal Attractions interviewed Carole Baskin in Tigers Unleashed about dangerous exotic animal owners including Savage Kingdom's Robert Baudy and Lost Creek where Haley Hilderbrand was killed by a tiger while posing with the cat for her high school yearbook photo.   It appears that USDA did not pursue any of the exotic animal abuse cases to conclusion in 2011 or 2012.     Fundraising and Marketing:  Big Cat Rescue was reported favorably in the news 125 times in 2012.   Some of our national press included shows on  CNN,  MSNBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery and the History Channel in addition to such publications as USA Today, National Geographic and the New York Post and major media coverage in several other countries as well.   YouTube and Revision 3 were the big news this year.  Revision 3, which is owned by Discovery, contacted us and asked us to be their first animal themed channel.  Thanks to this partnership and cross promotions with Animal Planet, we are experiencing more than 1 million views per MONTH!  By year end we had 359 videos and they received more than 15 million views in 2012.  We ended the year with appx 53,000 subscribers and 53 million views.  Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/bigcatrescue   YouTube Mini Clip Site:  DailyBigCat was launched Nov. 20, 2010 to provide a channel for the mini clips we upload directly from our iPhones.  By year end this site had 3,200 subscribers and 434,000 views.  We surpassed 79,000 fans on Face Book.   2 of 363 million If you search “big cats” our site comes up in position 2 AND 3 out of 363 million competing sites.  We also enhanced our presence on Care2.org and many other such sites.  We now have 500+ contacts in our LinkedIn presence here:  linkedin.com/in/BigCatRescue Our MySpace account now has 7,418 friends. myspace.com/1BigCatRescue  Mavrix Photo began using our photos in Dec. 2012   Google awarded Big Cat Rescue a grant of $40,000 per month in free AdWords. People who love animals love to share their photos and stories.  In 2008 Big Cat Rescue unleashed a Chat Big Cats community but in December of 2012 the underlying provider discontinued the free service.    Big Cat Rescue now has an Endowment Fund to provide a secure future for the cats. The Fund resides at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.  We initiated a program with Capitol One so that you can choose one of our beautiful cats for your credit card image and 1% of all of your purchases will be donated to Big Cat Rescue at no cost to you.   We were the Diamond Sponsor for the Taking Action for Animals conference in Washington, DC where more than 1,000 animal activists converged to learn more about legislation to protect animals.  We were a sponsor for Animal Coalition of Tampa's Stride for Strays, as we are every year.   One of Jamie Veronica's photos was accepted by the Fish and Wildlife Service for publication in their 2013 calendar.   We were interviewed by Animal Planet and featured as experts in their series, Fatal Attractions – Tigers Unleashed and another upcoming episode.   An article on Hope the bobcat was featured in Nat Geo Kids Magazine, with a teaser on the cover.   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats:  In 2012 Big Cat Rescue donated $1500 towards Panthera conservation programs and outfitting rangers in other countries on behalf of our volunteers.   Helping Others: After delivering a couple of free webinars for the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS), and hosting their first in person 2 day Workshop in 2011, Patty Finch asked if the board of GFAS could use our facilities for their meeting. We were delighted to meet the members of the board that we had not met before and were proud to show off Big Cat Rescue to all of them.  Howard Baskin presented on our fundraising streams and the history of Big Cat Rescue and I shared how we use google Apps and how we manage over 100 top notch volunteers.   Big Cat Rescue provided our CatLaws.com service to Animal Coalition of Tampa in their efforts to send a powerful message to the Hillsborough County Commissioners on the subject of TNR.  Trap, Neuter and Return.   As with every year we supplied Free Passes, Certificates for Feeding Tours and Keeper Tours, and Two For One Passes to many other animal causes to use in their fundraising efforts.  We donate primarily to those organizations that are providing services to cats of all sizes.  We do donate to some human related fundraisers as well, but animal causes make up 3% of all charities and yet compete for less than 1% of all donated dollars.   Then and Now: Below are the audited financial statements of Revenue and Expense for the past five years. We pride ourselves in keeping our fundraising and administrative total expenses below 20%. Because our tour revenue exceeds our fundraising and administrative costs, 100% of donations go to Program Expense.   The majority of the increase in Program Expense in 2012 was the cost of lawsuits we filed in furtherance of our mission against what we believe to be one of the most notorious exploiters of tiger cubs. We prevailed in the lawsuit in early 2013. Without the generous support of our donors we could not have sustained this successful effort. Thank you!   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2012 and meetings: • CEO and Founder  Carole Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • President and Chairman of the Board Jamie Veronica (not compensated by BCR for her role as a Director) • Secretary & Treasurer Howard Baskin (not compensated by BCR for his role as a Director) • VP Director Lisa Shaw (not compensated by BCR) • Director Mary Lou Geis (not compensated by BCR) • Pamela Rodriguez (not compensated by BCR) • Darren Kipnis (not compensated by BCR) • Keith Lawless (not compensated by BCR) • Kim Mahoney (not compensated by BCR) These members met for quarterly board meetings at the sanctuary.  The board met 4 times in 2012.   Paid Staff: • Operations Manager & Volunteer Coordinator Gale Ingham • Staff Manager, Editor & Creative Director Jamie Veronica • Gift Shop & Guest Services  Honey Wayton and Kim Dever • Project Manager Chelsea Feeny • Education Director  Willow Hecht • Vernon Stairs Cage Builder and Maintenance • Scott Haller Cage Building Apprentice and Maintenance • PT Operations Manager and Videographer and Social Networking Chris Poole • Director of Donor Appreciation  Jeff Kremer • Assistant to Operations Manager and Staff Relief Person Jennifer Flatt • CFO Howard Baskin • PR Susan Bass • LaWanna Mitchell is an independent contractor who works remotely on web issues. All of our animal care is done by volunteers or by staff who also volunteer time before & after work.   Volunteers:  Big Cat Rescue had 93 volunteers at the end of 2012 who clocked in 37,715 man-power hours in addition to staff, 25 interns (12,700 hours) and 5,658 Volunteer Committee member hours. Volunteers and interns provided roughly the equivalent workforce of 24 more full time staff.  Interesting breakdown of volunteers: We 93 volunteers; 75 women and 18 men.  The youngest 20 years old, the oldest 84 years old.  Between January 1, 2010 and September 10, 2012 Big Cat Rescue had 77 interns from 10 countries and 22 states.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  We want to say a special thank you to all of our staff & volunteers who have just completed their 10th year of service to the cats.  Several of our staff attended the Safe Capture Course, as we do any time they are in Florida.   Get our Financial Reports:  See our IRS 990 and audited financial statement for Big Cat Rescue at http://bigcatrescue.org/finances/  

Give Her a Second Chance Letter about Tommie Girl   On Mar 5 we got a call from the Florida Wildlife Commission asking if we could help a blind bobcat that had been reported by the Manager of the Cemex Mine. His name is Tommie and he loves the wildlife that calls his land a sanctuary. He knew there was something desperately wrong with this little kitten from the first day he saw her, which was about two weeks before.   We made arrangements to drive up to the mine on Mar 6 to set a humane trap because the kitten had not been seen since Feb 27. Jamie and I drove up with a trap, nets, carrier, and bait for four days and Tommie Deaner agreed to check and set the trap daily.   On the way to Center Hill Tommie texted that the bobcat was in sight and that he had caught some fish for her and was feeding her. Jamie texted back to stop because traffic had us running a half hour late. Since there was no way to get a fish away from a starving bobcat, Tommie improvised and got a box out of the trash to trap her in.   When Jamie and I drove up we were waved to the scene by Cemex staff. When we saw the box we were thrilled at the prospect of NOT having to chase a bobcat all over place. The problem was that the box didn't have a bottom.  We slid a piece of plywood under the box, like you would pick up a spider with a cup and cardboard (per Jamie) and then put the whole thing in the van. The plan was to shift her from the box to the carrier inside the van, so that if the bobcat escaped, she was at least trapped in the van… with us. Well, that part wasn't very appealing, but it was better than the risk of losing her and having her starve to death.   If you have never seen Jamie net a cat; you haven't seen art in motion. Quicker than a blink she had her in the net and backed up to the carrier door. Since she really couldn't see well enough to put up much of a fight, we got her in the carrier pretty neatly. She growled for a while, but the belly full of fish and the swaying motion of the van for an hour and a half put her right to sleep.   She has tested negative for all of the major cat killers, except her Toxo test, which is still pending. She is suffering from starvation, blindness and parasites and is being treated with the hopes that she will regain her sight as she improves. She has seen an eye specialist and she thinks there is hope for restoring her site.   Another Blind Bobcat Kitten Rescue:  The baby bobcat came in to the SC Wildlife Rehabber, JoAnne on Dec 4 weighing 4.2 lbs, with a broken jaw, split canine and comatose.  They figured he had been hit by a car, but couldn't believe that he survived.  After he woke up from the coma he was pretty loopy, but they figured the impact had done brain damage.   They had to wire the jaw shut, tube feed him and removed the broken canine. He is still only 5.7 lbs, but is eating solids on his own and doing much better despite walking into walls and getting stuck in corners. If he comes to a corner, he just sits down and waits, and waits, and waits, as if he cannot figure out that he is not trapped.  He was having bad and frequent seizures, but those have almost subsided.  He will be living in the on site Cat Hospital until he is bigger and stronger. We have set up a UStream web cam at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bigcathospital where you can watch his progress.   I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

Two Blind Baby Bobcats By now you have probably heard about the two blind baby bobcats at the sanctuary.  If not, Rufus came into the Carolina Wildlife Rescue in a coma and with a broken jaw.  Jamie has helped them with bobcat rehab before so they originally contacted us for advice in Dec 2011.  By Feb 14, 2012 it was clear that Rufus had become too imprinted for release and his eyesight had still not recovered.  Through a big Valentine's Day effort we were able to secure his release from South Carolina and his import into Florida through both wildlife agencies.   Then on Mar 5, 2012 we got a call from the Florida Wildlife Commission reporting a blind bobcat at a mine in Center Hill, FL.  You can read all about her rescue and see photos here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/2012/today-at-big-cat-rescue-mar-8-name-the-bobcat-kitten   If she regains her sight, we would love to be able to return her to her rightful place in the wild and the mine manager has agreed to let her come back to what he refers to as his "wildlife sanctuary."  The mine is many, many acres of natural bobcat habitat and is truly a sanctuary to many wild animals.  If she does not regain her sight, or if the intensive care she needs during this interim makes her too dependent for release, then she will hopefully be a playmate for Rufus.   We have had other cats who were blind, such as Will the bobcat.  Like Rufus, his eyes are just fine and quite beautiful, but what they see does not register in their brains.  If you have ever fed Will or watched him for any length of time, it is apparent that he does not process the information coming in through his senses like a normal cat.  He and Anasazie provide comfort to each other and have been great companions.   If you have been here a long time, you may remember Axel the tiger who grew deaf and blind as he aged.  His keepers would stomp the ground near his lockout at feeding time to wake him and let him know that dinner was served.  Others will recall Czar and Nakita the bobcats and lynx hybrid who grew old together here.  As Czar aged, he too became deaf and blind.  Nakita made a permanent impression on all of our hearts as she would lean up against him, shoulder to shoulder, to lead him into his lockout at feeding time.   There is probably no cat more self reliant, opportunistic or fierce than the bobcat, and yet the compassion shown by cats like Anasazie and Nakita are a great example to us.  We have enemies, but they are all outside our gates.  Nothing makes me more proud than to see all of our staff, volunteers and interns working together for a common cause.  We have made it through the worst of times for big cats and are poised to end the suffering once and for all by passing the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act.  If you haven't signed your name to this most important bill yet, please do so at www.BigCatsAct.com   I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

Response to Notary Board Complaint Presumably Filed by Bobbi Corona I would like some evidence that Bobbi Corona actually filed this complaint because it is not signed and the person responsible for the bulk of these kinds of frivolous attacks is Joe Schreibvogel who operates under a number of aliases.  I suspect that he is actually the one to have filed this complaint.  He has filed numerous other false complaints with the USDA, the Florida Wildlife Commission, the EPA and other state agencies.   It is a slanderous assertion by the complainant to suggest that my parents "have a record of IRS misdealings" or that "It has long been suspected that Carole Baskin has been frauding the public."  It is this last line that leads me to believe that this complaint was actually penned by Joe Schreibvogel because it is typical of his poor grasp of grammar and spelling and a phrase he often uses in his ranting.   It is also untrue to assert that real estate holdings are funneled through non profits.  The fact of the matter is that I had real estate that I donated to the non profit, Big Cat Rescue, so that it could provide the income needed in the early years of the sanctuary to feed and maintain 100+ big cats.  I put the land, rental properties and mortgages into trusts so that they would pass through my estate to the sanctuary.  I do not benefit from any of the properties that I have put in trust for the sanctuary and have not drawn a paycheck from the non profit.   The reason these attacks are being made is because I have been very successful in lobbying for laws to end the abuse and trade in big cats as pets, props and for their parts.  The largest contributing factor to the thousands of lions and tigers who are now being kept in basements, backyards and warehouses across America is from the exploitation of cubs who are trotted out to malls, flea markets and fairs for use as photo and petting props.  Our campaign to end this abuse has outraged those who make their living from such abuse.   Now, as to the specific complaints:  Perhaps I am misunderstanding the intent of the law, but I have understood this section to mean that  I could notarize a parent or child's signature in the course of business in which I was employed as long as doing so was not deriving a financial benefit to me.  I am self employed in the real estate business and employed by Big Cat Rescue as the CEO, although I take no pay or benefit from my role there.  I have been the CEO or President since its creation in 1995 and have never been paid by the non profit and never derived a financial benefit from the organization.  I donated my home and the 40 acres it was on to the non profit and moved off property so that it would be clear that I was not benefitting from the sanctuary.  I have arranged these in chronological order as it will make more sense to see the actual flow of transactions.   I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

2010 Annual Report   Big Cat Rescue is more than just a place that provides permanent care for big cats.  It is a movement;  a change in the tide of human perceptions and is the combined effort of more than 50,000 supporters.  If you are one of them, you are a Big Cat Rescuer and the following is the great work YOU did!  If you haven't helped yet, you can do so now at the top right of the screen or here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm   Big Cat Rescue's Mission Statement: Big Cat Rescue's dual mission is to provide the best home we can for the cats in our care and educate the public about the plight of these majestic animals, both in captivity and in the wild, to end abuse and avoid extinction.  We are Caring for Cats and Ending the Trade   Advances:  With your help we are winning in the battle for compassion! Up until 2003 the number of requests for rescues we had to turn down due to lack of space or funds had roughly doubled each year, to 312 that year. We feared it would double again to over 500 in 2004. Instead, it has steadily declined since then thanks to the passage of a federal bill and several state bills that restrict the ownership of exotic cats. This year we “only” had to turn away 89 big cats who were unwanted by their owners. We offered to take all of the cats who were cougar size or smaller, if their owners would contract to never own another exotic cat, but they all refused.  We just do not have enough Senior Keeper staff to take on more lions or tigers.   By now everyone knows that communication and fundraising will be cell phone centric.  On April 30, 2009 we added mobile phone number collection to our contact forms and promoted this new request with the Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway. Our winners said, “It was the most fun we've ever had!”   Our new Intranet site established in January 2010 where all of our staff, volunteers, board and vet care professionals can interact and share information. This cloud based system was provided free via a Google grant and enables us to keep all of the sanctuary documents in a password protected cloud where Rescuers can log in and post their observations for the vet and can share photos, videos and stories with each other.  Our cloud can be accessed via a dozen or more computers at the sanctuary, Rescuer's home computers, smart phones and iPads.  Those who subscribe to the site, such as the CEO, President, Operations Manager and the Vets can see, in real time, as observations are posted about the cats.  This insures that there are always many eyes on the look out for ways to enhance the cat care at Big Cat Rescue.   Animal Care:  By the end of this year, 77 of our 115 cats are over the age of 15. This is well beyond how long they are designed to live in the wild and much older than most zoo cats.  This is a testament to the excellent animal care we provide, but we are dealing with many more age related illnesses and are losing more of our big cat friends every year.  Cats who required extensive veterinary care in 2010 were Alachua Bob, Bagheera, Bellona, Catera, Cha Cha, Cloe, Crystal, Freckles, Hercules, India, King, Narla, Nirvana, Pretender, Purrfection, Sarmoti, Servie, Snorkel, Sophie, Takoma, Tonga and Windsong. These cats were moved so they would have new neighbors and surroundings for their own enrichment: Freckles, Indian Summer, Modnic, Narla. Nikita & Simba, Peaches, Precious, Reno, Sundari and Thing. Even though we offered to rescue the 19 lesser cats and 3 lions and tigers who were in need of rescue in 2010, Skip, Angelica and Midnight, Rain and Storm the bobcats, Servie the serval, Narla, Freddy and Sassyfrass the cougars were the only ones who ended up here.  We found a rehabber for a bobcat in TN as well.  The rest did not come here because the owners refused to contract with us to never own exotic cats again.   Despite triple bypass heart surgery in August, Vern stayed busy this year with all of the maintenance issues and with these 32 cage improvements: Armani & Jade, Bailey & Moses, Bengali, Calvin, Cameron & Zabu, China & Khan, Crazy Bobcats, Despurrado, Diablo, Flavio, Freckles, Jefferson, Joseph & Sasha, King, Modnic, Nala, Natasha & Willow, Nikita, Nikita & Simba, Rambo, Rehab Bobcats, Sarmoti, TJ, Trick E and Windstar. On 3/18/10 we had another perfect USDA inspection.   Education:  Our website is primarily an educational tool and according to Alexa we are ranked 266,861 worldwide and 110,338 most visited website in the U.S.  We have 458 other sites linking to us.   We offer about 58 outreach and field trips per year and have committed to offering 12 of them for free each year to lower income schools, but have already given 25 such free tours this year and expect that demand will continue to rise with the cost of transportation.  Even when we offer the tours for free, many schools cannot come because they cannot afford the $200.00 fee for their busses.  Our Education Department began writing grant proposals to raise the money needed for the buses.   Volunteer Committee Member, Sharyn Beach, was published at Encyclopedia Britannica with the best statement ever written about why breeding white tigers is Conserving a Lie.   Our web site addresses local and global concerns about environment and has over 17,000 pages of information, movie clips, sounds, safe interactive online games with a conservation theme and photos. From 1/1/2008 until 9/9/2010 the site was visited 3,642,337 times, resulting in 8,197,155 page views.  In any given week the visitors will be roughly 33% from 218 countries outside of the U.S. as you can see from this breakdown:   United States 2,757,351, Poland 204,209, Canada 198,127, United Kingdom 127,246, Australia 40,618, India 24,496, Germany 17,428, Japan 13,023, France 11,017, Netherlands 9,593, Philippines 8,559, Singapore 8,545, Sweden 8,177, Italy 8,136, Brazil 8,024, Malaysia 7,793, Spain 7,779, New Zealand 7,740, Ireland 6,788, South Africa 6,697, Mexico 6,554, Belgium 5,994, Russia 5,986, Indonesia 5,627, Finland  5,364 and Turkey 5,248 to name a few.   The information provided has helped wildlife rehabilitators identify animals and obtain proper care instruction, helped officials in smuggling cases to identify rare species of exotic cats being illegally traded and those are just a few of the ways that we know the site has had an impact this year.   Big Cat Rescue has been in the press 694 times, in 31+ states including AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, GA, FL, HI, IO, IN, IL, KY, LA, MA, MN, MO, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, VA & WA and dozens of programs of national or international coverage or in countries other than the U.S.   Legislation/Education: The steady increase in legislation banning private ownership represents recognition by our society that private ownership leads to massive abuse.  Social values evolve.  It took decades to ban slavery in England and for women to win the right to vote in America.  Those ideas started out as “radical”, held by a small minority.  Gradually more and more people understood and agreed until they became a part of our value system that we take for granted today.  The same trend is happening with private ownership of exotics.  Gradually more and more people are realizing that this simply leads to widespread abuse of these animals.  The best evidence of this is the accelerating trend in state laws.   Just since 2005 eight more states have passed some level of ban. Sweden, Austria, Costa Rica, India, Finland, Bolivia, Greece and Singapore have all banned or restricted the utilization of big cats in circuses-it's time for the U.S. & South Africa to do the same!   Nationwide & Canada:  Dade City's Wild Things acquired a white tiger cub from G.W. Exotics, a notorious Oklahoma breeder, that they are marketing to the hilt in order to make money off her as quickly as possible.  To accomplish that they dragged her into PetSmart to drum up some business.  Almost 900 advocates responded to our alert and wrote to PetSmart demanding an end to displays of exotics like this, knowing the bad message it sends.  We're very pleased to share that PetSmart listened and  immediately responded positively.  According to corporate spokesperson  Margie Wojciechowski  at the Phoenix, AZ headquarters, she confirmed she had just come from a meeting and the company has “reinforced with our managers that no exotic pets are allowed on store premises.  There will be no live display of exotic animals for events.”     • FL Sept. 1, 2010:  The Florida Wildlife Commission passes final rules on the keeping of wild animals. • FL June 23, 2010: Thanks to thousands of letters from Big Cat AdvoCats the Florida Wildlife Commission agreed to change the wording of their Nuisance Wildlife rules so that bobcats who are trapped as nuisance wildlife may not be killed, but rather must be released.  While our 2,000+ letters asked that bobcats be removed from the list of nuisance wildlife we are still thankful that the FWC has decided to at least spare the life of bobcats who are trapped this way.  We will continue to educate the FWC and the public as to why bobcats are so necessary to our ecosystem so that they may soon be removed from the list of animals that may be trapped. • FL June 23, 2010: Animal AdvoCats vs Animal Terrorists. The FWC agreed to ban the practice of “fox penning” which was a blood sport in 16 locations in FL where foxes, coyotes and bobcats would be trapped or purchased from trappers to be turned loose in fenced areas for the purpose of training hunting dogs.  Packs of dogs would be turned loose in the pens and scored on how persistant they were in chasing the wildlife.  The FWC had rules that required hiding places for the wildlife, but investigators found that the operators would often block the access to the safety areas so that the foxes, coyotes and bobcats could be cornered and ripped apart by the dogs for the amazement and betting opportunities of the dog owners.  For the first time in the history of the FWC meetings that we have attended since 1993 there were more animal advocates than animal terrorists in the room to testify.  52 concerned citizens spoke up in favor of a ban while only 20 animal abusers / hunters spoke up in favor of continuing the blood sport as part of their “cultural heritage and God given right.”  As more of these egregious practices are exposed we expect the number of main stream Americans who show up and speak up to increase. • FL June 3, 2010: Thanks to thousands of letters from Big Cat AdvoCats the legislature amended Florida Statutes 379.374 Bond required, amount. (2) No person, party, firm, association, or corporation shall possess or exhibit to the public either with or without charge or admission fee, any Class I wildlife, as defined in s. 379.303 and commission rule, without having first guaranteed financial responsibility, in the sum of $10,000, for any liability which may be incurred in the possession or exhibition to the public of Class I wildlife. The commission shall adopt, by rule, the methods of payment that satisfy the financial responsibility, which may include cash, the establishment of a trust fund, an irrevocable letter of credit, casualty insurance, a corporate guarantee, or any combination thereof, in the sum of $10,000 which shall be posted with the commission. In lieu of the $10,000 financial responsibility guarantee required in this subsection, the person, party, firm, association, or corporation has the option to maintain comprehensive general liability insurance, with minimum limits of $2 million per occurrence and $2 million annual aggregate, as shall protect the person, party, firm, association, or corporation from claims for damage for personal injury, including accidental death, as well as claims for property damage which may arise. Proof of such insurance shall be submitted to the commission.  Effective July 1, 2010.  In 2009 there were 111 Class I possessors in FL who managed to escape the bond requirement because they claimed they were not “exhibitors.”  This new language was necessary to close the loophole in the 2007 law so that all “possessors” of Class I animals must post this minimal bond. • OH July 1, 2010: A deal struck between The Humane Society of the United States, Ohio agriculture leaders and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will lead to major animal welfare improvements in Ohio on a raft of issues to protect exotic, domestic and farmed animals. The agreement includes recommendations from all of the parties for the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Care Board, the Legislature, and the Governor to ban the acquisition of dangerous exotic animals as pets, such as primates, bears, lions, tigers, large constricting and venomous snakes, crocodiles and alligators. • China October 27, 2010: The Ministry of Housing & Urban/Rural Development suggested in an official web posting that zoos should adequately feed and house animals, should stop selling wild animal products and serving wild animal parts in restaurants, and should stop staging circus-like trained animal acts.  The authorities report that zoos could be shut down for non compliance.  This is the first step toward permanent laws to protect the animals. • Germany June 17, 2010: The zoo director and three of the staff at the Magdeburg Zoo were convicted of cruelty to animals for killing three tiger cubs who were the result of a cross breeding tigers at the zoo.  The zoo had bred a Siberian tiger to a Sumatran tiger.  All of the tigers in the U.S. that are referred to as Bengal tigers are actually hybrids of Bengal and Siberian tigers as the result of the white tiger craze when Bengal tigers were inbred to the point of non existence in America.  A fine of 8,000 euros was suspended upon the condition that the zoo not kill cubs as the result of their own improper breeding plans.  The Magdeburg zoo case drew attention to the common practice of zoos breeding and killing animals to keep youngsters on exhibit. • Russia November 29, 2010: Russia is now filing a bill for an exotic pet ban like other countries have passed.  Despite Prime Minister Vladimir Putin having a pet tiger named Mashenka, the country is working on passing a bill that would restrict the ownership of monkeys, tigers, and crocodiles, because of their danger to the public and diseases they can carry, according to the bill that was submitted on Nov. 29, 2010 Thanks to all of you who wrote letters, attended town hall meetings and met with your lawmakers, the world is a little kinder place. Many of the worst breeders, dealers and tiger-tamer-wanabees were finally shut down.  Most of these collectors were fined or shut down by USDA or the state, or both in some cases: You can read the USDA reports and news stories at http://www.911AnimalAbuse.com 134,704 letters were sent via our CatLaws.com site in 2010 which is triple the year before.  We now have 44,606 members registered to help us with email campaigns. Thanks to all of our supporters being more aware of exotic cat issues and doing something about it, the wild cats had a lot of wins in 2010.  Only bans on the possession of private ownership of wild animals are fully enforceable but any step forward in restricting ownership is helpful.  For more details go to BigCatBans.   Animal Abusers Shut Down and / or Fined:  Many of the worst breeders, dealers and tiger-tamer-wanabees were finally shut down.  The following is from 2008- 2010.  Most of these collectors were fined or shut down by USDA or the state, or both in some cases: • CA:  Hesperia Zoo AKA Cinema Safari Zoo owned by Stephanie Taunton was put on probation and fined $30,000 by USDA. • FL: Horseshoe Creek owned by Darryl Atkinson was shut down by USDA and FL. • FL:  Wild Things' land owned by Kathy Stearns went into foreclosure and bankruptcy. • FL:  Amazing Exotics was shut down.  It was notorious for allowing contact between large exotic cats and the public for a fee.  The head of their tiger-tamer-wanabee program was Ron Holiday (real name Ron Guay) who gained fame in the HBO movie Cat Dancers and the book by the same name.  His career in dancing with big cats ended when a white tiger he had raised from a cub killed his wife and his lover within a few days of each other in 1998. • FL:  In 2010 Jeff and Barbara Harrod of Vanishing Species lost both their USDA and FWC licenses. • FL:  In 2010 Thomas R. Cronin of the Shell Factory was sanctioned by USDA for improper handling of animals, poor sanitation and lack of vet care. • IN:  Great Cats of Indiana, formerly known as Cougar Valley Farms, Inc., owned by Robert B. Craig and Laura Proper had their license revoked by USDA. • IN:  Ervin's Jungle Wonders owned by Ervin Hall was shut down by USDA for a three year term. • KS: In 2010 Clint Perkins of Riverside Zoological Park lost his USDA license to exhibit tigers and was fined for violations. • MO:  Wesa-A-Geh-Ya owned by Sandra Smith was shut down after a visitor lost his leg to a tiger. • MS:  Cougar Haven closed its doors for good, sending the last 3 big cats to Big Cat Rescue. • NC:  Metrolino Wildlife Park owned by Steven Macaluso was shut down by USDA. • NE:  Zoo Nebraska was ordered to find appropriate homes for their big cats and bears. • OH:  Pearson's L & L Exotics owned by Lorenzo Pearson was shut down by USDA following six years of violations. • SC:  In 2010 Robert Childress dba Quality Equipment was fined by USDA for lack of care for tigers. • TX:  Zoo Dynamics, owned by Marcus Cook was fined $100,000.00 • TX:  In 2010 Jamie Palazzo of Great Cat Adventures had their USDA license suspended for 3 years. • TX:  Wild Animal Orphanage closed their doors in September 2010 after investigation the Attorney General for fraudulent fundraising practices.  363 animals, mostly big cats and primates, are being disbursed to other sanctuaries.  Three of the tigers are coming to Big Cat Rescue. • Australia:  Craig Bush, the “Lion Man” was ousted from the Zion Wildlife Gardens by his mom.   Fundraising and Marketing:  Two Legacy Society donations over $100,000 each helped make this the best financial year ever for the sanctuary.  The first was a bequest from the estate of Terry Nordblom for $110,000.  The second was a matching grant of $200,000 in memory of William and Lois Modglin of Glendale, California.   Final financial numbers will not be available until after our annual audit in the spring, but estimates will be posted here in late January after we reconcile the December statements. 2010 began using Posterous.com to post to 16 of our major social networking sites at once.  We currently operate 333 social networking sites. 2010 we began using Traffic Geyser which increased our web traffic 24%.   Big Cat Rescue was reported favorably in the news 111 times in 2010 which in a 20% increase over 2009.   Some of the national press included shows on Animal Planet, Discovery and the History Channel in addition to such publications as National Geographic and the New York Post and major media coverage in several other countries as well.   The Fur Ball netted over $80,000.00! Over 650 big cat supporters had a blast at the Fur Ball; dining, dancing, playing the Wheel of Fur-Tune casino table and bidding in the silent auction and live auctions. Spirited bidders in the live auction won exotic trips see lions in South Africa, and many other wild and exotic places. We had 26,154 visitors this year. Our BigCatRescue.org website visitors rose to 1,660,550 but the site was temporarily replaced for two months.  During those two months (Jul-Aug) we did not have any tracking service on the replacement site.  We plan to re launch the replacement site in January 2011.  Google awarded Big Cat Rescue a grant of $40,000 per month in free AdWords. People who love animals love to share their photos and stories.  In 2008 Big Cat Rescue unleashed a Chat Big Cats community.   Members can post their own blogs, or join in our forums and contests. It is a YouTube/ MySpace styled community made up entirely of animal lovers. By year end there were 4,129 members and 107,374,194,388 videos, songs, photos and blogs posted to the site.  (blows my mind too!)  Get in on the action free at http://www.chatbigcats.com   YouTube.  We ended the year as the 6th most viewed Non Profit of all time and the 7th most subscribed Non Profit with 22,393 subscribers and 669,725 channel views and a whopping 20,685,511 upload views.  Up 500% from 2009.  By year end we had 412 videos posted on YouTube and other popular sites like google, Blip, MetaCafe, Revver and others. http://www.youtube.com/bigcatrescue YouTube Mini Clip Site:  DailyBigCat was launched Nov. 20, 2010 to provide a channel for the mini clips we upload directly from our iPhones.  By year end this site had 248 subscribers, 5,046 channel views and 25,812 total upload views.  Our MySpace account now has 7,625 friends. myspace.com/   We surpassed 36,000 fans on Face Book which is a 500% increase over 2009 as well.  We also enhanced our presence on Care2.org and many other such sites.  We now have 359 contacts in our LinkedIn presence here:  linkedin.com/in/BigCatRescue Big Cat Rescue now has an Endowment Fund to provide a secure future for the cats. The Fund resides at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.  bigcatrescue.org/communityfoundationoftampabay.htm We initiated a program with Capitol One so that you can choose one of our beautiful cats for your credit card image and 1% of all of your purchases will be donated to Big Cat Rescue at no cost to you.   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats Leonardo DiCaprio Protects Tigers:  Big Cat Rescue continued working with the International Tiger Coalition, which is a group of 40+ organizations committed to saving the tiger, based upon our unique ability to address the captive issues that imperil tigers in the wild.   The goal is 10,000 tigers in the wild in 10 years.  There are less than 3,000 in the wild currently and we are losing one per day due to poaching.  We persuaded ITC to keep US tiger farming issue as part of their mission to eradicate because legalized trade puts even more pressure on wild populations. What makes this initiative unlike all of the past programs is two fold.  40+ major conservation groups, including Big Cat Rescue, have joined forces with one common goal:  Save the tiger in the wild.  There have been other joint efforts, but none this large and never before has an entity as powerful as the World Bank been a committed partner in saving wild places for wild animals.  Big Cat Rescue sponsored the ITC booth at CITES and sponsored the attendance of the ITC Moderator, Judy Mills at the Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.   Leonardo DiCaprio attended as well and met with Prime Minister Putin.  DiCaprio donated 1 million dollars to WWF's fund for saving the tiger.   23 FL Panthers died in 2010 but 90 were born according to FWC.  Big Cat Rescue is stepping up our support of local initiatives to save the Florida Panther.   Helping Others:  America's injured veterans have found Big Cat Rescue a place of tranquility where they can surround themselves with beauty and grace;  a respite from all that they have endured protecting our country.  It started with one group and now they come to visit quite frequently.  It's on the house and we provide lunch when we can as well by asking donors to contribute.  They have done their part in keeping Americans free and we are doing our part to fight for that same freedom for the big cats.   Then and Now:  Our CFO, Howard Baskin, compiled a ten year snapshot of the sanctuary and its growth.  This is just a comparison between 1996 and 2010. Wildlife on Easy Street to Big Cat Rescue  1996                  2010 Visitors                  85                         26,128 Total Expenses  $1,686,386 *    $1,363,443 Total Income    $0                      $2,245,798 Total Net Assets    $148,455           $4,881,165 Spent on Program Services   100%    83% ** *funded by Founder        ** 17% spent on Management and Fundraising combined   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2010 and meetings: • CEO and Founder  Carole Baskin (not compensated by BCR)  • President and Chairman of the Board Jamie Veronica (not compensated by BCR for her role as a Director)  • Secretary & Treasurer Howard Baskin (not compensated by BCR for his role as a Director)  • Director Lisa Shaw (not compensated by BCR) Director  • Mary Lou Geis (not compensated by BCR)  These members met or plan to meet for monthly board meetings at the dates and places below: Monthly board meeting, Tampa, FL;  Feb 7, May 2, Aug 1, Nov 7   Paid Staff:   • Operations Manager & Volunteer Coordinator  • Gale Ingham Staff Manager,  • Editor & Creative Director  Jamie Veronica  • Gift Shop & Guest Services   Honey Wayton  • Intern Recruiter & Data Management  Chelsea Feeny  • Education Director Dr. Beth Kamhi and her assistant Willow Hecht  • Vernon Stairs Cage Builder and Maintenance  • Scott Haller Cage Building Apprentice and Maintenance  • Videographer and Social Networking Chris Poole  • Director of Donor Appreciation  Jeff Kremer  • Assistant to Operations Manager and Staff Relief Person Jennifer Flatt  • CFO Howard Baskin  • LaWanna Mitchell is an independent contractor who works remotely on web issues.  All of our animal care is done by volunteers or by staff who also volunteer time before & after work.   Volunteers:  Big Cat Rescue had 107 volunteers in 2010 who clocked in 56,411 man-power hours in addition to staff, 31 interns and Volunteer Committee member hours.  Our interns came from 10 states and 8 countries.  Volunteers and interns provided roughly the equivalent workforce of 30 more full time staff.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  We want to say a special thank you to all of our staff & volunteers who have just completed their 10th year of service to the cats.      I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

2008 Annual Report     A Year in Video by Jamie Veronicahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo4O2srCwX4 Big Cat Rescue is more than just a place that provides permanent care for big cats.  It is a movement;  a change in the tide of human perceptions and is the combined effort of more than 80,000 supporters.  If you are one of them, you are a Big Cat Rescuer and the following is the great work YOU did!  If you haven't helped yet, you can do so now at the top right of the screen or here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm   Big Cat Rescue's Mission Statement:  To provide the best home we can for the animals in our care and to reduce the number of cats that suffer the fate of abuse, abandonment or extinction by teaching people about the plight of the cats, both in the wild and in captivity, and how they can help through their behavior and support of better laws to protect the cats.   Advances:  With your help we are winning in the battle for compassion!  Up until 2003 the number of requests for rescues we had to turn down due to lack of space or funds had roughly doubled each year, to 312 that year. We feared it would double again to over 500 in 2004. Instead, it has steadily declined since then. Read why, and about the offers we made this year and why their owners would not agree to our terms. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/2008AbandonedBigCats.htm   At least one big cat sanctuary has dropped “Feline” from their name as the new laws have caused such a dramatic decrease in the number of unwanted big cats that they are turning their attention to other animals. We are on the brink of no more abused and unwanted big cats.  This change only happened because of you, and I just can't thank you enough!   CFO, Howard Baskin was a finalist in the Tampa Bay Business Journal's CFO of the Year awards.   We became the first animal charity in the world to be qualified for and utilize Mobile Giving Foundation's Text 2 Give program.  Text tiger to 20222.  We discontinued the service in Dec. 2011 however as the carriers were constantly requiring us to change the text everywhere the call to action was posted and we often did not have access to places that reposted our videos.   Animal Care:  Rescued liger and 2 tigers.  What do we do when a baby Florida bobcat arrives that is still nursing? We find a domestic cat who is nursing kittens and hope she will “adopt” the baby bobcat.  Big Cat Rescue's version of Growing Up Bobcat takes you day by day through the challenges of rescuing a baby bobcat, hand rearing her and teaching her all she needs to know so that she can one day be set free.  Watch for Hope to be released in the spring of 2009.   Big Cat Rescue planned Chance the bobcat's escape for months. Last year a baby bobcat call came in as the third one in three weeks. He only had one eye and a lump on his belly the size of an orange. Big Cat Rescue was there to get him the medical attention he needed. Emergency surgery repaired the hernia in his abdominal wall. The swelling was the contents of his intestines and other internal organs that had spilled out of the muscled area and were rubbing away at the inner lining of his skin. The attending vet, Dr. Liz Wynn, believes that his hernia and missing eye were caused by some sort of trauma. The area where he was found is completely surrounded by development in West Tampa, but bobcats are often reported there and last year one was found as road kill. After months of recuperation and rehabilitation, Chance the yearling bobcat was released. Watch the movie and see his wild dash for freedom: http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00190.htm   As our population of exotic cats continue to age, we are dealing with more and more medical issues.  You may have seen some of these procedures on our You Tube site where we have dealt with abscesses, tumors and rotting teeth.  Our cats live about twice as long as cats would in the wild, so their parts begin to wear out, long before the cats are through with them.  Some of our 2008 surgeries have included draining a hemtoma on Windstar the Bobcat's ear, removing a cancerous growth from Trucha the tiger and treating a bite wound after her sister bit her.   Removing a non cancerous growth from her sister, Modnic the tiger, pulling what was left of Indian Summer's rotten teeth to stop the infection, treating a fracture to Cachanga Caracal's front paw and removing rotting teeth from King the tiger.  Shiloh went in to the vet for an evaluation of his rotten teeth and was found to be suffering from bone cancer.  He is the 19 year old cage mate of Indian Summer and was put to sleep to end his misery.   Most captive cats do not get the early nutrition they need for healthy bones and teeth because their owners pull them from their mothers to bottle raise them.  There is no substitute for their own mother's milk and their natural diet in the wild.  While we try to supplement their diets and feed them whole prey, it is always too little, too late.  These great cats were not designed for lives of captivity.  Our hope and your help will ensure a future where wild cats live in the wild and not in cages. Read tributes to our cats who have passed on at: https://sites.google.com/site/bigcattributes/home   Only 4% of our budget is spent on fundraising, so that is why it is so easy to see where your donations go.  The cats got lots of cage enlargements and improvements in 2008.   Our snow leopard cat-a-tat was built in 1997 and featured a freezer box that is air conditioned 24/7 where the snow leopards could choose to go when it got too hot.  11 years ago these enclosures were our most noteworthy and still offer more comfort than most, but due to their shape and location, there was no way to expand them as we have done with most of our other cats' cages. We have two snow leopards and three cage sections, but had no good way to shift the cats from one side to another.  After Shaq the black leopard passed away, It only took volunteers a couple of days to join Shaq's two sections to one section of the old snow leopard enclosure.  Volunteers then spent days painting the cages, landscaping and hauling in logs and lots of stuff for Chloe the snow leopard to enjoy.  Finally the big day came for her to gain access to her new area.  See her enjoying her new, enlarged space here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00205.htm   It's like musical chairs but with big cats!  Windstar moved into the waterfall cage next to Aquarius the Fishing Cat.  Of all of our bobcats, Windstar loves pools the most, so while his cat-a-tat was getting some upgrades, he vacationed with a lake side view and a fish filled private pond.  Now that his enclousure has been remodeled he has returned to his home with its window view into the President's office.   Nyla leopard has been on the list to get an 8 x 12 concrete den, cleverly disguised as a fern covered hill, with a huge room addition since August of last year.  Her project kept getting pushed back due to the rescue of four tigers from a facility that was shut down by USDA in FL and 2 lions and 2 tigers who were rescued from Ohio.  Now Nyla has a hurricane shelter like all of the other cats and she is really loving it.   Snorkel was relocated up next to Auroara's old one acre enclosure next to Shere Khan and China Doll. He will be on the tour path now and rescuers are sure that he will enjoy his new digs. Snorkel is very social and loves to snort and chuff at keepers when they clean his Cat-a-tat or when they are feeding him.   When rescuers released Snorkel into his new pad, he excitedly toured the perimeter, checked out his swimming pond, jumped on top of his den to get a better view of his territory and then chowed down on some fresh grass growing in the enclosure. All the while Shere Khan followed Snorkel, watching his every move. Keepers dug out several large weeds that were growing in Snorkel's previous home and then loaded up Flavio into the tiger transport. What was old to Snorkel was brand new and fun for Flavio. He hopped right into transport and moved just one Cat-a-tat over. All the new smells will keep him busy for quite a while.   Moving all these tigers around does have a purpose. Now two empty tiger enclosures could be joined together to make a double tiger enclosure for Trucha and Modnic. The new enclosure gave them almost twice the room. At Big Cat Rescue there are a few empty enclosures that are set aside for projects such as these. This way as an enclosure needs to be maintained, repaired, replanted or whatever else, Keepers can relocate the resident feline to one of the empty Cat-a-tats. Because we rescued three more big cats this year, we only have one empty enclosure suitable for tigers and could really use a couple more spares for these moveabouts.   The operant conditioning program has become a crucial element in making these relocations go smoothly. Through the use of operant conditioning Keepers are able to get nearly any cat into transport or their feeding lockouts by simply rewarding the cats with their favorite treats. CleoCatra Bobcat has a new, duplex with elevated dens, lots of logs and thick green ferns and bushes.  When she moved out of her old, single sided enclosure, Vern was able to connect it to Cherokee Bobcat's single sided cage.  Now Cherokee has a big duplex, giving her twice as much space as she had before.  She already had lots of ferns and foliage, but now she has a lot more room to run.   We took down a lot of dead pine trees and have planted lush landscaping in cat-a-tats that were renovated to be a new home for Mac the Cougar, Bobcats Bobby Blue Rose and Indian Summer.  When Indian Summer moved, her enclosure was connected to Bobcats, Running Bear and Little White Dove's single cage.  That gave them a duplex and the best climbing tree in the sanctuary.  (Indian Summer is 19 and her climbing days have long since passed)  These younger cats (11 yrs) love to climb and now we frequently see them lounging high in their new tree house.   It took four years of raising funds and a year of permitting hassles but only 2 weeks to build the first phase of the 10 foot high concrete wall that will one day surround Big Cat Rescue.  See photos of this imposing barrier and find out who helped:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/zoning.htm   The faithful followers of our site have probably noticed the new addition of pet related articles we have posted to benefit the lives of pets.  http://bigcatrescue.org/pets/000pets.htm   We launched a huge campaign to upgrade two of the largest and most expensive enclosures that housed Auroara, Shere Khan and China Doll the tigers.  See a slide show of the cage enhancements and the biggest of our cats having the biggest of times. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/TigerCages.htm   As Big Cat Rescue has become more successful in ending the trafficking of exotic and endangered wild cats we have drawn the wrath of the breeders and dealers. Our lives have been threatened and our vehicles vandalized. Twelve tires on our van, trucks and trailers were rigged to explode at high speeds over a 3 month period.  We mounted surveillance cameras around the property and on the rehab cages so we can monitor the bobcats without exposing them to humans. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/2008cameras.htm   Education:  On March 27th, 2008 Big Cat Rescue was honored to host almost 100 visitors from a very special audience. The American Animal Hospital Association was visiting Tampa for AAHA's 75th Anniversary Yearly Conference held this year in sunny Tampa, Florida.  This specialized group of attendees included veterinarians; practice managers; vet technicians, assistants and support staff; vet students, and family guests. Read more:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/2008AAHA.htm   In April Big Cat Rescue was the featured story at Encyclopedia Britannica. Anita Wolff had contacted Jamie Veronica to ask for permission to use some of her photos and she suggested they contact Carole Baskin about some of the legislative work we are doing. Encyclopedia Britannica devotes an impressive section of their site as a source of information, a call for action, and a stimulus to thought regarding humanity's relationship with the animals with whom we share our planet. They support worldwide efforts to ensure humane treatment of animals, develop the understanding of their nature, promote their survival, and protect and restore the environment. We are honored to be a part of the great work they are doing to educate, inform and enlighten.  Read it here and see some of Jamie's photos they have put to use: http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2008/04/big-cat-rescue/   Our Education Department had to raise their prices to cope with growing demand, but our financial return continues to escalate.  We offer about 220 outreach and field trips per year and have committed to offering 12 of them for free each year to lower income schools, but have already given 30 such free tours this year and expect that demand will continue to rise with the cost of transportation.  Even when we offer the tours for free, many schools cannot come because they cannot afford the $200.00 fee for their busses.  Our Education Department began writing grant proposals to raise the money needed for the buses.   Huge gaps in U.S. regulations for tigers held in captivity could make the big cats a target for illegal trade, wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC and World Wildlife Fund found in the first-ever comprehensive report on captive tiger regulations across the United States. The report, “Paper Tigers?: The Role of the U.S. Captive Tiger Population in the Trade in Tiger Parts,” found there are no reliable regulatory mechanisms to keep track of captive tigers in the United States. Big Cat Rescue provided investigators with crucial data and enabled them to see how the lack of protective laws and enforcement are exploited by animal abusers in the real world. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/   Big Cat Rescue wants to end the need for big cat sanctuaries, but until that day comes we are involved daily in assisting other sanctuaries.  We help improve their ability to convey their message and assist with manpower, resources and guidance on issues such as fundraising, animal care, volunteer training and more.   On November 21st we began assisting the Parco Zoo Punta Verde in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy in a three-year study on Caracal caracal for the purpose of providing information on the species to expand the knowledge of the behavioral, social and pathological state of Caracal caracal in captivity and to create husbandry guidelines on species.  GoNomad.com posted letters from Big Cat Rescuers about animal interaction opportunities that exploit big cats as a way of educating tourists of the real issues involved in keeping big cats captive.   Modified our Children's DNA ID disks so that they can be used in MO as well as FL and distributed 140 via the Assemblies of God in Springfield.  Once a month all of our Big Cat Rescue Volunteers meet to share lunch, stories about the cats and to get the essential training they need to make Big Cat Rescue the haven it is for the cats. In April we had a guest speaker, Laurie Macdonald, Florida Program Director of Defenders of Wildlife, come and educate us about the issues facing the Florida Panther, bobcats, black bears and other native wildlife.  Our boots were lined up at the door as 70 or so of us sat on the floor, mesmerized by her slide show presentation that included some of our own cats as stand-ins for their wild cousins.   Love is the universal language and the one we speak best at Big Cat Rescue, but now our website, which is well over 5,500 pages of information, is available in Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.  Check out the google Translate box in the lower left hand side of every page of our site to translate the page into one of the supported languages.  The translations are far from perfect as this technology is still being developed, but we are happy to be able to reach so many more people around the globe.   Legislation/Education:  Thanks to all of you who wrote letters, attended town hall meetings and met with your lawmakers, the world is a little kinder place. Many of the worst breeders, dealers and tiger-tamer-wanabees were finally shut down.  Most of these collectors were fined or shut down by USDA or the state, or both in some cases:   • CA:  Hesperia Zoo AKA Cinema Safari Zoo owned by Stephanie Taunton was put on probation and fined $30,000 by USDA. • FL: Horseshoe Creek owned by Darryl Atkinson was shut down by USDA and FL. • FL:  Wild Things' land owned by Kathy Stearns went into foreclosure and bankruptcy. • FL:  Amazing Exotics appears to have been shut down.  It was notorious for allowing contact between large exotic cats and the public for a fee.  The head of their tiger-tamer-wanabee program was Ron Holiday (real name Ron Guay) who gained fame in the HBO movie Cat Dancers and the book by the same name.  His career in dancing with big cats ended when a white tiger he had raised from a cub killed his wife and his lover within a few days of each other in 1998. • IN:  Great Cats of Indiana, formerly known as Cougar Valley Farms, Inc., owned by Robert B. Craig and Laura Proper came under investigation by USDA. • IN:  Ervin's Jungle Wonders owned by Ervin Hall was shut down by USDA for a three year term. • MO:  Wesa-A-Geh-Ya owned by Sandra Smith was shut down after a visitor lost his leg to a tiger. • MS:  Cougar Haven closed its doors for good, sending the last 3 big cats to Big Cat Rescue. • NC:  Metrolino Wildlife Park owned by Steven Macaluso was shut down by USDA. • NE:  Zoo Nebraska was ordered to find appropriate homes for their big cats and bears. • OH:  Pearson's L & L Exotics owned by Lorenzo Pearson was shut down by USDA following six years of violations including the mauling death of his own two year old child. • TX:  Zoo Dynamics, owned by Marcus Cook was fined $100,000.00 You can read the USDA reports and news stories at http://www.911AnimalAbuse.com   Better laws were passed:   • CITES Decision 14.69: Parties with intensive operations breeding tigers on a commercial scale shall implement measures to restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers; tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives. (Most of the tiger breeding in the U.S. is for photo booths and petting sessions. None of the breeding of generic tigers does anything to conserve wild tigers. Ask your lawmakers to uphold this CITES decision and end the breeding of tigers outside of the Species Survival Plans in AZA accredited zoos.)  • MO: Effective March 2008 MO Wildlife Code changed as follows:  Safety:  Because of the inherent danger and potential liability associated with the possession of bears, mountain lions, wolves and their hybrids, the Conservation Commission now requires owners of these animals to identify each individual with a microchip embedded under the animal's skin. The owners must also submit a blood or tissue sample for DNA analysis. All animals must be registered with the Department when acquired, born, at death, or when sold. This will aid enforcement of illegal sales of these animals and will help Department biologists distinguish escaped and released captives from wild animals.  MO Conservationist magazine Feb issue at magazine@mdc.mo.gov where Wildlife Code book for 2008 has been released. • Sheriff Kevin T. Harrison asks county to ban private possession of dangerous exotics. • December 11, 2008 Park Hills, MO bans most exotic animals, except small monkeys, within the city limits. • OK:  5/7/08 Gov. Henry signed Senate Bill 1463 into law last week. Sen. James A. Williamson (R-Tulsa) introduced the legislation which prohibits the use of computer-assisted remote control hunting of wildlife. The bill also makes it illegal to engage in, sell, offer for sale, assist in or provide facilities for computer-assisted remote control hunting. Thirty-eight states prohibit Internet hunting, and a federal bill introduced in the U.S. Congress – S. 2422 and H.R. 2711, the Computer- Assisted Remote Hunting Act – would end Internet hunting nationwide. • UT:  Internet Hunting Banned.  Gov. Huntsman signed Senate Bill 164 into law. Sen. Michael Waddoups (R-6th) introduced the legislation which prohibits the use of a computer or other device to remotely hunt an animal.37 states now prohibit Internet hunting, and a federal bill introduced in the U.S. Congress – S. 2422 and H.R. 2711, the Computer- Assisted Remote Hunting Act – would end Internet hunting nationwide. • USDA roared out in support of Haley's Act HR 1947 but Congress never took the time to hear the bill in 2008.  http://bigcatrescue.org/laws/zPDFlaws/USDAcommentHR1947.pdf • Iberville, LA:  Referring back to a law that has been on Iberville Parish's books since 1993, the LA Wildlife and Fisheries Dept. finally banned the notorious Tiger Truck Stop from using live tigers as a public display. Thanks to Sky Williamson and more than 11,000 letters from Big Cat Rescuers, the Tiger Truck Stop was finally ordered to remove the last remaining tiger from this truck stop cage in Grosse Tete, LA. This should have ended a sad history of 21 years of tigers in small concrete cages in the middle of this busy truck stop, but the owner filed a lawsuit to keep Louisiana's Wildlife and Fisheries from doing their job.  At year end we are still fighting to Free Tony the tiger at FreeTony.com   Directing the traffic to the legislative sections had to be more creative however, because by and large, people don't want to think about politics.  The cat's stories and their photographs had to be compelling enough to overcome this typical aversion to political matters and we feel that we have had considerable success in doing that since we have been able to track 728,656 visitors to our legislative pages in 2008.  1,653,788 legislative pages were viewed in 2008. 1,743,210 visits to our main web site bigcatrescue.org resulted in 5,794,358 pages being viewed.  Combined visitors were 2,471,866 who viewed 7,448,146 pages or 6,772 visitors per day who viewed 20,406 pages per day.  Our peak day in 2008 was May 13 with 9,340 page views on bigcatrescue.org alone.    The most popular campaign was to free Tony the Tiger from the Truck Stop and accounted for one quarter of all letters sent.   Carole filled in for Allen Green at the Public Interest Land Air Water conference that attracted 3,500 people from all over the U.S. who care about issues such as wildlife trafficking, climate change and other important issues concerning our planet's health.   At the Sept. 17-19 Florida Wildlife Commission hearing in Jacksonville discussed public comments on the Captive Wildlife Rules.  Of the 1,700 comments our supporters were 1,430 of them.  44,460 letters were sent via our CatLaws.com site in 2008 which is up 25% from last year.  We now have 42,826 members registered to help us with email campaigns.  That is up 9,542 in 2008.   Big Cat Wins Abroad:     • Brazil:  12/11/08 After ongoing efforts by many animal organizations an animal group in Brazil has successfully lobbied and a law has been passed banning all animals in circuses there. • Johor, Malaysia Bans ALL Commercial Hunting:  The Johor government banned all forms of commercial hunting.  Johor is home to the Endau-Rompin National Park, the second largest national park in Peninsular Malaysia. The state will lose some money in licensing fees — in 2006, it issued more than 2,000 hunting licenses — but that pales into insignificance when compared with the benefits of such a move. Johor wants to save the tiger. The ban would also help the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to collect data, train staff and curb wildlife crime. Classified as an endangered species, the tiger is fully protected. But its food is not. The ban should ensure that the population of animals that the tiger preys on — such as wild boar and deer — will increase. If the tigers have sufficient food, they are also unlikely to wander into areas with human habitation. • Australia:  August 3, 2008 Environment Minister Peter Garrett immediately banned the import of Savannah cats into Australia upon learning they were a cross between a Serval and domestic cat.  He said the Savannah cat posed “an extreme threat to Australia's native wildlife.” • Australia:  Craig Bush, the “Lion Man” was ousted from the Zion Wildlife Gardens by his mom.   Fundraising and Marketing:  Big Cat Rescue was reported favorably in the news 70 times in 2008.   Some of the national press included shows on Animal Planet, Discovery and the History Channel in addition to such publications and Encyclopedia Britannica and Women's World Magazine and major media coverage in several other countries as well.   The Fur Ball netted over $110,000.00!  Over 550 big cat supporters had a blast at the Fur Ball; dining, dancing, shopping in the Bargain Sale, tasting and voting in the cake contest, playing the Wheel of Fur-Tune casino table and bidding in the silent auction and live auctions. Spirited bidders in the live auction won exotic trips see lions in South Africa, tigers in Thailand, visits Paris, Brussels and London and golf at St. Andrews.  Roger and Wilhelmina Hopper  won the mountain condo vacation in the costume contest.  The men's and lady's Rolex watches donated by AvantGold were won by Trey Ashmore and Linda Colon.  The Wheel of Fur-tune raffle prize of $1000 Gift Certificate to AvantGold went to Richard Bosley and the King of Feasts cake contest prize went to Cakes Plus.  Watch the video of the night's fun and see if we caught you on film in the photos posted under the video. http://bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2008furball.htm   We had 24,734 visitors this year, compared to a comparably sized zoo that hosts 700,000 visitors annually.  With our annual budget approaching a million dollars a year, we have to be creative in our fund raising, so we turned to the 1,743, 210 web site visitors to bigcatrescue.org and on Valentine's Day asked them to shop in our new online store at http://www.bigcatrescue.biz/  On July 30th we began cross promoting the online store throughout our main web site.   Watch this new episode of Magnificent Obsessions starring our very own Scott Lope.  Lion Feeding Frenzy premiered with lots of interest sparked with each airing.  Scott has also been featured as the big cat expert in Untamed and Uncut and Monster Quest in the U.S. and U.K.   On 2/9/08 we added this Social Bookmarking option to every page of our site to encourage visitors to add us to their social networks.   People who love animals love to share their photos and stories.  On March 1st Big Cat Rescue unleashed a Chat Big Cats community.  It offers unlimited storage space for members' photos, videos and music.   Members can post their own blogs, or join in our forums and contests. It is a YouTube/ MySpace styled community made up entirely of animal lovers. By year end there were 785 members and nearly 2,500 videos, songs, photos and blogs posted to the site.  Get in on the action free at http://www.chatbigcats.com   In late December, 2008, we qualified for google Adsense ads to run on YouTube.  We ended the year as the 6th most viewed Non Profit of all time and the 8th most subscribed Non Profit with 4,265 subscribers and 111,015 channel views.  By year end we had 139 videos posted on YouTube and we began using TubeMogul to post to other popular sites like google, Blip, MetaCafe, Revver and others.  http://www.youtube.com/bigcatrescue   Our MySpace account now has 6,291 friends, 254,024,879 people in our network and our site has had 34,443 profile views. http://www.myspace.com/1BigCatRescue   We took our cats' faces to Face Book: http://apps.new.facebook.com/causes/68903 and enhanced our presence on Care2.org and many other such sites.  We added 134 contacts to our LinkedIn presence here:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/BigCatRescue If you live in the Tampa bay area, look for Big Cat Rescue videos on Brighthouse Channel 340 in the Pet Performances section.  Some of your favorite videos, like Hope the baby bobcat are playing there right now.   Big Cat Rescue now has an Endowment Fund to provide a secure future for the cats. The Fund resides at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay. Thanks to the generosity of our donors we were able to qualify for a 33% matching fund by raising $150,000.00.  The Community Foundation granted us a $50,000.00 match and this brought our total to $200,000.00 that can generate income to provide for the cats in years to come. http://bigcatrescue.org/communityfoundationoftampabay.htm   We initiated the Legacy Society. This recognizes supporters who have included the cats at Big Cat Rescue in their estate planning. For more info visit:  http://bigcatrescue.org/legacy.htm   We began offering Instant Bingo in our gift shop and created free bingo to play online as well as a site for non US members to play charity bingo where the big cats win every time the player loses.   http://www.bigcatbingo.com   On 7/31/08 our Google grant went up from $10,000 a month in free ads to $40,000.00 a month at a cost of only $1,500.00 to us.   Our Ink Recycling new supporter count was up 324% increase over September 2007 thanks to 235 new ink recycling supporters!!!  This came following a 1/2 page ad about it in the fall issue of The Big Cat Times.  On Sept. 15th we began distribution of newsletters from Dunedin to Sarasota in 20 CVS, Bally's, Sears, Blockbuster and Albertson's stores at a cost of $150.00 a month.  Read all of the back issues here: http://bigcatrescue.org/cat_tales.htm   Placed first paid ads in Cat Fancy, CATS, Dog Fancy and DOGS to appear in Dec. issue.   In November we began accepting American Express and Discover credit cards.   Thanks to your votes Big Cat Rescue was awarded the People's Choice Award by WEDU, our local PBS affiliate. More than 80 charities competed in a 16 county radius for this award, but Big Cat Rescue took 31% of the vote.  This is the second year in a row that Big Cat Rescue has taken home this coveted prize. We have been advised that we are finalists again for the award in 2009.   In the lead for America's Best Animal Shelter.  Winners to be announced in 2009.   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats:  Big Cat Rescue was welcomed into the International Tiger Coalition, which is a group of 39 organizations committed to saving the tiger, based upon our unique ability to address the captive issues that imperil tigers in the wild.   The goal is 10,000 tigers in the wild in 10 years.  There are less than 3,000 in the wild currently and we are losing one per day due to poaching.  We persuaded ITC to keep US tiger farming issue as part of their mission to eradicate because legalized trade puts even more pressure on wild populations.   What makes this initiative unlike all of the past programs is two fold.  39 major conservation groups, including Big Cat Rescue, have joined forces with one common goal:  Save the tiger in the wild.  There have been other joint efforts, but none this large and never before has an entity as powerful as the World Bank been a committed partner in saving wild places for wild animals.   Harrison Ford, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, thanks to his latest Indiana Jones movie breaking records in theaters, is on the board of Conservation International and spoke at the June 9th launch.  Also in attendance were our friend, the beautiful Bo Derek, who won the Wildlife Guardian Award at the Fur Ball last year, and Robert Duvall.  HSUS brought Tiger Kids to the launch and this photo is from their participation as a ITC members.  See these celebrities up close and purrsonal in the most important roles of their lives in this video we shot and find out more about how the World Bank and the International Tiger Coalition plan to save the tiger. http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00206.htm   Other:  On 4/4/08 we had another perfect USDA inspection.  We were “green” before it was cool with our recycling, water restrictions and other steps we have taken to walk softly and leave only footprints, but things are going to get a lot greener, and yellower and purpler. Our friends at Biological Research Associates lovingly relocated 2000 pickerelweed, golden canna and gulf coast spikerush.  They spent an afternoon transforming the lake bank and by summer you should see a green three foot swath of native plants that flower in yellow and purple like irises and canas. Kevin Atkins, PWS Senior Project Scientist and Vice President of Biological Research Associates, who once worked with Belinda Wright in the wilds of India to save the tiger, has a deep affection for the big cats.  In reference to wild excursions and his upcoming trip to Africa he commented, “It's a beautiful planet.” http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/2008Greener.htm   With more than 100 big cats on 45 acres, we are always in the process of refurbishing and replacing old cages.  Landscaping is another ongoing project whether it be hauling off tree limbs lost in a storm, to mowing acres of grass, to installing beautiful plants to give the cats shade, privacy and the excitement of the butterflies. Most of the trees and flowers at Big Cat Rescue were donated and this video thanks John Deere, Tampa Bay Nursery, Babs of Garden Magic, our volunteers and those of you who make it possible. http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00192.htm   Helping Others:  Big Cat Rescue offered a $5,000 reward for information resulting in the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for shooting a young, female tiger to death. Her body was found next to an apartment complex and I-35E in Dallas, TX on Christmas Day. This was our first offer of a reward to solve a crime and it generated leads but no convictions.  We donated thousands of dollars worth of our tours to other worthy animal non profits including Animal Coalition of Tampa, Boxer Rescue, the Humane Society, the Lakeland SPCA, the Largo SPCA, National Humane, and many, many others.   America's injured veterans have found Big Cat Rescue a place of tranquility where they can surround themselves with beauty and grace;  a respite from all that they have endured protecting our country.  It started with one group and now they come to visit quite frequently.  It's on the house and we provide lunch when we can as well by asking donors to contribute.  They have done their part in keeping Americans free and we are doing our part to fight for that same freedom for the big cats.  Offered to provide mounted cougar and a native bobcat who was road kill to the Florida Conservation Commission to use in their exhibit at the fairgrounds, if they would stop using live cats.   Then and Now:     Our CFO, Howard Baskin, compiled a ten year snapshot of the sanctuary and its growth.  This is just a comparison between 1996 and 2007. Wildlife on Easy Street to Big Cat Rescue   1996    2007 Visitors    85  24,574 Total Expenses  $1,686,386 *    $926,619 Total Income    $0  $1,509,284 Total Net Assets    $148,455    $2,760,047 Spent on Program Services   100%    86% ** *funded by Founder        ** 14% spent on Management and Fundraising combined   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2008 and meetings: • CEO and Founder  Carole Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • President and Chairman of the Board Jamie Veronica • Vice President & BOD Cathy Neumann (not compensated by BCR) • Secretary Jen Ruszczyk (not compensated by BCR) • Treasurer Howard Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • Director Dr. Liz Wynn, DVM  (not compensated by BCR for her role as a Director)   Paid Staff:  Figures from 2007 as the final reports for 2008 are not in. Check back after April 15, 2009:  We went from 3 paid staff to 7 and now provide worker's comp insurance.  We are working to offer health insurance if enough of our staff opt for it.   • Operations Manager & Volunteer Coordinator Scott Lope $35,000.00 incl. bonuses • Staff Manager, Editor & Creative Director Jamie Veronica $24,700.00 (compensated but not for her work as a member of the board)  Gift Shop & Guest Services  Honey Wayton $22,800.00 • Intern Director & Lead AdvoCat Tiffany Deavor $25,000.00 Replaced by Kathryn Quaas in 2008. Education Directors Dr. Beth Kamhi & Coleen Kremer $14,000.00 combined • Vernon Stairs Cage Builder and Maintenance $35,600.00 • Jessica Allen took Bridget's place in Feb.  Chris took Brian's place May 1. • LaWanna Jones hired as an independent contractor 3/1/08 to work on web issues.  Debra Scott was hired as an independent contractor to do CapWiz alerts in July.   All of our animal care is done by volunteers or by staff who also volunteer time before & after work.   Volunteers:  Big Cat Rescue had 110 volunteers in 2008 who clocked in 39,902.57 man-power hours in addition to staff, intern and Volunteer Committee member hours.  Roughly the equivalent workforce of 23 more full time staff.   2008 The S.A.V.E. award for Scratch's Award 4 Volunteer Excellence.  The recipients were January – Becky Gagliardo, February – Rich Bluder, March – Mary Lou Geis, April – Sherry Levesque, May – Erin Newman, June – Scott Milshaw, July – Shiloh Grant, August – who?  , September – Rachel Pipitone, October – who? , November – who?  and December –  who?  Winners of the S.A.V.E. award are allowed to direct $500.00 to the cat project of their choice.   The Volunteer of the Year Award is Big Cat Rescue's most prestigious award.  It is also the hardest award to bestow as we have the best volunteers in the world and so many of them deserve our highest honors and praise.  This year's recipient was announced at the 2008 Fur Ball by Cathy Neumann, our Vice President.  Because of her outstanding service Cathy won the award herself so frequently that the only way to get her out of the running was to name the award after her and let her present it each year.  This year's winner was Becky Gagliardo.  Check out Becky's hero page to find out more about her. http://bigcatrescue.org/hero/beckygagliardo.htm   Staff and Volunteer Training:  On Jan. 25 Coleen Kremer, Dr. Beth Kamhi, Scott Lope, Jamie Veronica, Honey Wayton, Tiffany Deavor, Jen Ruszczyk, Jessica Allen, Barbara Frank, Dr. Liz Wynn, DVM, Howard Baskin and Carole Baskin met for a four hour crash course in People Mapping by Dr. Mike Lillibridge.http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/0articlesbybcr/PeopleMap.htm  Jamie Veronica and Dr. Liz Wynn completed the Safe Capture Course on Sept. 15, 2008.  We want to say a special thank you to four of our staff & volunteers who have just completed their 10th year of service to the cats:  Bill Lewis, Mary Lou Geis, Cathy Neumann and Scott Lope.  

I'm writing this from the future on 6/21/2020 because last night Ripper Jack posted a video of Judy Watson, Sherry DeWald and Debbie Sandlin trash talking me.  I did learn that I was wrong on one aspect though and that was the timing of Judy moving onto Easy Street.  I had always thought that she was living here at the time that Don left, but if this is a legitimate document, then it indicates that she applied for the permit to bring her new mobile home here on August 4, 1997 and it wasn't ready for occupancy until September 18, or maybe not even until September 24, 1997.    After Tiger King I had tried to discern if there could be any validity to claims that her septic tank was open at the time of Don's disappearance and could find no health department records from that far back.  I knew that Jayla Cougar had been born on 5/6/1997 and Judy was taking her out to schools and civic events to raise money during the time that she was still handleable.  I knew we had built Jayla a cage on the west side of Judy's trailer and assumed it was built after the trailer was in place, but I'm not sure.  Since Judy and Jayla were here all the time, after Jayla's birth, I assumed it was because Judy was living here.  In her interview she said she was traveling with Jayla back and forth to Treasure Island.  That's possible, but I don't remember Judy having her own Florida Wildlife Commission permits to house a cougar off site and that would have been a risk, if not an outright violation, for us to have allowed her to do that.   In fact, when Judy came to work for us, she had just spent the last decade or so working for an animal abuser named Bert Wahl.  He had sent her two favorite cougars to Nature's Classroom and Judy wanted possession of them.  If she had her own license at the time, I don't think she would have been asking me to help her get the cats released to my custody.      The notion of Don being in or under the septic tank is still just as ridiculous and just as easily disproven.  Howie suggested that we challenge anyone who wants to make such outlandish claims to put up $100k in escrow against our matching funds.  If Don's not there we get their $100k.  If Don is there, they get our money.  It would be money well spent, if by some miracle someone managed to kill and bury him there, just to have closure.  I don't think anyone who claims it, actually believes it.  They just love that the media and the mob runs with the idea of it.

I talk about the Florida Wildlife Commission and how residents shouldn’t have to pay to live off the land. The gentleman on probation went to jail for a fishing citation Charlie Alaimo joins be a we BS about current events Tuddle If you’d like to leave a voicemail for the show that might be played on The Tuddle Daily Podcast you can call 407-270-3044 All my content is free but if you’d like to donate to the cause you can do so by going to PayPal.me/TuddleOnTheRadio CONTACT Tuddle@Gmail.com Tuddle@Tuddle.net WEBSITES Tuddle.net TuddleTV.com DAILY PODCAST #315 Live https://315live.com/category/tuddle/ @TuneIn Radio App http://tun.in/pjOR7 iTunes Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tuddle-podcast/id1501964749 iHeartRadio https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-tuddle-podcast-59498985?cmp=ios_share&sc=ios_social_share&pr=false&autoplay=true Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZHRedrnxvAX4CnAFybSJe?si=D1Juw7NuSIqIXVWbMsj99Q Podomatic https://tuddle.podomatic.com SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter.com/Tuddle YouTube.com/Tuddle Facebook.com/Tuddle Instagram.com/Tuddle LinkedIn.com/in/Tuddle TikTok.com/@TuddleOnTheRadio Reddit.com/user/TuddleOnTheRadio

Completely different week of episodes this week as we are joined every day by a special guest from Florida Wildlife Commission’s staff to discuss Sportfish Restoration Funding and the programs this money supports, from Trophy Catch to Artificial Reef creation, to Boat Ramp access and Catch a Florida Memory! In today’s episode, Travis is joined by Ryan Hamm (hear a full interview with Ryan from earlier this season here!) and they discuss how Sportfish Restoration Funding (also called Dingell Johnson) works, where the money comes from, and how it gets here! Make sure to visit FWC’s Virtual ICAST Page at myfwc.com/icast Click Here to Listen on Spotify Click Here to Listen on Apple Podcasts Click Here to Listen on iHeartRadio Click Here to Listen on Pandora

‘Tis the season . . . For specks.  Black Crappie.  One of the most popular fish in the Sunshine State, we’re talking this week with one of the experts on these tasty and fun spotted slabs! Allen Martin is Biologist with Florida Wildlife Commission and helped create the Black Crappie Management Plan – he took some time to work with us unpacking Specks and everything you’d ever want to know about Crappie! Follow Cast and Blast Florida: Instagram – Twitter – Facebook – Website Want to experience a world class duck hunt or fishing charter? E-mail Travis to book today . . . Connect with the gang on social media: Travis Thompson – @travisthompson – Instagram – Twitter – Facebook Nathan Henderson – @nhenderson77 – Instagram – Twitter – Facebook Emily Thompson – @lovedaloca – Instagram

Everywhere you turn in Florida, hunters and environmental groups are talking about the recently released Bear Management Plan from Florida Wildlife Commission. In a different format for our “Conversations” show, we invited a couple of buddies over to discuss our take on the Bear Management Plan, why Bear Hunting should matter to ALL outdoorspeople, and where we think this whole discussion should go! Want to take action?  Here’s the link to our Take Action page Here’s the link to BHA’s Political Action Page Here’s the link to the Bear Management Plan Here’s the link to submit comments to the survey for FWC on Black Bears Click here to e-mail the Commissioner’s asking that they support the plan AND support the return of a sustainable bear hunt model. Become an official “Friend of the Show” by supporting us on Patreon! Check out our new “Conservation Isn’t Convenient” T-shirt . . . Follow Cast and Blast Florida: Instagram – Twitter – Facebook – Website Want to experience a world class duck hunt or fishing charter? E-mail Travis to book today . . . Connect with the gang on social media: Travis Thompson – @travisthompson – Instagram – Twitter – Facebook Nathan Henderson – @nhenderson77 – Instagram – Twitter – Facebook Emily Thompson – @lovedaloca – Instagram

This hour we discuss the results of the Florida Wildlife Commission meeting on the Goliath Grouper. Looking for HOUR1?

John Breech joins Will Brinson to break down the release of the new Titans uniforms, which feature a whole lot of navy blue, and which involved a giant party in downtown Nashville. Then the guys discuss what's weirder: Von Miller being investigated by the Florida Wildlife Commission for a picture of him with a bloody hammerhead shark or Mark Ingram being horsecollared by an Italian airport security dog. The guys discuss Julian Edelman helping to stop a school shooting, talk about Tom Brady's feelings over the Brandin Cooks trade and then dive into Robert Griffin III signing with the Ravens before redrafting the 2012 quarterback class. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices