Podcast appearances and mentions of howard baskin

Howard Baskin—often identified as Advisory Board Chairman of Big Cat Rescue, and spouse of Carole Baskin, the founder of the sanctuary that operated in Tampa for more than three decades—recalls, as a savvy businessman wielding a Harvard MBA, his reaction upon first  getting a close look at the details of Big Cat's financial operation: He […] The post Howard Baskin, financial guiding light of Big Cat Rescue first appeared on Talking Animals.

“Hey all you cool cats and kittens!”   Do you recognise this catch phrase at all? Of course you do, it's Carole Baskin - co-founder of the non-profit sanctuary Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida.   Whilst many people may have only recently heard about Big Cat Rescue through Netflix's 'Tiger King', the organisation has been caring and protecting wild cats for over thirty years. Carole, and her husband Howard have also been tireless advocates for ending private ownership of big cats in the US, resulting in the Big Cat Public Safety Act signed into US law in December 2022.   In March 2023, Big Cat Rescue made a huge announcement - announcing that all the remaining cats at the centre would be relocated to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and that they would sell the land where Big Cat Rescue is located.   This is far from the end for Big Cat Rescue - it's the start of a new adventure in investing the expected millions from the property sale into conservation projects for cats in the wild.   Guests: Howard Baskin - Big Cat Rescue   Links Big Cat Rescue

Host, Billie Groom, chats with Howard Baskin of Big Cat Rescue in Florida, USA on the process, challenges, and eventual success (Dec 2022) in enacting a law preventing businesses from making money from "cub patting," We talk about the problems with your Everyday Joe thinking it's a good idea to own a big cat, and Exotic Joe convincing shopping mall owners it's a good idea to put big cats on display.

Dr. Jane Goodall–the ethologist, activist, and conservationist who rose to international attention in the 1960s, propelled by her pioneering work studying chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania—offers her current impressions of young […] The post Dr. Jane Goodall first appeared on Talking Animals.

Death threats, lawsuits, media attention… None of this was on Howard's mind when he met and fell in love with Carole. The dedication these two have to each other, as well as to the protection of those big cats, is incredible. In part two of our talk with Howard Baskin, we learn even more about what he went through and how it felt to handle the public after Joe Exotic came into their lives. Once free to live in their town and talk to people in public every day, Howard watch Carole narrow her world more and more in order to protect herself. Now that things are getting back to more “business as usual,” their dedication to saving Big Cats is stronger than ever. Let's listen as Howard tells Linda and Rita more about Big Cat Rescue, and shares how YOU can help make a difference, too. EPISODE NOTES: Part Two of Our Interview with Howard Baskin

We all know who Carole Baskin is; she is the fearless champion of Big Cats everywhere. Big Cat Rescue was opened by Carole in 1992 as a safe haven for exotic cats who have been mistreated or displaced. And, of course, by now her name is synonymous with Tiger King Joe Exotic (more on that later...) Aside from all the drama, what you may not know is that Carole and her devoted husband Howard Baskin, along with many volunteers and politicians, worked tirelessly for years to get the Big Cat Public Safety Act which passed into law this past December. This bipartisan legislation ends the private possession and trade of these exotic cats, so no more cats and cubs can be harmed. Howard undertook this challenge head on, and in the process has become a well-known advocate for those beautiful big cats. Rita and Linda enjoyed chatting with Howard and learned so much about the cats, the legislation, and perhaps a tidbit or two about Joe Exotic (and a few other people) too. We think you will be as fascinated as they were! EPISODE NOTES: Howard Baskin and Big Cat Rescue

NSFW Smack My Pitch Up 94 - Fatal Attraction: Stuck In Crazy Transcript at the bottom of show notes Hobbit and Thandi visit one of the greatest sexy thrillers of all time as they try to suppress their... Fatal Instinct Subscribe to Smack My Pitch UP! https://link.chtbl.com/smpu_gui_subscribe Check out tons of merch for the GUI Network on TeePublic: http://bit.ly/teepublicGUI GUI Network Hotline: (804) 505-4GUI (4484) (Message & data rates may apply) _________________________________________________ ● Track Info ● "In A World" and "A Darker Heart" by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com) These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US "Steve Combs Through" Theme by Steve Combs Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ geeksundertheinfluence@gmail.com for sponsorship inquiries   Transcript: SMPU - Fatal Attraction === Hobbit: [00:00:00] Hello Geeks and welcome to another amazing episode of Smack My Pitch Up, the podcast that reboots remakes does everything. I lost track of that. Thandi: the things. Yes, Hobbit: All the things, all the redos of stuff that we have come to it's all a blend at this point. I love it when it's like a, it's a Torch Pass movie sequel reboot. That they do now, where it's technically a sequel, but it's also brand new. It. Thandi: there to make money. Yes. Love it. Hobbit: Oh, it's where everything's got sub categoried so much that they don't even make sense when you try to explain what it is now. It used to be just a remake or a reboot, and then that's it. Thandi: got one of the old guys and Timothy Chalamet, and we're calling it a re-imagining sequel. What was it? Legacy. Lega Sequel is the big thing now. Hobbit: Legacy . Yeah, absolutely. And we see it with the Ghostbusters is a good one. Creed is another one oh, a good one was the Ben Stiller Owen [00:01:00] Wilson, Thandi: Oh Zoolander two Hobbit: no not Zoolander two, the car one a Starsky and Hutch Thandi: oh. Hobbit: where at the end the original guys showed up and sold them the car and it was a, yeah, I don't know. 2021 Jump Street was the same way Thandi: Yeah, except Hobbit: it's oh, we were in Jump Street. Yeah, that was a really fun film. Speaking of a fun film no, this is a good film the one that we're talking about this episode, but I wouldn't go so far to say fun. It's hitting a lot of fear points. for for men, I guess. So It's definitely morality tale Thandi: it is a morality it's a straight up morality play, and that's fine. Oh, and by the way, The other gentleman is Mike. I'm Thandi. We love you. Hobbit: Oh, cool. Yeah, the intro stuff that we normally do at the beginning got so excited to jump Thandi: Yeah. No it's so, I love this movie. Like I hadn't seen it in 20 years and I was into it [00:02:00] like I was in the movie theater eating popcorn. I was into it. Like I was talking to myself and going, oh, no, when I had all the anxiety of a dude watching a dude just do stupid shit, making stupid dude mistakes. Oh, it was awesome. I thought this was a really good movie. I didn't remember that. It was a really good, like the, I thought the cinematography was good. I thought that the acting was good. The storytelling was interesting. I was all in on. Hobbit: and I feel they didn't overexplain anything. It was just the information that you needed to get like through that part of the plot. It. I'm trying to over decorate the movie with a bunch of additional people or side. I was trying to think of side characters that I would need to cast possibly while watching this movie. And there's only four other people in this movie, beside the main Thandi: that's a, it's a very small story. Hobbit: ke Yeah, absolutely. But that's all it needs to be. It doesn't detract by keeping it small at all. It actually keeps it a much [00:03:00] tighter movie. And this is just under two hours. It's not a short movie. It's a standard. Thandi: yeah. It's a full story, but it kept me engaged the entire time. And, you know what and big up to Adrian Lynn for doing the same movie over and over again for 40 years and making it pretty great every time. Hobbit: I'm the amount of sexy thrillers, that Michael Douglass has been in is just incredible to me. That j there was just a period of time, there was like a 10 year little spot. Michael Douglas was just like onscreen fucking Thandi: people. Like they don't do, they don't do this kind of movie anymore for probably years, but he is manhandling, just manhandling what's his CoStar's name? Glen Close. He's manhandling Glen, close. It is disgusting and awesome. Hobbit: There is a scene where Glen closed, like pulls down her shirt into her first reveal of her nipple. And I swear in my [00:04:00] head, Michael Douglas went, ow, as he even and jumped on it. Just ready to roll. Just aggressive fucking in this Thandi: Yeah, no it's, it is a sight to behold. Like I said, they don't make movies like this anymore. Sexy thrillers get made sometimes, but as far as like people pawing each other, that doesn't happen like that anymore. Hobbit: No I think the most recent pawing at each other sex scene that I saw was in Bros.  Thandi: Oh, do they have something like that? Hobbit: something, but it was actually playing at the aggressive sex scenes a bit where they're like, Shoving their feet in each other's face and not in a sexy way, like pressing their head against the wall kind of thing. Very funny. Very Thandi: love. Hobbit: But yeah. One thing I do miss about these sexy thrillers and something that just like you said wouldn't play today, is that morality aspect of don't cheat on your wife, cuz she might be fucking crazy. And the rule that we learned as teenagers from like [00:05:00] the, our older brothers and older friends. There are some things that come with, as they said, and the time sticking your dick in crazy is that you don't know what kind of results may come Thandi: That was the saying, but as somebody from the restaurant industry, I had to, it couldn't help it. It was part of my lifestyle. Hobbit: look, everybody at a certain point in their life needs to have a whore phase male or female in between everybody needs. I think it's important absolutely to. Really explore what you like, what you don't like, what you're willing to handle, and what you're not willing to handle. I think that's a super important thing. There's no shame in it whatsoever. Ever. I've had my time, my friends have had their time. Good for fucking them. But yeah, occasionally you'll run across somebody that , oops, that was a bad idea. And this is definitely that Thandi: and it's the, and you knew. once she started spitting her game, and I was like, man, Alex has mad game, but it's a little bit scary. Before they even got [00:06:00] into stuff, I was like, oh man this is way aggressive. This might not be a good scene for you, man, knowing it's not gonna be a good scene for 'em, but yeah. Ooh. Hobbit: When the moment hits where suddenly, and I think it was very deftly written, the turn in the conversation from it being very light. Nobody's saying anything flirtation to being overt flirtation, where they discuss basically who's making the call on which way this goes. And Michael Douglas says, that's definitely your call, not mine. And I'm like, bitch, you're married like . What do you mean? That's her call. She's got nothing to lose in Thandi: At that point, I think he was just having fun with it. He was like, oh yeah, we're gonna fuck. And she's oh yeah, no, we are, we're gonna fuck. And he's okay, Hobbit: No, he was playing with it like the night before. What you know is gonna be a long day at work and you start playing with the idea of calling out. But you know, in your head you're eventually gonna call out. Like you've already made that determination in your brain, but you haven't really admitted it to yourself yet. That's the flirtation that he is doing with [00:07:00] fucking, like he knows. That's where it's going. 100%. But he is no, I'm a, I'm good husband. I wouldn't do that. But what Would it be like? He already knows it's happening. He already knows it's going now even with Glen Close, like I haven't decided. Yes, bitch. Yes, you have. You have decided. What do you mean? No, I haven't decided Thandi: Yes, she has decided. That's one of the the thing, the old pieces of wisdom too, is that she knows beforehand and it's on you to f it up, but in his case, effing it up was actually going and doing the thing. Hobbit: Yep. And. I was curious to see how it played for me as an adult. The turn from it being this mutual decision to hook up and fool around. That was like, he's married, he can't turn in anything and everybody knows to it being this weird stalker kind of story and man for it didn't age poorly at all. I feel like there was, it felt very genuine. Once you're in it, it's a different story than when you're just [00:08:00] hypothetically discussing it. Thandi: Yeah. So for me the thing that was striking because a lot of the movies very naturalistic, except for Glenn Clo, seems like a cartoon character. If I hadn't engaged with people like Glenn Close, I would be like, man, she's playing a cartoon character, but she's playing people that I've met. This is a, perhaps not where it goes, but this is a very understandable relationship situation cuz I've seen it. Hobbit: Yeah, I have. and yeah, this is definitely a turned up to 11 version. Great. But it's not out of the realm of possibility. It works. It's not like a fast and furious movie where nothing makes sense. The human relationships here fit the way that they should to make sense. So that being said, let's ruin it. Let's let's take this movie word we're very happy with that I don't really see Thandi: Yeah, cuz I feel like we can only ruin it like the the genre has been done to death at this point. [00:09:00] It was really interesting finding any angle to get a grip on. But yeah. I love this movie enough that I think it stands on its own whether we ruin it or. Hobbit: This is really one of the top three sexy thrillers, right? There's like basic instinct of fatal attraction and then maybe what, nine and a half weeks? Thandi: Yeah. So my favorite before this, because I don't watch sexy thrillers all the time, I never did was unfaithful, which is also an Adrian Lynn movie from like 2002 or something. It made me have a chub for Diane Lane until now, even as Ma Kent, I was like  Hobbit: diane Lane is aging well. She is. She's doing a very good job there. And. Yeah, those sexy thrillers. There was a time in my life that I went through all of 'em. I like Jade was watching nine and a half weeks, of course. Basic, like I what was the one Body Heat? Do you remember? Body Heat, I think. Was that Melanie Griffith? Was it, was that? I can't remember. But yeah, th there was just a series of sexy thrillers and then that kind of [00:10:00] tweaked into it being more of the murdery aspect than the sexy aspect. And that's where you start getting into Seven and taking lives and suspect zero. And all these like gritty crime thrillers, I feel are definitely a bastard child of the sexy thriller. Thandi: But you know, the sexy thriller was, it was cheap to make, so it dominated like the nineties. It was this sexy thriller in courtroom dramas and just stuff that you didn't have to spend a whole lot of money on. Sets or places that weren't just people's houses or, yeah it was a good time in cinema because the focus wasn't on the spectacle. You had some interesting scripts and some interesting characters, Hobbit: And that's why I'm interested to see what we're exactly gonna do with this. We, if you didn't listen to the last episode, we have tweaked to the format a little bit where instead of four different takes of the movie we're talking about, one of us gets the re reboot or remake version thing that we think might actually be the best bet. For the film and one of us gets the remix version, the [00:11:00] wackadoo, weird, fully out of the box. Take on this. Sometimes those two versions are actually pretty close as far as whether or not we wanna see these versions or not. And sometimes they're wildly different, but you get the real take Thandi: I got the real. Hobbit: So I'm interested to see if you're going with that sexy thriller vibe. If you're trying to go more modern. Take what are we doing? Thandi: So I am going full on sexy thriller. And with that as a thing, I had to find something to latch onto to make it interesting. So something that I noticed in Fatal Instinct, or sorry, fatal Attraction, haha, is that they were really casually racist. A couple times making fun of Asian people, cuz that's the race that was in the movie. But and then in addition to that, I watched this other thriller that was from the affair thriller that was from the early seventies called play Misty For me, Hobbit: Yeah. Thandi: really, it wasn't racist at all, but [00:12:00] it had some really interesting relations to others in the movie because it was. Early seventies, so they were like, oh, let's put all these people in the movie. But they weren't people, they were like set dressing. So it had a black person and another black person and a gay person. But they were just so they could have these things in the movie to be like, oh, what is America's a melting pot? But they weren't important or really part of the movie or addressed as individual beings of, they were just people that were set dressing for the movie. So I wanted to address what race relations are like now with the from the point of view of white affluence, because those are the people that are in the original movie. These affluent white people like living their wonderful lives. So I wanted to have these affluent white people living their wonderful lives, and I wanted to have race as a component that is not directly addressed, but I wanted [00:13:00] to see in real time. Basically having microaggressions, basically being casually racist in a way that people do not like, oh, I hate these people, or whatever. Just the way people do when they're comfortable and intimate. That kind of casual racism. I want to see that throughout the movie, but with it never really being directly addressed, just something that hangs over the movie. So in this modern version, this modern. On fatal Instinct. Dang it. On Fatal Attraction Hobbit: No. Fatal Instinct is a movie and if I remember correctly, Thandi: a parody Hobbit: isn't that like a, it's a parody movie. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. Thandi: So my director for this version is Michael Moen, who directed the Voyeurs. I don't know if you saw that last year, a really. Hobbit: Oh, okay. I know what you're talking. I hadn't had the chance to see it, but I know what you're Thandi: So it is half of a really good movie. If they had [00:14:00] stopped at the Twist, then it would be a really good movie. But at The Twist, there's like a whole half movie left and it's stupid after that, Hobbit: Oh Thandi: But it's a sexy thriller and I enjoyed that first half of it. So that's the director I'm going for there. And for my story, it's mostly the same beats, but we bring in some things that are a little bit different. So instead of Stuart PanIN being the. We're bringing in Michael Pena as Jimmy the Stewart Pan character, Hobbit: Okay. Thandi: as his wife Hildy. We have Mabel K, who was Noora in Wakanda forever. And their interaction with the couple, the Dan Gallagher and Beth Gallagher, the husband and wife, the lawyer, couple, the lead and his wife. What happens inside the circle of trust, which is the casual racism that happens inside of the circle of trust, but it's not really, it doesn't look like racism because it's inside the circle of trust. [00:15:00] Everybody is accepting of what's going on there. If you watch it from the outs, if you see it from the outside, then it's yucky. It's it's like you hanging out with Steven or me and saying some things that are, it's funny in the moment because it's us, not racism. And not inappropriate in that moment, but if somebody from the outside sees it, it's yucky. I've had this conversation about just being in podcasting. Is that something you have to be considerate of, is who's listening your audience? It's the clarity of message is that there are jokes that, yeah, like you said, we could make with one another because the intention is incredibly clear to one another. Hobbit: We know each other well enough to know where the line is and what is meant by what is Thandi: Yeah, I've had the circle of trust conversation with women where I'm like you, where I've said, where I've said things in front of people that I would say in front of a woman that I'm very close with. That's completely inappropriate to say under that context. And it's just something you have to learn. But we're seeing this as [00:16:00] observers and we're like, eh, and it's just part of the That's something that's happening in modern day with social media, with the. Remote based relationships that we have is people are starting to misunderstand like where that line is as far as comfort level and what you're should be able to say in mixed company versus close Hobbit: That there's some things that you need to change your clarity a little bit depending on your Thandi: Yeah. Every conversation's not for everybody. Hobbit: exactly, that's why you should, there's some places you can't say fuck it work and that's reason. Thandi: Yeah, Hobbit: My job's pretty okay with it, but But for my leads for my affluent white couple, we have Jake Gillen Hall as Dan Gallagher nice. Thandi: as Beth Gallagher we have Bree Larson, and as Alex, we have Lupita Nego, which brings in like just a whole bunch of. Not in your face, [00:17:00] but like implicit racism because Leedia Nigo is the one who Jake Gillen Hall cheats with. I also wanted to change the dynamic of that a little bit, where Jake Gillen Hall is. Not just an innocent dummy. He's actually he's trying to pursue a thing. He's trying to see how long he can make this go, not realizing that this person's crazy and then it's too late. It's not two days. And he is oh, this bitch is crazy. It's like a couple weeks maybe where he is trying to like, oh, I can make this, I can make, I can juggle this, I can make this work. Oh no, she's crazy. and In the scene, like it's gonna have a lot of the same beats. So when the scene, they're gonna sell their, oh, we're gonna try ourselves to sell our house. And when Alex comes to the house and Beth meets Alex, and after Alex leaves and she sees that that Dan, Jake Gillen Hall is very uncomfortable, she's she thinks it's because it's a pretty black girl. She's I know what you did in college. I know that you were into that in college or whatever. And when she's talking about what [00:18:00] he was into in college, he does this. This mock black woman accent, Adam. Hobbit: No. Oh, no Thandi: In inside their home is part of the circle of trust, but stuff that people don't see and you don't really see in movies like that either. But I want to expose that kind of thing, not as not as a pointed part of the movie, just as an uncomfortable background element that goes through the entire. then most of the story beats are going to be the same. Beyond that one thing that I will change is that her parents will be a little bit more involved as affluent whites. And when they find out that Dan has been cheating with this black, this African black woman the level that they're unpleased and the way that they express that is going to be Hobbit: Ooh. Yeah. Oof. A fog. Like a fart in a room. Just hover it in. Thandi: so so because her parents are more intrinsic to the plot there I've casted [00:19:00] them for Beth's mother, I have Michelle Pfeiffer, and for Beth's father, I have John Corbett. And if you don't know who John Corbett is, he was Aiden from Sex in the City. Chris from Northern Exposure, which is how I knew. And then Ian from my big Fat Greek wedding, and he's just a tall, handsome white guy, even it's in the sixties. He's a tall, handsome, white guy. Michelle Pfeiffer is still beautiful and older, and I wanted to like you to see the affluence just as like looking at these people. Oh, affluent whites, so Hobbit: Yeah I love trying to differentiate between being a white myself understanding that I do differentiate myself between that and affluent white, which has a why at the beginning, the white. White. Yeah. That it's a slight different inflection there. That does mean a lot . It does quite a bit. Thandi: And that Hobbit: and in, yeah, that's in the circumstance? Yeah, in the circumstance. I think it's just the idea of [00:20:00] who grew up at a level of maybe income or status that they. Need or maybe desire hung out with non-whites, like actually have experience interacting with people that didn't look exactly like them or have the same experiences as them. And so don't have that like absence of experience that creates awkward social situations on occasion. Just out of. Lack of depth of knowledge of how to act around people, which is literally just like yourself, but don't try to cater to, and then you become more awkward. That's like the white affluence things like in Get Out that I voted for Obama three times. Why was that relevant to this conversation? Like why is that something you just blurred out? Brother, man. Yeah. That If you wanna see a perfect example of this, look at early television interviews [00:21:00] with Quentin Tarantino. When there's a black cast member with him during the interview he starts talking Thandi: starts to code Hobbit: like he, yeah, he code switches my man. Then I might like, he totally changes his inflections and it's jarring like it's so bad. I'm really glad that he got outta the habit. It's really bad. Yeah, it's. So, yeah I love those moments that speak to that. That's great. Thandi: And the uh, the only other thing I want to put in here for that pitch is that I want it to be old school sexy, and I want Jake Gillen Hall to grab two big pans of la Pita NGO's Sweet, juicy can, and focus on that is like an objectification of that sweet, juicy can. Much different than what his wife, Bree Larson has going on. And yeah, just as part of the the underlying discomfort, he's objectifying this big black ass [00:22:00] as part of his thing. But I want very little of it to be spoken out loud. I just want it to be like, felt throughout the. Hobbit: I think that's gonna really translate better anyway than trying to work in dialogue to explain that. No I think showing it is gonna work a lot more effectively For sure. Thandi: And that's the pitch. Hobbit: sweet. I'm into it. It's taking aspects it's almost like an homage to the classy, sexy thriller the classic sexy thriller without trying to re. Modern take with a nice deft handoff from the classics so great into it. I am not doing that. I am being way more overt in the way that I'm approaching not just race, but also otherness, I guess in this conversation. With Fatal Attraction being the starting point I was interested to. Something that was troubling for me with Fatal Attraction [00:23:00] is rooting for anyone. The only innocent here is the wife. Like she, she didn't do anything. She didn't deserve this. She, for everything we've seen in the film, is a devoted and loving wife that appreciates her husband and doesn't try to start fights. Isn't a banshee or terrible or hasn't driven him into the arms of another woman. He's just a scumbag that took advantage of an opportunity. And of course Alex the character Alex is a psychopath. So I wanted to Thandi: She's so Hobbit: to like, change the direction on who we're actually rooting for, have one of the main characters as somebody that we root for. But to do that I had to really just determine what would give us that reason to root for a person. And I think it would be th this idea of otherness. Is discussed a little bit in Fatal Attraction. This is a single woman that is willing to sleep with a married man. And so therefore she's treated as disposable by the married [00:24:00] man and she calls him out and She did make assumptions that weren't there for sure. But what I wanted to do is flip it on its head. Actually, this was inspired by. News about what is it Matt slap the conservative icon that there's reports and text messages that back it up that he apparently groped a man in a car couple years ago and was called out for it. And this is like hard. Yeah. And this is the story he told time and time again. So I thought maybe inspired. Switching the lens that actually Dan Gallagher is a conservative politician Opposed to a lawyer. And his friend Jimmy played by Stewart kin, is actually just his lawyer that works on the campaign and stuff with him. And, Dan is a closeted gay man. He has a wife. Didn't want to put a kid in, in a dangerous position in this situation. So, and also gay man with a beard, they got [00:25:00] a greyhound. So that's crazy was the random person picking your kid up from school scene by the. Yeah, that Talk about a fucking power move. Power move. It was like, your kid is completely safe. Had a great time. Took her on a rollercoaster. She kissed me on the cheek like this. Thandi: But also that's a scene that would never work in modern movies cuz you couldn't get into the school to get somebody's kid just random. Hobbit: Hell, that's one thing that immediately flipped in my brain when that scene came up, is that, how did she just come and grab a kid? It's oh, it's the eighties. That's, yeah. They weren't checking IDs and shit at Thandi: And the kid was like, okay, Hobbit: the kid. The kid being like, come with me. Sure. Great. And the eighties parents just wanted to get rid of their kids, take her great. Thandi: More time to drink for us. Hobbit: Yeah, right. So Dan is a closeted conservative politician. His wife Beth is. It's not openly discussed [00:26:00] between them, but it, she's pretty aware of his proclivities. She just chooses to ignore them. She appreciates the lifestyle that she's been given is completely content to have her own trists outside of the marriage um, and let him have his, and it's just an unspoken kind of thing that they have between the two of them. That the core thing is to make sure that they're not caught. They are seen as a core family value type. Thandi: Hillary and Bill action. Hobbit: A little bit kinda a little bit of that energy. And then we have let's see. The Ellen, yeah the daughter that's a Greyhound, that's just a dog. So instead of picking up the dog from school, it'll be from like the kennel they kept it at while they were out of town, like doing politician stuff. And then took the dog to the dog park, , like doing doggy fun things. Thandi: Who frolics with the side piece in public.  Hobbit: Yeah, that's, ooh, that's rough. So this story is less so about [00:27:00] the cheating aspect and more about the realization that Dan and Alex, I don't even have to change the name for the man that he has a trist with, doesn't realize that Dan is a conservative politician when they have this experience. and it's shortly after this experience when Dan's in town in DC has this tryst, with this dude. He lives nearby, maybe like Baltimore or something, relatively close, but not in DC. And then he sees Dan's face on the TV as he's elected, like he's a, been elected or or his position. That's where Alex decides to have some fun with this man that he had real feelings for and is against. Gay marriage calls it an abomination, gays are grooming that whole fucking party line shit. And it's infuriating. But he also like, still has feelings for him. So it's this confliction. So he's threatening to out him, to tell the press and all this stuff. And he has pictures of them together on his phone and all this stuff. And so Dan is a [00:28:00] mess. This can ruin everything, can ruin his political career ruin this very intentionally curated marriage that he has. Oh, let me name these people. Actually. This is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, Thandi: Who Hobbit: who is best known for headwind in the angry inch. Also the. Movie How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which if you haven't seen, is based on a Neil Gaiman and Short Story, and it's a sci-fi weird piece directed at episode of Glow and a bunch of other TV shows as well. Great director. I really wanted a queer director to speak to, like the experience of this closeting and like this whole story really. And Dan Gallagher is gonna be played by Matt Bomer if you are unfamiliar. He was the super spy in the Chuck TV series. Back in the day. He's was also in Magic Mike one and two he was in the magnificent seven Nice guys boys in the Thandi: Hold on. I thought that Chuck was Shazam. Hobbit: Chuck is Shazam but his college roommate that was the super spy [00:29:00] that is who he gets mistaken for. He he shows up and then gives Chuck the thing or whatever. That's Matt Bomber. He's the smooth spy guy that, yeah, the actual spy. Yeah. . Then we've got Alex. I wanted to really punch the otherness of this story by not just having like a queer actor and visibly not code switching. Very clearly gay, but also I wanted a Latino actor as well, so I went with Wilson Cruz, and if you're unfamiliar, he's in. Star Trek Discovery as one of the doctors. He was in Party Monster as Angel and he was Ricky in my so called Life way back in the day as well. Great actor I think would nail this role as just like a kind of vindictive scorned lover that is trying to get back at this conservative politician that he had a tryst. Thandi: Him being Latino works for that whole kind of [00:30:00] thing too. Hobbit: And just the whole party line in general would be also just another condemning factor, and I want a line like that as it's bad enough that you slept with a man, but he had to be, he had to be Mexican. He's no, he is Puerto Rican, whatever. Just dismissive kind of energy from Beth Gallagher, the wife who's played by Amanda sef. Thandi: Nice. She was actually on my shortlist for wife. Hobbit: yeah, I think she can play like waspy mean affluent white woman very well. And I just, great actress. I think she would have a lot of fun in that role. Jimmy is the lawyer friend that he goes to that has some experience in like family law stuff, and he's Hey, how does this work out? There's no baby nobody's pregnant in this version. It's more about some information about his governmental dealings that he let slip during the tris that he had and how liable he would be if that came out if that was protected in any way. And so he's going to his friend who's played by Jared Carmichael, who I was not very familiar with [00:31:00] until the Golden Globes this last Sunday where he host. and was brilliant wonderful and said super fucking edgy shit that like pissed off a lot of people and have a lot of respect for that. And I would I was like, you know what? You get in my movie cuz you were Thandi: he came out. So I'm sure that he would be all about something, a project like this. Hobbit: absolutely. And he's very funny as well. And I want this, and in that same conversation of otherness is that there's this conserve. Politician that's relying on what he considers a friend is really employee that this black lawyer that is one of the very few people that knows that he's gay because Jared Carmel, Jimmy is also gay and is openly so like it's fine, but it's also like they work together. It's like one of that's the comfortable in the room conversation that this conservative dude feels like he can be. More gay in the room with Jimmy than he could be normally, because that's the [00:32:00] one connecting factor they have with one another, but he's also still racist. So it's like they, they never really get to a point of actually being friends. Cuz Jimmy is like, no, I know you're a racist. We're not friends. It's just I'm not gonna out you because I know how fucked up that is. I'm not gonna do that. So you're safe. But then there's a, the boss. Arthur from the original was played by Fred Gwynne, and I wanted Kyle McLaughlin to play the boss. He actually was in a movie based on tiger King, , Joe versus Carol. He played Howard Baskin in that, and John Cameron Mitchell played Joe Exotic in that movie. So they have a connecting. But the twist, the main twist of this is that at the end or the midway point where in the original he tells his wife that he had an affair, that she's pregnant, that she's stalking him, and it's this whole ordeal. That's the turn where now Dan isn't the [00:33:00] aggressor in trying to get Alex to fuck off. It's the. The wife takes this role of that's the surprise in the story. The twist is that she's known all along, he's gay. She doesn't give a shit. Don't take away my quality of life. Don't ruin this for me. Yeah. And those, so she gets way darker and way more fucked up about trying to get this stranger to leave her family alone. And that's where the, it almost like a tag team in a wrestling ring, like your turn and she goes after him. Thandi: Yeah that's beautiful. And actually I think in a practical marriage of a power couple marriage, I think that's how it works. The face doesn't do the public assaults. It's the other shrew person who actually goes out and takes care of business. Hobbit: Yep. So at the end of it, this is a love affair gone wrong. A conservative politician that is trying to cover their tracks. As a hypocrite, that is what they pretend to stand against. [00:34:00] And a trophy wife, beard wife that is willing to kill to keep her comfort. So I'm loving this. I'm actually, I'm loving this. How does it shake out? It shakes out basically that the final scene in the original movie where she sneaks into the house to to kill them and stuff. It's. It's actually that, oh, how do I put it? The vital proof of their tryst that was on his phone was stolen by the wife and brought back to their house. So Alex isn't going in for revenge, is going in to get their phone that they have the locate feature on, and that's how they find out that it was taken to get their phones. So they have proof to try to blow it all outta the water. That's the way that I'm safe is to. Tell people about this. So then if anything happens to me, they know who to look at. And so then it's the fight to the death in the house. And I don't want this to necessarily be like I think as unfortunate as [00:35:00] it is, cuz we are rooting for Alex at this point. I'm making Alex the person that you want to succeed. I want the reality of the situation to be that's not how it works. And that like during the struggle Alex is killed in their house and they try to play it off as a burglar like somebody that came into the house. Yeah, exactly. And then you throw that otherness around as a final fuck you. At the end of it is that like even after all this shit, you can still just throw out ads, just some Puerto Rican and then the police will be like, yep, that we've heard of that before. And dismiss it is exactly that. Don't look into it that. But I would love to have something at the end where the phone gets into the right hands. So even though Alex dies at the end, the information, the outs, Dan and his wife for being pieces of shit gets recovered and actually gets out or it's alluded to. Thandi: Like the end of the Watchman movie. Hobbit: A similar kind of vibe to it. Yeah, for sure. Thandi: I'm really into that pitch. I like [00:36:00] that. Hobbit: I'm actually really surprised there aren't that many. There, there just aren't that many stories about conservative politicians that are closeted, trying to protect their image. There's just not a lot of that out there. And it's such a every like six months or every year, we have another story of that happening. Thandi: Yeah, I think mostly it's just a tacit agreement because these male sex workers make a lot of money off of these guys and if you're a professional, you keep your secrets. Hobbit: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. But in the circumstance, I thought about the sex worker ed vibe as well for this, but I wanted it to be genuine, not he fucked me so good. I love him. Now, can I like ? I'll give a, like in, we just saw True Romance recently where Christian Slater. Fucks her so good that she's only three days into being a call girl. And she decides I quit. Let's get married. I didn't want to give the conservative politician that kind of energy at all. But yeah, so that's my version [00:37:00] of fatal Attraction is that the fatality was actually to the person that made the mistake of hooking up with a conservative. Thandi: Which is how that works Hobbit: That's how that works. Yeah. . And also moral of the story is be with somebody that considers you, they're equal. Not somebody that looks down upon your station. Thandi: or is just fetishizing you. Hobbit: Ugh. Yeah. Thandi: was somebody who has not worked through their own issues. Ugh. Hobbit: Ugh. Thandi: I guess if that was the thing, we'd never, none of us would ever be with anybody. Hobbit: Or for clarification, or is working through their own issues. Like it's a constant, continual process. But yeah, you gotta put the work in though. So great. Yeah, I think these are both really actually possible versions of this. Mine is almost not fatal attraction anymore, but it's still hitting those main beats. It's like the dawn of the dead remake. The only thing that, the only thing there is the mall is Thandi: For the fun pitches inspired by is what we're [00:38:00] going for, just generally. Hobbit: Yeah. Let's, if we got just a little bit left, we're talking about our trailers that we gotta do now. So yeah I actually wrote out my trailer this time, Thandi: I did not. So we'll Hobbit: Oh, nice. Nice little flip here. Okay, let me get us queued up here. We decided we're gonna use the same track for both of ours cuz it's a perfect, like sexy thriller back backtrack here. Here we go. Tandy, with your version of Fatal Attract. Thandi: Happy wife, happy life, but he's gotta have it. Lawyer Dan Gallagher, played by Jake Gillen Hole has everything except that. Sweet. Sweet. Can he craves. So he meets Alex Force, played by Lapita Nego, and ruins his own life. Join Bree Larson as his wife, Beth Gallagher, Michael Pena as his buddy Jimmy, and as best mother and father, Michelle Pfeiffer and John Corbett as they [00:39:00] try to navigate a crushing affair. He gave it all up for the nookie that sweet nookie. And it will destroy him unless it destroys her. First, it's Michael Moens, fatal Attraction. She will not be ignored. Hobbit: Yes. Excellent. . All right. Let's see how much I can screw up mine here. So I'm using the same backing track. I tried to use some punning in here so I apologize and ahead of time for how stupid it Thandi: Make it fun. Hobbit: Woo. this is definitely a more fun version with John Cameron Mitchell at the helm. You can't help but have it a little bit more. Ridiculous and big and a little silly. So here we go, man. Lives by the rule of law and his own morality. This March, Dan Gallagher wrestles with both as he [00:40:00] tastes forbidden fruit. Little did he know this fruit bites back with his political career on the line. Dan will do anything to stop this fatal attraction starring Matt Bomber Wilson Cruz and Amanda Seyfried. Thandi: So, so was the the double entendre Attentional or Hobbit: Yeah. Th this fruit bite's back definitely was part of it, and I was like sitting there being like, ah, it's a lot. No, I, it's the self ownership, it's like I'm allowed to say it like it's okay.  Thandi: It's awesome. Hobbit: Cool. So yeah, this is this is. Really fun take on Fatal Attraction. I appreciate all the listeners for sticking around for it. Two episodes in a row. Who knew we'd be capable of Thandi: a possible thing. Yes. Hobbit: Yes. We'll be trying to make it a threepeat here next week with another episode of smack My Pitch Up. Thandi, thank you so much again for joining me on this fucking escapade. Here Thandi: thank you, sir. Hobbit: Make [00:41:00] sure to rate reviews, subscribe all the things you do for podcasts. Check us out at GUIpodcast.com for links to our social media and other shows on the network. You can hear coming I believe last week as of when this drops the final regular release of Geeks under the Influence we'll have dropped. And yeah, that's gonna be a tear jerker for sure. And a lot of drunken revelry as well, so Thandi: Yeah. Yeah. But you know, Bigger and better things. Bigger Hobbit: There's a whole lot Thandi: everybody's still here. We're all still playing. Hobbit: also playing and there will be occasional releases on the main feed. Still that's not, we're gonna every so often meet up and have our hahas. And and do a little like free play or something or special event kind of thing. So definitely keep, subscribe to that mainstream as well. But yeah, also check out TeePublic for the new smack. My pitch up design or newish smack my pitch up design. The lethal weapon inspired design with Thandi and I  Thandi: look great.[00:42:00]  Hobbit: That's a fun design. I'm really happy how that turned Thandi: pretty inspired. Hobbit: So, so inspiring that you almost didn't get into an amusement park with it. Thandi: Yeah it's Danny Glover. Don't you recognize Danny Glover? Yeah. Hobbit: I wish I was a fly on the wall to hear this. The reasoning with the security that it's just a picture of a gun on a shirt. It doesn't mean that you're like aggressing Thandi: I had to pitch the show. I had to pitch our show to the people at the amusement park. I pitched it well enough. They let me in. So Hobbit: pull it up on Spotify. No, see it's real. It's right here. Oh, that's so Thandi: I don't get it. Hobbit: So, yeah, you try your hand at getting into an amusement park with our shirt and let us know how it turns out. Pitch smacked on social medias for the most part, hashtag us pitch smacked, and we'll see you next time. I'm Mike the Hobbit, Thandi: and I'm Thandi. Hobbit: and you just got your pitches smacked all up and Thandi: It's a swing and a pitch and it's smacked out of the park. Hobbit: Well done. Well done.

Join Dr. Kim Lannon live with special guests, animal rights activists, Carole and Howard Baskin from Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida Wednesday, January 11, 2023. They will discuss the legislature passing the Big Cat Public Safety Act bill signed into effect on Dec 20, 2022. Plus, the trio will be chatting about BCR's rehabilitation and release program of Florida Bobcats, the 3 newest Tigers from Guatemala, BCR's Compassion Fatigue Program, conservation and what the future of exotic big and little cats will look like, and what we can still do to help.

Howie was asked to speak at an International Conference to 4000 people Our speaker, Howard Baskin, is the Advisory Board Chairman of Big Cat Rescue, the only accredited sanctuary in Florida devoted to big cats and one of the largest sanctuaries in the world. In this talk he will explain from experience on the ground why the U.S. regulatory scheme cannot work, how it increases the likelihood of extinction of the tiger, and propose the solution.   He wrote the following as the draft for the theme of his talk:   THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF US TIGER CUB PETTING ON PREVENTING EXTINCTION OF TIGERS IN THE WILD   As recently as 1990 there was an estimated 100,000 tigers in the wild. Today there are less than 4000. Preserving endangered species around the world from man induced extinction requires the cooperation of all nations. This is largely managed through the international treaty known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, or CITES (pronounced sigh tees). The nations of the world meet every two years at CITES Conventions to make decisions that fall largely on each nation to actually implement. The United States plays a leadership role in proposing positions and urging other nations to support those positions. In contrast, some countries seek to “farm” tigers and legalize the trade in tiger parts that drives the poaching that threatens the existence of tigers in the wild.   What is not well known is that the impracticality of enforcing the current regulatory scheme in the U.S., which results in these iconic animals living in miserable conditions in roadside zoos and in tiger cubs being ripped from their mothers at birth to use for cub petting and photo ops, impairs the credibility of the United States in its effort to oppose tiger farming and save the tiger.   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

Howie's article in Encyclopedia Brittanica  http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2018/10/how-is-the-struggle-for-womens-suffrage-100-years-ago-like-the-battle-to-stop-abuse-of-big-cats/   HOW IS THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 100 YEARS AGO LIKE THE BATTLE TO STOP ABUSE OF BIG CATS?   By Howard Baskin | October 22, 2018    — We are pleased to publish this essay by Howard Baskin, Advisory Board Chairman of Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary for abused, orphaned, rescued, and formerly exploited big cats, including tigers, lions, leopards, cougars, bobcats, and others. Big Cat Rescue also works to end the private possession of and trade in exotic cats through legislation and education. For more information about the work of Big Cat Rescue, see the Advocacy for Animals article Big Cat Rescue.   Frequently we at Big Cat Rescue post on our website individual stories about victories in the war against exploitation and abuse of big cats. There are reports of a local, state or federal law that passed, or reports of how supporters e-mailing a company or a venue caused the venue to stop allowing cub petting on their property or to stop using big cats in an advertisement for their products. In this article I'd like to take a moment to stand back and look at what is happening from the “30,000 foot” level, because what is happening is very exciting, and it is easy to get lost in the weeds of the individual victories and not think about the bigger picture.   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

Virtual Cats Our vision is a world where all wild cats live free.  If you read the recent article by Howard Baskin it details the amazing strides we are seeing toward that end.  Most notably circuses are ending their wild animal shows all around the world and are banned in many other countries.  Mainstream travel agencies and tourism industries are banning the practice of pimping out cubs for pay to play schemes.  There are so many fashion designers who now oppose the use of fur that you can barely name them all.  Third world countries are closing their zoos because people are realizing that it is cruel to collect or breed wild animals for life in cages.  The gains for protecting big cats are growing exponentially and I take great relief in seeing the light shining so brightly at the end of the tunnel...   With one major exception.  U.S. zoos.  Our federal bill to ban the cruel act of ripping days old cubs from their mothers, just to pimp them out as pay to play props, has stalled in Congress because of zoos and those affiliated with them.  Even the big accredited zoos want huge loopholes in the bill because they use cub petting to lure donors.  They all hide behind the excuse of education for conservation because to call it what it is would get them no support.   I was at a dinner party recently with people who I've know for more than a decade.  I thought they understood our mission.  When one of them said she wanted to take her grand children to the zoo the look on my face must have been obvious because she followed quickly by saying, “I know it's probably not right, but how else am I going to teach my grandkids to appreciate animals?”  Now I was completely dumbstruck.  Howie did a good job of answering with all of the ways that we have at our disposal now, like great documentaries, camera trap photos and scientific insights made by people working in the field who study wild animals.  I just sat there speechless.   I was reeling in the admission, that even though people who go to zoos usually come away feeling like there was something very wrong with wild animals being held captive for their amusement, they still do it because they don't believe their is a viable way to engage their children and teach them about nature.  I thought about the way I've seen inner city children on our tours, who were just as amazed at the ducks, and birds and squirrels who flock to our patch of Eden as they were the cats.     When people come to Big Cat Rescue they are immersed in the beauty of nature but we can only handle about 30,000 visitors a year.  How can we provide that total immersion into the life of exotic cats in such a way that it can be made available for free everywhere?  We have made efforts to create a 360 degree experience since 2015 but the tech has only recently caught up to our vision.  Thanks to recent break throughs in the devices, like Oculus Go, that are now cheap enough for wide adoption by consumers, and platforms like Pixvana, VeeR TV, YouTube and Facebook we are able to immerse millions of people in experiences just like our keepers have.   Until you strap on a head mounted display and watch one of our 50+ videos of our cats up close and purr-sonal, you really can't explain what it feels like to be right next to them,  It's better than seeing them in person because you are closer.  You are acting out the part of their caregiver.  You are totally engaged in their world and perspective.  We are gamifying this experience so that you can choose your own path through the sanctuary and visit the cats you choose when you choose.  Instead of taking your kids to a zoo, to see the big cats trying to pretend you aren't there, you can give your children the chance to really get to know the lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, bobcats and other wild cats at the sanctuary.   I believe that adopting this tech and demanding more such virtual experiences is how zoos will legitimize themselves again.  As they stop the breeding and replace it with truly engaging and interactive experiences, people can go there and not feel guilty about the animal's who had to make the ultimate sacrifice for their limited education.  A zoo in China has already invested millions of dollars to do just that.  You may not remember it, because it started in the 90s, but Big Cat Rescue led the entire zoo industry out of the egregious practice of inbreeding tigers to create white coats.  It took over a decade, but by exposing the cruelty we were able to create so much pressure on zoos they had to abandon the practice of fear loss of their accreditation by AZA.      We are doing the same with 360 video and virtual reality.  We offer a cardboard viewer for just what they cost us, $4.95 so you can get that first experience of being totally immersed in the big cats' world.  We hope that you will be so blown away that you will invest in the more expensive headsets from Oculus or HTC, because it takes all of us, demanding change with our actions, if all wildcats are ever going to live free.  Find out more at BigCatRescue.org/VR   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

Just a quick update here relative to our finances. February is our major Board meeting of the year and before that our Finance Committee meets.  We have pretty much concluded there would never likely be an opportunity to have a meeting of the minds with your dad on acquiring your 10 acres and that we should take the $700k or so we have re-accumulated above the Board's liquid reserve requirement and invest it long term.   Back when we spoke years ago about the price I was feeling threatened by development. But I've come to realize that control of our 9 acres is pretty good protection.  While I totally understand an owner posturing to argue for value, when you dad talks about buyers other than Chris Daye being interested, with the access issues, I don't see how anyone but Chris could buy it.   Fortunately for you, Chris is unique in the industry in terms of his integrity and I expect at some point you will manage to make a deal with him. Timing just may depend on whether what is already one of the longest expansions in history continues for enough years.   Chris purchasing the property does not threaten us like the residential plans of a home builder I was not sure I could trust.  He knows what concerns we have about the kind of development that we feel would not be threatening and I think he has respect for what our opposition to a development means.  It is also unlikely he would have a project that required only your ten acres. Most likely he would also need our 9 acres.  So I feel pretty well protected against a residential development that I view as potentially causing us a problem.   Your dad is absolutely entitled to have his view of the value and I don't want to risk a repeat of the strained incident where he seemed insulted at any different suggestion of value.  As you know, a developer values property based on what he can build profitably. We are not a developer, so for us, additional property is a buffer.  So absent the fear I had a few years ago that drove my thought to use the $1mm over reserves we had at that time, there just is not a reason to stretch.   How much of the property is usable upland is relevant to a developer, but not really to me when looking at buffer.  Again, I understand your dad being an experienced negotiator arguing for 8 upland acres.  Technically he may be right.  But years ago I talked with an environmental engineer who worked for developers. A chunk of the upland is in a 100 foot wide strip south of the wetland that is too narrow build anything on. So I'm not sure a developer is going to buy the idea that there are 8 acres of upland.  But, 6 acres may be all Chris needs to assign a value you can agree on.   The other factor that makes me think we could never buy it is that your dad, or perhaps the other owners he represents, never seemed to place any value on the idea of a cash deal.  He or they wanted us to pay cash at the same price as a developer putting up a small deposit contingent on rezoning, etc. and, implicitly, on the economy since a downturn tends to put a stop to many projects.   As I have mentioned to you, after our meeting where we could not agree, we used our funds to buy properties along North Meadowview to house interns and staff and rent out. By paying cash we typically paid 70-80% of market because of the value of the cash deal.  But again, it is totally up to a seller whether a cash deal like that has value. It does to my Board - that is what they expect me to present.  Since the cash deal we could have done does not apparently have value to your dad or the other owners, it is hard to think we could ever buy the property.   I don't mean to go on, and none of it may be meaningful because you might well have already concluded that the ultimate sale will have to be with Chris. I just wanted to give enough explanation so no one was offended if you ever had in mind to renew our talks and I had to decline for lack of funds.  Once we put the funds in long term instruments we would not be a possible buyer for the many years it takes me to replenish the over threshold reserves.  Out of respect for our relationship I just wanted to explain that.   I hope all is well and healthy for you and your dad. As always, if you and any guests ever want to visit the cats, just let me know.  Thanks!  Howard Baskin  Advisory Board Chairman  Big Cat Rescue   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

We invited Aleesa in to make sure she was good with the pay of roughly 35k in cash and housing and she was.  I broke into tears (unexpectedly) when I told her that the reason I chose her for this job was because she had come to me early on saying that her goal was to run a place like this and I am putting my faith in her ability to actually run this place one day.   After all the meetings I had to race to my computer to send out this tax donation appeal that Susan had written:   We have 70 precious reasons to ask you to please consider making a year-end, tax-deductible donation to Big Cat Rescue. Their names circle the alphabet several times over: from Apollo (lynx) to Zeus (tiger). From Armani (leopard) to Zabu (white tiger). From Ariel (bobcat) to Zimba (serval). And from Ares (cougar) to Zucari (serval).   If you have already donated, please accept our heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your kindness!   As 2017 comes to a close, we are so grateful for everyone who has visited our sanctuary, followed our cats on social media, taken action to help us pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act and generously donated to our sanctuary. It is only because of your financial support that we can continue to rescue abused, neglected and abandoned exotic cats around the country and provide them with the best possible nutrition and medical care at our sanctuary.   This year we have rescued nine exotic cats, including 5 in December! Maya, an 18-year-old cougar from Ohio (pictured here), was rescued earlier this month after her owner surrendered her to the Department of Agriculture in Ohio. She is certainly enjoying her large enclosure!   And Manny the jaguar and Natalia the Amur leopard have just arrived from a zoo in Omaha. It's been many years since Big Cat Rescue has been home to a jaguar and Manny has already stolen our hearts with his playful antics of storing all of his new toys inside his den at night. We've never had an Amur leopard at the sanctuary before and are enjoying getting to know Natalie's purr-sonality. So far she is quite shy.   You also helped us provide a forever home to a discarded Savannah Cat and you're helping Noel Bobcat, who was hit by a car and left for dead on Christmas day, get the rehab she needs for release back to the wild.   Thank YOU so much for your amazing support of our sanctuary and cats! We hope the cats can count on you one more time in 2017 as you consider making your year-end, tax-deductible charitable donations.   Bigcatrescue.org/tax   Best wishes from your Big Cat Rescue family for a purrfectly healthy and happy New Year!   If you prefer, you can mail a check by December 31st to Howard Baskin at Big Cat Rescue at 12802 Easy Street, Tampa, Florida 33625.   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  

Tiger advocates and celebrities Carole and Howard Baskin join this episode to discuss the upcoming Taking Action for Animals conference, where you can learn how to be the best possible animal advocate you can be. (They also talk a little about that show you might've heard about on Netflix.) Learn more about the conference here: Takingactionforanimals.orgAnd lend your support to protecting tigers: BigCatAct.comLove and compassion for animals can bring everyone together. ‘Humane Voices' is the official podcast of the Humane Society of the United States. We'll explore the issues facing animals, interview worldwide animal experts, and discuss what you can do to get involved and help. If you care about the welfare of animals, or have a special pet or two in your life, this is the podcast for you.Contact us at podcast@humanesociety.org to offer feedback and suggest future episode topics.

World Wildlife Fund Quotes Howie and Lauds Big Cat Rescue A few hours before sundown on October 18, 2011, law enforcement officials in Zanesville, Ohio, received a strange 911 call: The neighbor of a man named Terry Thompson had spotted a black bear running loose on Thompson's property—then a large male lion. As police officials drove toward the scene, they began spotting other large carnivores. The area was residential, and there was a school soccer game happening nearby, so the officers were ordered to shoot the animals. By the following morning, they had killed six bears, 17 lions, and a slew of other wild creatures—including 18 tigers. Thompson had released all of them from the enclosures in his yard before committing suicide.   The Zanesville incident was so bizarre and horrific that it made international headlines. But it was also a rude awakening to the fact that many people in the US own exotic animals, including Panthera tigris. There are thousands of captive tigers throughout the country. You can find them in backyard enclosures, petting zoos, and even truck stops. They outnumber the tigers believed to remain in the wild today. And beyond the problems their captivity poses in the US, it's putting their wild counterparts at risk.   Leigh Henry, WWF's senior policy advisor for wildlife conservation, says she first became aware of the issue around 2006. “I was working on WWF's TRAFFIC team at the time,” Henry says. “An organization called Save the Tiger Fund approached us and said, ‘We're concerned about captive tigers in the US. Nobody knows much about them. If we get you some funding, could you do a study?'”   With the help of a consultant, Henry put together the first comprehensive report on tiger ownership in the US. The results of their research were jarring. Not only did there appear to be roughly 5,000 captive tigers across the country, but the vast majority of those cats—about 95%—were, like Thompson's tigers, privately owned. That total is just an estimate, Henry adds. “No one can say for certain, because the US actually has no comprehensive system for monitoring captive tigers.”   Instead, Henry found regulations that were patchy and riddled with loopholes. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), for example, required permits for certain activities that would normally be prohibited under the Endangered Species Act (such as breeding tigers or transporting them across state lines). But at the time, the FWS exempted generic tigers—tigers with genes from multiple subspecies—from those rules. “Generic tigers are basically mutts, for lack of a better word,” Henry says. “Since they aren't genetically pure, they don't have conservation value to the FWS. But most of the tigers in the US are generic.” So the FWS wasn't monitoring them.   The USDA, meanwhile, required exhibitor licenses for tigers that were being shown to the public—whether for free or for profit—but not for tigers that people simply wanted to keep privately as pets. Many states banned private possession of the cats, but still exempted anyone with a USDA license. A handful of others allowed possession with a state-issued permit, and several had no barriers whatsoever.   “Those laws have enormous loopholes. USDA licenses are easy to get, and many people who apply for them are just pet owners trying to evade the state bans,” says Howard Baskin. Baskin and his wife Carole run Big Cat Rescue, a 67-acre large cat sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, that's been operating since 1992. They currently shelter about 70 cats—including 12 tigers. Some came to the sanctuary from people who tried their best to care for the animals but didn't have the knowledge or resources to meet their needs.   “But then there are owners like Terry Thompson, or the woman in Ohio who had four tigers and two lions, and declawed and defanged many of them,” Baskin says. “She would chain them down and charge people thousands of dollars to receive big cat ‘training' experience. People kept getting hurt so she lost her USDA license, but she kept doing it anyway. It was a horrible situation. We took in four of these cats at the request of the state after she abandoned them.”   Besides putting both cats and people in danger in the US, the regulations allowing such behavior also pose big problems internationally. “A huge issue here is cub petting operations— people who breed tiger cubs so they can charge customers to pet them and take pictures with them,” Baskin says. “They can only use the cubs for a few months before they grow too big to be safe, and lose their commercial value.” Once that happens, there's no way to track where the cubs end up—and thus no way to make sure they aren't being sold illegally.   “Our concern is that you have all of these adult tigers in the US that are unwanted,” says Henry. And not just because they're dangerous: They're also incredibly expensive pets. The TRAFFIC report estimated that it costs $5,000-$6,000 a year to feed a grown tiger. And while there are some good sanctuaries like Big Cat Rescue in operation, “most of them are full to overflowing,” Henry says.   On the other hand, the value of a tiger carcass in Asian black markets can climb as high as $60,000. For someone trying to get rid of a large tiger, Henry says, selling its parts on the black market could prove too tempting to resist. And the availability of those parts fuels demand for even more—which in turn drives continued poaching of the cats in the wild.   What's more, America's captive tigers have become a diplomatic stumbling block in efforts to end tiger farming in China and Southeast Asia. When the tiger farm issue is brought up in international meetings, fingers tend to get pointed at China—but China has repeatedly questioned why the US isn't doing something about its own tiger problem. “We need to figure out a better way to regulate the tigers in our own backyard so that the US can continue to be a global leader in combatting wildlife crime, and help influence China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos to shut their tiger farms down,” Henry says.   Both WWF and Big Cat Rescue have been advocating for tighter laws that can better regulate captive tigers and halt the breeding of cubs for profit. In 2016, they saw two major victories. The first was an April decision by the FWS to scratch the generic tiger exemption from its laws—a change that more than 450,000 WWF supporters had called for. Around the same time, the USDA enacted a ban on public contact with tigers under four weeks old, in response to a petition from WWF, Big Cat Rescue, and a coalition of other animal rights organizations.   “That was a step in the right direction, but we asked for a ban on all public contact,” Henry says. However, the USDA is still considering further action in response to the petition. She's hopeful about the outcome—and about the pressure these new policies could put on other countries with tiger issues. And Baskin says Big Cat Rescue is advocating for a bill completely banning private ownership and breeding of big cats; so far, it's gained 82 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, and Baskin expects the number to keep growing.   “Unfortunately, it may take more tragedies like Zanesville to really change these laws,” Baskin says. “I'm hoping it doesn't. There's no reason for people to keep tigers and other dangerous carnivores in their backyards.”   https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/winter-2016/articles/captive-tigers-in-the-us   Yesterday I got my Remote Pilot's License to fly drones from the FAA:   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

April 8, FRIDAY night at 6 pm ET as Carole talks with Griff Garrison in Twitter Space! Griff was the investigator on Discovery +, Carole Baskin's Cage Fight! *You can stream that show now on Discovery+! https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1jMKgePqQRXJL Want to know more about who Griff Garrison is? Check out his bio and join us FRIDAY at 6 pm ET! Griff Garrison began in Law Enforcement after attending Piedmont College on a baseball scholarship and then working in the financial sector. After leaving the financial sector Griff began working for the Richmond County Sheriffs Office in GA. Griff found a passion for working Homicides early on while assigned to road patrol. After being promoted to Detective in the Violent Crimes Division Griff was quickly promoted to the Homicide Division as the lead Homicide Detective. Griff trained under the original members of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis unit. While at RCSO Griff was also a member of the SWAT team as a hostage negotiator. After working many years in Homicide Griff took an early retirement after being offered to star on CBS' show Hunted. Since leaving law enforcement Griff has worked as a consultant on many cases throughout the country. Griff most recently stared alongside Carole and Howard Baskin as their investigator on Carole Baskins Cage Fight. Griff now lives in FL with his wife, Becca and 3 of their 4 Children (Kayla 27, Megan 21, Conner 12, Cooper 12) You can donate to the cats at NO COST TO YOU when you select BCR as your charity on Amazon Smile and shop Smile.Amazon.com instead of Amazon.com. It is exactly the same as regular Amazon EXCEPT when you use the Smile URL Amazon donates .5% of your purchase to BCR. Thru the years, it's added up to over $351,000 for the cats since 2014! Please visit BigCatRescue.org/amazon-smile for how to sign up and let me know you did so I can thank you. :) Check out our main YouTube channel at BigCatTV.com and our website at BigCatRescue.org or shop at BigCatRescue.biz Join our Official Facebook Group at Facebook.com/groups/BigCatRescue Partner with Broadband TV the Second Largest Multi-Channel Network in the World http://bbtv.go2cloud.org/SHiG Music from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) and / or Artlist.io

Tiger King (subtitled in marketing as Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness for its first season, Tiger King 2 for its second season and Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story for its third season) is an American true crime documentary streaming television series about the life of former zookeeper and convicted felon Joe Exotic. The first season was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020. A second season, Tiger King 2, was announced in September 2021 and was released on November 17, 2021, while a third season, Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story, was announced on December 3, 2021 and released one week later on December 10. The series focuses on the small but deeply interconnected society of big cat conservationists such as Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue, and collectors such as Exotic, whom Baskin accuses of abusing and exploiting wild animals.Season 1 received positive reviews from critics, and according to Nielsen ratings, was watched by 34.3 million people over its first ten days of release, ranking as one of Netflix's most successful releases to date, partly due to its release amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also inspired several memes online. Despite its success and popularity, the season received criticism from conservation and animal rights groups for its framing and inaccuracies related to private breeding and wildlife conservation issues. A special after show hosted by Joel McHale was released on April 12, 2020, with McHale interviewing several of its subjects about Exotic and the series itself. The second and third seasons in contrast received mostly negative reviews from fans and critics, and the former was subject of a lawsuit by Carole and Howard Baskin over footage used in the series.

Howard Baskin of Big Cat Rescue gives an update on our work to end the abuse of tiger cubs, lion cubs, liger cubs, leopard cubs, jaguar cubs, cougar kittens and all of their moms and dads. He gives you tips on making the most of your time with your member of Congress in support of the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Carol Judge tells everyone where they can sign up for free political classes at Big Cat Rescue Official.   You can donate to the cats at NO COST TO YOU when you select BCR as your charity on Amazon Smile and shop Smile.Amazon.com instead of Amazon.com. It is exactly the same as regular Amazon EXCEPT when you use the Smile URL Amazon donates .5% of your purchase to BCR. Thru the years, it's added up to over $351,000 for the cats since 2014! Please visit BigCatRescue.org/amazon-smile for how to sign up and let me know you did so I can thank you. :) Check out our main YouTube channel at BigCatTV.com and our website at BigCatRescue.org or shop at BigCatRescue.biz Join our Official Facebook Group at Facebook.com/groups/BigCatRescue Partner with Broadband TV the Second Largest Multi-Channel Network in the World http://bbtv.go2cloud.org/SHiG Music from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) and / or Artlist.io

BIG CAT PUBLIC SAFETY ACT RE-INTRODUCED – NEED YOUR HELP! Congress operates in two year sessions.  At the end of each session, any bills that did not get signed into law “die” and have to be re-introduced in the next session.  Once a bill is introduced, legislators can “co-sponsor” the bill by calling the legislator who introduced it.  The co-sponsor names are published online.  Being a co-sponsor shows support and basically means you are going to vote for the bill if it comes to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote.   We are part of a coalition of animal welfare groups that in February 2012 introduced a federal bill to ban private breeding and ownership of big cats with limited exemptions.  The bill would put an end to the rampant breeding of cubs for petting and tens of thousands of big cats living in miserable conditions in back yards and roadside zoos like those pictured here.  INSERT A FEW PHOTOS FROM THE HOW BIG CATS LIVE DOCUMENT   In the ten months we had left in the 2011-12 session we got up to 60 cosponsors in the House, which was great.  We re-introduced the bill in 2013 and by the end of the 2013-14 session we were up to 119 cosponsors out of the 435 members of the House, more than 25%!   At the end of 2014 our primary Republican sponsor retired.  So in 2015 we have been working on finding a suitable new main Republican sponsor to join our Democratic main sponsor Loretta Sanchez of California.  At this writing we have a great new Republican main sponsor in the House who has not yet been announced and we are working on lining up what are called “initial cosponsors” whose names are submitted at the same time the bill is “dropped” or “introduced.”  In the Senate, our past champion Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut will be re-introducing the bill.   By the time you read this, or shortly after, we expect the bill to have been introduced and have bill numbers in both the House and Senate.  Then, what we need is your help in urging your Representatives in the House and your Senators to co-sponsor the bill.   When you get this, please check the status of the bill at www.StopBigCatAbuse.com.  If it has been introduced, right there you can send an email to your legislators urging them to co-sponsor.  You CAN play a meaningful role in stopping the abuse by helping pass this bill – but it is critical that your legislators know you care!   In addition to sending the email, even more effective is to also make a phone call to the legislator's office staff person who handles animal welfare issues.  For a sheet of simple tips for making a very brief, simple call, email Howard Baskin.  Thanks!  Written by Howard Baskin for the Fall Big Cat Times.   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.

Big Cat Rescue Entrepreneurial Audit Jaclyn Gutierrez & Josh Cooper ENT6930   Introduction   One of the main staples of Corporate Entrepreneurship at the University of Florida involves performing an entrepreneurial audit.  This audit is to be performed by a team of graduate students (Jaclyn Gutierrez and Josh Cooper) by the permission of the executive team of Big Cat Rescue.  The purpose of the entrepreneurial audit is to measure the frequency and intensity of entrepreneurship being performed at the company.  In addition, it highlights ways the company can incite increased innovation and entrepreneurial action through their employees.  Howard and Carole Baskin gave a wonderful tour of the Big Cat Rescue campus and allowed themselves as well as others a part of their team to be interviewed.   To begin it is very important to understand the concept of entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship in the context it is being discussed in the class.  Entrepreneurship has many different definitions, but the majority of them include the same elements.  They way we define entrepreneurship in the course is “the process of creating value by bringing together a unique combination of resources to exploit an opportunity” (Morris).  On the other hand, corporate entrepreneurship holds many names including, “organizational entrepreneur,” “intrapreneurship,” and “corporate venturing.”(Morris)  By examining the definition of entrepreneurship above it becomes clear that entrepreneurship is not specified by organizational context.  As a result, “Corporate entrepreneurship is a term used to describe entrepreneurial behavior inside established mid-sized and large organizations” (Morris).  Thus corporate entrepreneurship relies on management and employees to innovate in every facet of the business.  Such entrepreneurship is paramount to helping companies that hope to establish a sustainable competitive advantage in the market.   The entrepreneurial audit aims to engage Big Cat Rescue in reflection of the entrepreneurial mindset present at the company.  The audit hopes to measure this presence in Big Cat Rescue as well as in the employees.  In the interest of the audit's purpose, entrepreneurship must be quantified in a manner that enables Big Cat Rescue to decipher the amount of entrepreneurship present in their company as well as compared to other nonprofits similar to them.   This entrepreneurial audit of Big Cat Rescue will target aspects inside of the company that foster entrepreneurship.  The aspects inside of Big Cat Rescue that will be evaluated are strategy, and culture.   Background   Big Cat Rescue is an animal sanctuary located in Tampa, Florida committed to the rescue and rehabilitation of big cats.  The sanctuary is the largest in the United States serving specifically to big cats and is staunch on ending the private trade and ownership of big cats.  The nonprofit has evolved overtime and started when the founder Carole Baskin rescued numerous bobcat kittens from a fur farm.  Originally, the company bred and sold some big cats early on, but shifted focus once Carole Baskin came to the realization that big cats should not be pets nor bred in captivity.  As a result, Big Cat Rescue became determined to outlaw the private trade and ownership of Big Cats in the United States through legislation.  Pushing legislation has become a main focus for Big Cat Rescue and they engage their visitors to become active in joining their efforts.   Strategy   Entrepreneurship in strategy is key for companies that hope to stay ahead of their competition.  An entrepreneurial strategy is defined in the course as “a vision-directed, organization-wide reliance on entrepreneurial behavior that purposefully and continuously rejuvenates the organization and shapes the scope of its operations through the recognition and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunity' (Morris).  When this strategy is applied to organizations it enables the company to prosper in even the most competitive markets.  Most organizations, however, find difficulty in balancing their efforts of seeking the full potential of their current markets and products versus innovating to find new markets and products.  Finding the correct balance can be a difficult process, but well worth the reward.  Applying this to Big Cat Rescue, we will focus on the company's market strategy and the company's strategy for developing innovation internally in order to attain organizational goals.   In order to address the entrepreneurial presence in strategy at Big Cat Rescue, we will highlight several key factors and discuss the entrepreneurial activities that exist in each.  The key factors we will examine are the development of an entrepreneurial vision, increasing opportunity recognition, promoting the need to be innovative, placing value on employee's ideas, and acknowledging the importance of failure.  The first area we will highlight is the development of an entrepreneurial vision.  All great organizations have clear concise visions that drive the company to a larger overarching goal.  In the case of Big Cat Rescue, their vision has evolved overtime, but one key element has stayed consistent.  That element is that the care and rehabilitation of big cats has been paramount to their beginning goals and transformed into the vision they have today, which is to end the private trade and ownership of Big Cats.   Throughout the tour and multiple interviews it was clear from the employees and upper level management where they hope to go and how they hope to get there.  Big Cat Rescue prides itself on pursuing legislations as a means of protecting Big Cats. Their actions match their vision and this is shown in multiple ways.  The first is on their website, where the first page shows visitors the most important thing they can do to help protect Big cats.  This involves messaging various political figures in order to push bills through Congress.  In addition, Big Cat Rescue prompts visitors to their sanctuary to call their government representatives as well.   Another area of emphasis is increasing opportunity recognition.  This is an area Big Cat Rescue excelled in and it was evident throughout our tour.  The founder, Carole Baskin, was extremely keen on being at the forefront of any possible opportunities that gave the sanctuary new and different ways of donating.  An example she mentioned during the interview involved a new feature of Facebook that allowed users to donate easily to certain charities.  The company utilizes various social media accounts to seek more awareness and increase donations.  The ability to recognize new opportunities also relies on upper management's ability to let employees be innovative.  It was obvious throughout that employees could share new opportunities that they found and would have them welcomed by management.  This is crucial for a company that hopes to continuously be on the lookout for new opportunities.   This transitions to the next key area, which is placing value on employees' ideas.  Carole Baskin mentioned in the interview that when employees come up to her with problems most of the time she responds with some variation of, “You're smart you can figure it out.”  Carole says this to make a point that she values her employees and their judgment.  This is very beneficial for a company that hopes to have an entrepreneurial strategy.  Big Cat Rescue does not hire externally and promotes from within their pool of volunteers.  This combined with the attitude that the employees are able to solve their own problems without running to management to solve it emphasizes that they place value on their employees' ideas.   The final key area in an entrepreneurial strategy is recognizing the importance of failure.  The ability for employees to be comfortable with failure must come from the top down.  Carole Baskin made it very clear to us that she embodies this and stated in the interview, “Fail fast, and move on.”  An example that she provided involved raising chickens in the sanctuary.  This move was made in order to keep from feeding the cats' commercial chicken, which has pesticides and antibiotics in their meat.  Unfortunately, this new opportunity failed because they could not grow chickens fast enough and they did not provide enough meat for the cats once fully grown.  As a result, Big Cat Rescue had to pivot and begin feeding them other sources of meat, but the lesson of the importance of failure became evident.   Culture   Culture represents the collective values and behaviors that develop the specific environment that the company operates in.  At the epicenter of Big Cat Rescue's culture is the desire to help protect all big cats.  While this may seem obvious it was clear to us the importance of big cats' well being through management and employees dedication and fervor to their individual jobs.  The company does an excellent job of recognizing their employees and this is shown through multiple pictures of employees on various organizational charts displayed throughout the sanctuary.   Big Cat Rescue uses a color coordinated shirt system to display the experience levels of their volunteers.  The volunteers move to different color shirts, the more years they gain volunteering at the sanctuary.  This is a clear and easy way of illustrating the company's organizational hierarchy through experience.  It also allows volunteers to easily be able to seek out more knowledgeable volunteers if they have a question or if there is a problem. The shirts serve as a visual representation of the volunteers dedication to the animals and are worn with pride as a volunteer progress to higher shirts.   Big Cat Rescue has a Code of Honor for the sanctuary that was developed by volunteers.  This is code of honor was developed by the volunteers and serves as a platform for how volunteers should act while on the job.  The company's' ability to put the code of honor in the volunteers hands is very empowering for the volunteers and shows the commitment of the company to valuing their employees.  The company furthers this by establishing a committee comprised of Carole Baskin and her daughter and two volunteers that meet weekly.  This committee discusses any problems or issues that may have come up and seeks ways to resolve them in a way that's beneficial to all parties.  Big Cat Rescue defines their volunteers as rescuers.  This was an important point to realize because it denotes a greater sense of importance for the volunteers.   In addition, the executive team at Big Cat Rescue exhibits a high sense of urgency.  This urgency is rooted in the belief that legislation will soon be passed to ban the ownership and trade of big cats.   Customer service is very important to Big Cat Rescue and each member of the executive team that we interviewed echoed this.  Jeff Kremer, The Director of Donor Appreciation, was most vocal on the subject and explained his attention to detail in regard to customer service.  He mentioned how important it was to give personal attention to donors and notes that donors have become friends.  He seeks to create personal relationships with supporters and donors and this mentality keeps donations flowing back to Big Cat Rescue.  One of his biggest points was to present as many options as possible to donors as well as finding prospective donors that take as little of Big Cat Rescue's resources as possible.  This helps illustrates the entrepreneurial mindset that is so prevalent throughout the company.   Core Competencies   Big Cat Rescue and it's leadership demonstrate numerous entrepreneurial competencies that have been vital to the company's success  The entrepreneurial competencies include: opportunity recognition, opportunity assessment, risk management, conveying a compelling vision, tenacity, creative problem-solving, resource leveraging, guerilla skills, value creation, maintain focus yet adapt, resilience, self efficacy, and building and using networks.  Throughout Big Cat Rescue's existence they have displayed all of these competencies in some form, however certain competencies stick out.  The most important competency they show is their ability to convey a compelling mission.  Their vision has evolved overtime, but has been crucial to their success as it is manifested in every employee's' tireless efforts.  Another competency embodied at Big Cat Rescue is a high level of self-efficacy.  This entrepreneurial competency begins at the top of the organization and trickles down to the volunteers.   Carole Baskin instills a high level of efficacy in her employees through the expectation that each individual was hired for a reason and thusly has the ability to solve the majority of the issues that may arise.  Since Big Cat Rescue is a non-profit and seeks donations it is very important they maintain an expansive network.  This is another entrepreneurial competency that the company epitomizes and maintains to be successful.   Structure and Human Resources   The structure for Big Cat Rescue is set up in a manner that promotes the entrepreneurial mindset. The structure is extremely flat for a non-profit of that size and allows for easy communication between the management team, employees, and volunteers.  The structure is set up so any issues that arise can be communicated and addressed in a timely manner.  This structure also benefits the entrepreneurial presence in the company because it easily allows volunteers and employees the opportunity to express any new and innovative ideas to top management.  From our surveys, we gathered that most of the employees and volunteers feel they have the right amount of direction as well as ability to speak up if needed.  The human resources side of Big Cat Rescue is simple.  They hire from within their volunteer pool, and this helps keep turnover low while also creating a dedicated group of employees.   Methodology   In order to gain a proper understanding of the entrepreneurial intensity and the inner workings of Big Cat Rescue, we analyzed their website, interviewed 4 members of upper management and sent out a survey to the employees of the company. We were very fortunate to have every employee respond and participate in our survey.   Interviews   We spent an hour each with Howard Baskin, Jeff Kremer, Carole Baskin, and Gale Ingham. We asked them questions about their backgrounds and the day to day of the organization. Some of our questions asked about how communication worked in the company, how were decisions made, and how much ownership of tasks do employees have. We crafted these questions to understand how often the company pivots, what their culture is like, and how entrepreneurial they are.   Howard Baskin joined the organization in 2003 and helped turn the company around. He is the treasurer and CFO, having a background in finance and working with small for profit companies. Howard Baskin was able to transform Big Cat Rescue from a non-profit that was barely breaking even to one with $3.7 million in their bank.   Jeff Kremer is Big Cat Rescue's Director of Donor Appreciation. His job is to coordinate fundraising and to maintain relationships with donors. A lot of his job is taking pictures and videos of the cats and sending them out to donors. He explained to us that a good way to maintain relationships with their donors is to find out which cats are their favorites and to keep these donors updated on these cats. He has increased donations by having communication with donors that doesn't involve asking for donations, which improves the organization's relationships with the donors and makes them want to give even more.   Carole Baskin is the CEO and Founder of Big Cat Rescue. She began the sanctuary in 1992 with her now late husband, after rescuing bobcat kittens from a fur farm. Carole Baskin had gotten involved in rescuing the kittens after already owning one bobcat and her husband wanting another. They stumbled in a fur farm and bought all the kittens in order to save them from their death. Carole Baskin attempted to rehome the kittens but eventually realized that most people are incapable of giving these animals good homes and that this trade needs to stop. She now views herself as the cheerleader of the organization. Carole spends her time supporting her employees and volunteers while brainstorming new ideas to further the organization.     Gale Ingham is the Operations Manager of the organization. We met her after she had spent a significant amount of time trying to wrangle a pair of bobcat kittens, which gave us a special insight about her day to day. Gale's began her involvement with Big Cat Rescue as a visitor. She was new to the area and took a tour and decided to stay for a volunteer orientation and has been volunteering ever since. Gale was an accountant before she became a full time employee at Big Cat Rescue.     Survey   As we mentioned earlier, we were lucky enough to have every single employee answer our survey about the entrepreneurial climate of the organization. Getting a 100% response rate says a lot about the company without even looking at the results. This is clearly a motivated and close-knit group. Most of the surveys weren't procrastinated on and were completed the day after they were distributed.    We distributed our survey on Qualtrics, which enabled us to see how quickly our surveys were completed and how long each person took on the survey.  On average our survey took about 5 minutes to complete. We had one outlier who left the survey open for 5 days, which we excluded from this calculation. Our survey taking 5 minutes shows that they did take time to read and carefully answering our questions. We used questions that could be answered with long written responses and on a scale from 1-5. As expected, we received only a few answers for the open-ended questions, but the answers we did receive were helpful.   For the most part, employees gave rather similar answers to each of our questions. For questions about employees being free to make decisions and about the company having open communication, most respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed.  Employees agreed that rule breaking/bending is not encouraged, which is to be expected when you think about the nature of Big Cat Rescue's rules. Most of their rules revolve around animal handling and care. Employees don't have strict guidelines to follow though when it comes to their daily activities.        In many questions of the survey, there was one respondent who seemed to be in disagreement with what everyone else was saying. This individual seems to view Big Cat Rescue as having a rigid chain of command and they do not feel that they have a lot of freedom in their job. We are unsure about the position of this individual so we don't know if they feel so micromanaged because they are working directly with the cats, which is a position that has a lot of controls, or because of another factor.   Despite this one responder, most employees seemed to agree that they had a lot of freedom in their role and that their input was taken seriously.     Entrepreneurial Audit   We've found that Big Cat Rescue is an incredibly entrepreneurial company. They haven't been afraid to make major pivots when they've been needed and are always on the cutting edge. From supporting new legislation to traveling around the world to support other rescues, they frequently find new ways to support their cause of protecting big cats.   Below we will discuss why Big Cat Rescue falls here on the entrepreneurial grid.   Degree   Big Cat Rescue is a fairly innovative organization. They've found ways to always be ahead of the trends in nonprofits and how to innovate within their organization to ensure success.   One of the most innovative practices Big Cat Rescue participates in is their hiring practice. They very rarely hire from the outside. For instance, when the organization realized that they needed someone to head up donations and maintain relationships with donors, they looked internally rather than find someone who has worked in the field before. They selected a dedicated volunteer, Jeff Kremer, to fill the position. They had learned from past mistakes that it is much more efficient to find someone who is already passionate about their cause and train them for a position, than to find someone who is trained and experienced.   Big Cat Rescue also places an incredible amount of importance on educating their volunteers, which is not something that always happens in a non-profit environment. Big Cat Rescue had classes offered that teach their volunteers important skills like first aid for humans and animals and how to become properly involved in legislation.   Big Cat Rescue is also innovative in the variety of ways they finance their organization. They solicit donations and they also offer tours of their facility at varying costs. They offer 11 different types of visits to their facility, including multiple tours, weddings, parties, and field trips. Big Cat Rescue's website also features a donation page that is filled with different ways to support the organization, including donating Bitcoins, sponsorship options, and an Amazon wish list.   Frequency   Big Cat Rescue is rather frequent in the number of entrepreneurial events. The day we visited they had just launched a new class for their volunteers and a new donation tool. Since they are a rather small organization it is easy for them to move things around to better serve their purpose. There isn't much red tape when it comes to the business and fundraising end of the organization since there is frequent communication between the employees and upper management. We heard in our interviews and from our employee surveys that open communication is encouraged and that most employees didn't feel like they were micromanaged and that they had a lot of freedom in how they could accomplish their tasks. Something we heard often during our visit was “You're smart, figure it out”. This seems to be the unofficial mantra of Big Cat Rescue; no one needs to be told how to do things, you're smart enough to figure it out so go and do it.   Big Cat Rescue has created a culture in which frequent entrepreneurial events are encouraged. If someone has an idea, it's easy to talk it out with management and they are listened to. This makes it easy for the organization to embrace good ideas and implement them quickly.  That being said, in other aspects of the organization Big Cat Rescue doesn't really change. They've had three major pivots in vision in their history. The first came when they decided to stop breeding some of the smaller breeds of cats such a bobcats, the second when they stopped allowing humans to interact with the cats, and the third when they became heavily active in legislation. They were able to make this first pivot in 1997 and the last two in 2003.   The first pivot was originally fought by Carole Baskin's then husband. He really enjoyed having the bobcat kittens around and he believed that by breeding them they were helping to preserve the species and grow its gene pool. After his disappearance, there was no more disagreement on breeding and Big Cat Rescue was able to easily transition into being only a sanctuary.   When Carole proposed ending interaction with the animals, she faced a lot of fight from within her organization. Most of her employees and volunteers were stunned by the idea. Many guests came to Big Cat Rescue because they wanted to interact and take pictures with the cats and the employees and volunteers felt that no one would come if Big Cat Rescue stopped offering this. They knew that there are many other sanctuaries that visitors could choose to support and still get to interact with the animals. The fear of losing guests was based on the misunderstanding of why people came to the rescue. The employees and volunteers thought people cared most about interacting with the animals, when in reality they were satisfied with observing and learning about the cats. Visitors understood that it was in the best interest for the animals if they did not interact directly with humans and they respected this.   Eventually, Carole's staff accepted the idea. They realized that it is better for the animals and that by allowing guests to interact with the cats they sent a mixed message. The sanctuary was founded to show that these animals do not make good pets, but interactions conflicted with this vision. Carole believes that by ending contact with the cats, Big Cat Rescue has stopped sending out a muddled message and has actually increased visitors because of this clear mission.   The third pivot came with the realization that Big Cat Rescue was not doing anything to solve the problem of big cats being kept as pets. They were giving the cats they rescued great life time homes, but there were still countless cats being sold off as pets to homes that really could not support them. The pivot to add legislation to their mission was regarded as a great step forward to their organization. It wasn't fought like the first two pivots, but was embraced since everyone could see its importance.   The employees and volunteers were happy to work towards supporting legislation that aligned with the organization's goals and the sanctuary shifted some aspects of its day to day to enable working towards legislation. Big Cat Rescue has put quite a bit resources towards finding good representatives to support their bills and have allocated a space on their property to encourage people to sign petitions to end the selling of big cats as pets. They also utilize their social media accounts to help get the word out there of legislation they support and to encourage people to contact their representatives about the bills.   Big Cat Rescue innovates often on a small scale. Their day to day gets shaken up all the time, which is a big part of the nature of running a non-profit organization, especially one with animals. They are always ready to try something new and open communication is a core value that is vital to the survival of Big Cat Rescue. That being said, Big Cat Rescue has only had 3 major innovative shifts in vision, which is rather infrequent.   SWOT   Strength   The strongest strengths of Big Cat Rescue are its leadership, staff, and vision. The employees and volunteers clearly believe in their leaders and it motivates them to come and work hard. Their staff is another strength because they are so incredibly dedicated and hardworking. They really believe in the cause and don't mind making sacrifices to help out the animals.   Big Cat Rescue's strong vision is the foundation of all of the organization. It helps keep everyone motivated and working towards their goal of ending big cats in private homes. They are aware that this vision would essentially put them out of business and they embrace that.  The finances are a clear strength of Big Cat Rescue since they have become so financially sound since the addition of Howard Baskin to the group. He has helped to ensure that they can take care of their cats until their deaths.   Donor relations are another area they excel in. They have figured out how to engage their donors without soliciting them for money. By keeping up with their donors, they create a friendly relationship and it helps keep the donors coming back.   Weakness   A weakness for Big Cat Rescue is that a large part of their revenue comes from donations and visits. If something happens to donors they rely on, Big Cat Rescue may not be able to function. They do generate their own revenue through tours and special events; donations are still key to their financial stability.   Government regulation is considered to be a weakness since the rules of regulating the care of these animals change often which requires Big Cat Rescue to stay on top of regulation and be ready to adjust to new rules at all times. This utilizes a lot of time and energy that could be spent in other ways.   Opportunity   Legislation is a massive opportunity for Big Cat Rescue to reach their goal of ending private ownership of big cats. Without legislation they wouldn't really have a way to end the trade and ownership of these animals.   Threats   While Big Cat Rescue does not view other sanctuaries as threats or competitions, they still do compete for donations and support. If annual donations that Big Cat Rescue has come to expect go to another organization, it could mean disaster for Big Cat Rescue. This will more than likely not ever actually happen since Big Cat Rescue works hard to maintain relationships with donors and they have saved up a lot of money so that they do not have to worry as much about getting enough donations to feed the animals every year.   Big Cat Rescue actively pursues passing legislation that makes it impossible to own big cats as pets and while legislation is almost always their ally in this mission, it is always possible that legislation could be passed that will make it more difficult to run this sanctuary. We don't foresee this occurring, but felt it was still worth mentioning.   Recommendations   As we've discussed, Big Cat Rescue is an incredibly entrepreneurial company. They understand the importance of open communication and being open to new ideas. No day is routine for them. Big Cat Rescue also realizes the importance of flat structure when it comes to their hierarchy (we are not discussing volunteer hierarchy since those controls steam from safety protocols).   One of the biggest weaknesses we found while we were completing our audit is that it seems that Big Cat Rescue employees parrot back what their leadership says. We worry that Big Cat Rescue has fallen victim to groupthink and that employees are just agreeing with what is said to them. We are open to this assumption being wrong. This weaknesses was discovered through our survey. We felt that the answers given by employees were almost too similar. If the surveys had not been anonymous, we would recommend speaking with the one employee who felt differently than the others since they seem to have a very different view of the organization. Since that is not an option, we recommend discussing with employees the importance of not falling into groupthink and that it is ok and welcome to challenge ideas.   Another recommendation we have that came from our survey is for Big Cat Rescue to be more transparent about their decisions to employees and volunteers. In our survey results, it was brought up that often management does not inform employees about decisions that have been made or changes to procedures. Employees feel confused and an inconsistency with their work when this happens. Big Cat Rescue should make a point to quickly send out memos when important decisions are made and they should make sure that people know as quickly as possible when decisions that affect their day to day are made.   Our last recommendation is that Big Cat Rescue should improve their presence on Instagram. Currently, their Instagram posts inconsistently and does not seem to interact with visitors who have posted their pictures from Big Cat Rescue. We think they are missing out on a great opportunity to engage their visitors by liking and commenting on their posts. This could get visitors to follow Big Cat Rescue's social media accounts which would keep the organization in their mind and possibly increase donations. Big Cat Rescue's presence on Instagram would also help to combat the trend on Instagram of accounts that show big cats as pets. They could use this as an opportunity to directly fight this mindset and show that these animals should not be kept in private hands.  

Online update re: Joe Schreibvogel lawsuit Some of you have asked for an update on the lawsuits with Joe Schreibvogel, who we view as one of the two most notorious exploiters of tiger cubs in the world.  See www.tigercubabuse.com.   During litigation the general rule is not to comment publicly. But there are some events that are a matter of public record on which we can provide an update.   In early 2013 we obtained a consent judgment in Federal Court in Tampa for a little over $1 million against Schreibvogel personally and against the zoo he ran at the time, which we refer to as the “Park.” Employees of Schreibvogel then incorporated a new entity which we refer to as the “Zoo.” Assets of the Park were allegedly transferred to the Zoo. Then both Schreibvogel (personally) and the Park (as a nonprofit corporation) filed bankruptcy, with the Park showing only nominal assets left.  After that, Schreibvogel signed an agreement stating that his personal debts were not discharged by his personal bankruptcy. The Zoo's bankruptcy was dismissed by the bankruptcy court.   We have filed a lawsuit arguing that the assets allegedly transferred from the Park to the Zoo should be available to satisfy our judgment. We are also seeking to obtain certain personal assets of Schreibvogel's to satisfy the judgment.  When we filed the original lawsuit in early 2011, the land that the Park occupied was owned by Schreibvogel personally. A few days after we filed the lawsuit, a deed was recorded in which Schreibvogel transferred the land to his mother, Shirley. The Bankruptcy Trustee has filed a lawsuit against Shirley to bring the land back into Schreibvogel's personal bankruptcy estate.   So, the plan now is to persistently and patiently go through the time consuming process of going after assets of the debtors that would satisfy some or all of the money owed to us in the judgment.   While this is serious business, Schreibvogel does provide us with some pretty good comic relief along the way. Here are examples we particularly chuckle about.  First, Schreibvogel repeatedly makes the absolutely ridiculous claim that Carole pays $100,000 to have dinner with Wayne Pacelle, CEO of HSUS. How he comes up with nonsense like this, and who he thinks would believe such rubbish, is beyond me. Past employees report that he is a regular user of illegal drugs. Perhaps that explains some of his thought process. But I chuckle every time a hear him make this absurd claim.   Another comical assertion he makes is that our efforts to collect on our judgment are nothing more than Carole's “obsession” with him instead of efforts to recover on our judgment. He blames Carole for every decision we make. What he fails to understand is that ever since he began using our name and part of our logo, the decisions we have made on devoting more resources to educating the malls about tiger cub abuse and hiring and working with our attorneys have been primarily my responsibility, not Carole's. I'm starting to feel hurt that he gives me no credit for all this work.   In a way though, seriously, the decisions were all his. If he simply had the good sense to stop using our name and logo and stop using our photos and stop using our videos when we filed the early lawsuits, it would have ended there. It was his decision to engage in prolonged, expensive litigation by filing counterclaims that were so lacking in merit that the court threw them out on summary judgment.   Most recently he made a rather pathetic video appeal online saying that if we would “back off, I would love to get out of this industry”, but if we continue our efforts to collect on our judgment, he will continue to breed tigers. Yeah, right. Next he will be trying to sell me a bridge.  The funniest thing of all is that he has someone sing country western songs, then films himself lip syncing the song, and now claims he is a country western singer.  And his gullible followers seem to actually believe him.   What person in their right mind would lip sync and claim to be a singer?  Can't wait to see his first live performance.  :)   Schreibvogel could have avoided all this by just not continuing to violate our intellectual property rights after we filed the early lawsuits. Instead he chose to force us to spend money and time suing him. There is no “obsession” involved in our efforts to collect on our judgment and recover those costs. It is our responsibility to do so. And I will continue to pursue him for as long as it takes.   Schreibvogel makes videos he wants our supporters to see where he tells them not to donate because we are wasting their money suing him. What he does not understand is that our donors are outraged by his treatment of animals, and our donors' consistent and growing support is what allows us to continue this effort.  Many thanks to all of you who have so generously supported the sanctuary and this effort against an individual we view as one of the worst of the worst among those who mistreat exotic animals. - Howard Baskin

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/  

Michael Webber—director of the new documentary, “The Conservation Game,” which explores the realm of people who bring animals on late-night talk shows and morning news programs, and may be secretly […] The post Michael Webber, director of “The Conservation Game” first appeared on Talking Animals.

2011 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 54,000 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 15 big cats who came to our attention as being abandoned and we were able to take in 10. 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, 106 of our 119 animals are over the age of 12 and 89 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.   Rescues:  With the help of some very special donors we were able to rescue Amanda, Arthur and Andre; 3 tigers who had been rescued in 2003 from NJ and sent to Wild Animal Orphanage in TX, which collapsed in 2010.  Max the baby bobcat came to us after the RI DNR seized him from an illegal owner.  5 servals, Zoul, Zouletta, Zimba, Santino and Doodles, who had been kept in a NY basement for 14 years were rescued.  Another serval named Kricket was also brought in from VA when her owner could no longer keep her.  We were also able to help with the placement of another serval, a bobcat and did a lot of rehab consultation work via phone and email.   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 is now about 7 lbs, is eating solids on his own and doing much better but appears to be blind.  He was having bad and frequent seizures, but those have almost subsided.  They have asked if we can give him a forever home if his eyesight does not return and we stand ready to help.  On 12/21/11 we had another perfect USDA inspection.   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 was completely down in the Spring and Summer, but has been stable since August 2011 now.   Our website is primarily an educational tool and according to Alexa we are ranked 464,891 worldwide and 128,777 most visited website in the U.S.  We have 1,104 other sites linking to us.   Our web site addresses local and global concerns about environment and has over 8,347 pages of information, movie clips, sounds, safe interactive online games with a conservation theme and photos. From 1/1/2011 until 12/31/2011 the site was visited 338,715 times, resulting in 764,943 page views.  In any given week the visitors will be from more than 200 countries outside of the U.S. as you can see from this breakdown:  United States 279,011, Canada 17,495, Poland 7,679, United Kingdom 7,610, Australia 2,848, India 2,123, Germany 1,578, France 984, and the Philippines 858 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.  For search engine optimization reasons we launched BobcatRehab.com  to make it easier for bobcats in trouble to find us.   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 326 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:  PC Magazine Names Big Cat Rescue in Top 12 Favorite Charities 2011.  “Big Cat Rescue, which takes in retired circus lions and tigers, also rescues other big cats from people who tried to keep them as pets, and otherwise offers sanctuary to large cats that are not eligible for release into the wild. It's focused on educating people about the unsuitability of the animals as pets, working toward passing laws against roadside zoos, and shutting down breeding programs like the exotic pet trade. They also take in injured wild cats and rehabilitate them for release. The group has a video cam set up in the sanctuary, and they regularly post videos of the big cats. The cats eat a massive amount every day, naturally, so Big Cat Rescue relies on donations and paid tour groups to support them.”—Arielle Rochette  PC Magazine   • 2011 Winner in Toyota's 100 Cars for Good  Big Cat Rescue was given a beautiful Toyota Tundra for being the top voted charity during their competition week. • 9/2/2011  The Tampa Bay Business Journal awarded Big Cat Rescue in 3 categories:  Best Black Tie Event  Favorite Retreat and Team Building Venue and Second Best Fundraiser • The Tampabay Business Journal selected Big Cat Rescue as a semi-finalist for Non Profit of the Year for 2011.   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 eight 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!   14,539 new subscribers joined as an AdvoCat to speak out for the cats at CatLaws.com in 2011 bringing our total number of AdvoCats to  54,447 who sent 134,431 letters to lawmakers and decision makers to protect big cats.   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.   • 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 Theroux 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. Many of the worst breeders, dealers and tiger-tamer-wanabees were finally shut down between 2008 and 2010 but it appears that USDA did not pursue any of the exotic animal abuse cases in 2011.     Fundraising and Marketing:  We overhauled (OK, Jamie overhauled) our online stores at http://www.bigcatrescue.biz/ and on eBay and greatly increased our sales by doing so.  We currently operate 300+ social networking sites.   Big Cat Rescue was reported favorably in the news 326 times in 2011 which in a 19% increase over 2010.   Some of the 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.   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 2,847 members and 34,359,740,539  videos, songs, photos and blogs posted to the site.  (blows my mind too!)  Get in on the action free at http://www.chatbigcats.com   Best Viral Video Award:  YouTube.  We ended the year with 35,442 subscribers and 37,492,151 views.   By year end we had 323 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 2,563 subscribers and 166,724 views.   Our MySpace account now has 7,551 friends. myspace.com/1BigCatRescue We surpassed 54,000 fans on Face Book .  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 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.   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats:  Big Cat Rescue funded a $5,000 GPS tracking collar program that will be monitored by researchers with the Snow Leopard Trust. Founded in 1981, the Snow Leopard Trust is the world's leading authority on the study and protection of the endangered snow leopards. This collar will allow researchers to track a wild snow leopard in order to study its habits and territory needs.  A GPS tracking collar has been placed on one of the cubs of Khashaa, a female and mother snow leopard, within the study area. The cub, a male, is already pretty big at one and a half years old. We find this so exciting because it will help us begin to answer some of the unanswered questions about snow leopards, including information about dispersal patterns.   Big Cat Rescue has been working with WildTracks this year to provide images of our tigers' paw prints for entry into their computer program which can determine who a cat is by their tracks when there are enough tracks submitted to use for comparison.  Learn more and see photos of the print collection at http://bigcatrescue.org/2011/today-at-big-cat-rescue-sept-22   Big Cat Rescue offered to sponsor the first ever Florida Panther Festival if they agreed not to use any live cats at their exhibits.  They did not take us up on the offer to sponsor the event, but did assure us that they would not exploit cats this way.  Our camera traps have been set in various locations to monitor wildlife populations and poachers in the area.   Helping Others: After delivering a couple of free webinars for the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS), Patty asked if we would host their first in person 2 day Workshop. Howard Baskin presented on our fundraising streams and the history of Big Cat Rescue, Jeff Kremer presented on donor recognition while giving the group of 20+ attendees a tour, Chris Poole spoke on social marketing and networking, Patty Ragan shared the value of hiring a coach, Kari Bagnall illustrated how to get the most out of a tabling event, Patty Finch taught grant writing, teaching your board how to be helpful and how to avoid “founder's syndrome” and I shared how we use google Apps, how we manage over 100 top notch volunteers, why it is important to have a plan and stick to it.   Big Cat Rescue later hosted HSUS Sanctuary CEO's for their annual retreat and gave them an inside look at how we operate.  In both the GFAS and HSUS workshops we shared our Intranet site along with all of our training documents and all of the assets to create a “sanctuary in a box.”  All of these tools are included on our website behind a $1.00 pay wall so that anyone who wishes to improve their facility has access to everything we do.   Big Cat Rescue also helped the Humane Society Legislative Fund in their work to end puppy mills because the same laws would protect cats and kittens from use in kitten mills as well.   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 two subjects.  1. Was to fund the voucher program for spaying and neutering dogs and cats for low income owners.  2. Was to ban the cruel practice of chaining dogs.   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.   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2011 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), Vincent Pavese (not compensated by BCR), and Keith Lawless (not compensated by BCR).  These members met for quarterly board meetings at the sanctuary.  The board met 5 times in 2011.   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, PR Susan Bass and  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 96 volunteers at the end of 2011 who clocked in 37,556.09 man-power hours in addition to staff, 25 interns (12,700 hours) and Volunteer Committee member hours. Our interns came from 9 states and 6 countries. Volunteers and interns provided roughly the equivalent workforce of 24 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.

The Big Cat Coalition Formed in DC Rose Church a pro bono attorney for the Ian Somerhalder Foundation contacted Big Cat Rescue asking what Ian could do to help Tony the tiger be saved from the truck stop in Grosse Tete, LA.  Ian Somerhalder is the star of the Vampire Diaries and from Louisiana and had a Twitter following of 2.3 million fans at that time.   We had been working to save Tony since 2009 and so had the Animal Legal Defense Fund and there wasn't anything more that could be done at the time as these things drag out through years and years of appeals, so Howard Baskin and I suggested that if Ian really wanted to make a difference for big cats that he help us stop cub handling.   Rose couldn't believe that such abuse actually existed in this country and contacted her law professor, Diane Sullivan, to see what could be done. They thought that bringing together the big non profits who work on big cat issues together for a round table would be a good idea and asked if I knew anyone.  I gave her the contacts we had in the International Tiger Coalition and she managed to get representatives from a number of them to come to a meeting on July 25, 2011.   Attendees were:   ALDF  Stephan Otto from the Animal Legal Defense Fund   BCR  Howard Baskin and Carole Baskin from Big Cat Rescue   BF USA  Adam Roberts and Tracy Coppola from Born Free   GFAS  Patty Finch from the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries   HSUS  Debbie Leahy from the Humane Society of the United States   IFAW  Jeff Flocken, Nathan Herschler & Gina Miller from the International Fund for Animal Welfare   ISF  Rose Church from the Ian Somerhalder Foundation   MSL  Dean Diane Sullivan, from Massachusetts School of Law, filmed the Plight of Tigers further down   WCAR  World Council for Animal Rights   WCCLAS  Wild Cat Conservation Legal Aid Society   WWF  Leigh Henry from the World Wildlife Fund   Combined we represent more than 18 million supporters.   Each of us had come there to decide how we could end the big cat crisis.  Each person around the table said what they thought the biggest contributing factor to big cat abuse and extinction was.  No one mentioned cubs and I was the last or next to the last to speak. I said that if we end the cub handling, all the other abuses fall away; circuses, private ownership, illegal trade and the smokescreen for illegal trade which was causing extinction in the wild.  We agreed on a three prong approach that day:   1. Rescind the generic tiger loophole with USFWS. 2. Force USDA to enforce the Animal Welfare Act  which should already be interpreted to not allow cub handling. 3. A federal ban on cub handling and private ownership.   https://bigcatrescue.org/big-cat-coalition/   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.

This astrological reading by Ron Cole was a 60th birthday gift from Howard Baskin to Carole Baskin.

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.  

Episode 66 of The Creative Businessmen Podcast features Celebrity Guests Carole Baskin, Howard Baskin, and Special Guest Shazir Haque. Join us in this episode to discuss the importance of big cat conservation, protecting their habitats, the importance of regulated big cat rescues, their ultimate goal to go out of business, their efforts in promoting legislation designed to protect these animals, and much more!! Be sure to Like and Subscribe and show love to Carol, Big Cat Rescue & Shazir's Socials below! Guest @carolebaskincat— https://www.instagram.com/carolebaskincat/ Big Cat Rescue @bigcatrescue — https://www.instagram.com/bigcatrescue Shazir Haque @shizzyswildcatrescue — https://www.instagram.com/shizzyswildcatrescue Host @neilhoover_official — https://www.instagram.com/neilhoover_official/ Host @mrbusiness — https://www.instagram.com/mrbusiness/ Producer @jesseknightfilms — https://www.instagram.com/jesseknightfilms/ Big Cat Rescue Website — https://bigcatrescue.org/carole-baskin/ Shizzy's Wildcat Rescue Website — https://shizzyswildcatrescue.org/ Carol Baskin IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11438697/

2007 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 74,000 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:  Combined Federal Campaign Best of the CFCIn late November we conquered the web site issues that have made our site inaccessible to all browsers other than Internet Explorer resulting in a 33% increase in the number of pages viewed by the 2,510,255 visitors to our bigcatrescue.org site in 2007 and 1,147,174 visitors to our www.CatLaws.com site for a total of 3,657,429 online visitors in 2007.  Big Cat Rescue is increasingly listed in world wide publications as a “must see” in Tampa.  Began the permitting process for the wall we have been raising money to build for the past 4 years.   Big Cat Rescue has been accepted into the federal version of the Combined Federal Campaign. Where we could only be in the local books in years past, we will be in every book that goes out to government employees as a choice for their auto deduction giving. Not only were we accepted, but we were also awarded with the Best of the CFC seal. In the local market we receive upwards of $7,500.00 in donations, so we are hopeful that we will do even better by going national. We are extremely grateful for this opportunity and thank those of you who are participating   For the first time in our history, Big Cat Rescue offered a reward for information. When a tiger was found shot to death along side an apartment complex and busy highway in Dallas, TX on Christmas day, we announced a $5,000.00 reward for information resulting in the arrest and conviction of the people involved. The police and animal control authorities told us that they cannot offer such bounties and that our doing so greatly enhanced their ability to pursue the case. See the video plea http://bigcatrescue.org/video/b42008/5000reward.htm   Animal Care:  Rescued four tigers left to die at the now defunct Savage Kingdom.  (TJ, Bella, Modnic & Trucha) Watch this dramatic rescue here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/b42008/savagekingdom.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued two lions (Joseph & Sasha) and two tigers (Nikita & Simba) from the now defunct Siberian Tiger Foundation which was nothing more than a thin guise for Pay to Play with tigers.  Read about that rescue and see the video here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/rescuelionsandtigers.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued four native bobcats in four weeks.  (Ace, Chance, Kennedy & Will)  Read about their rescue and what is being done to send them back to the wild here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/rehabbobcats2007.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued a Savannah cat (Diablo) who was abandoned and living in an animal shelter that was not designed for long term care of exotic cats.  Assisted in the rescue of another Serval and Bobcat and another two Tigers, finding them permanent homes in facilities that meet the guidelines set out at  http://www.sanctuarystandards.com/   Vernon Stairs finished all of the new safety entrances to cages.  He built tunnels on the lions cages, Precious Bobcat and The Great Pretender Bobcat, and others to enable easy shifting and introductions.  Vern doubled the size of Jumanji the leopard's cage and added a cave and mountain.  He joined a number of cages to each other to provide more room for the cats to roam.  Catera Bobcat got to move in next to his mom and dad in a huge double sided enclosure.   Began renovations to Auroara the tiger's 1 acre, lakefront home to provide better drainage and a hurricane room.  Began work on a hurricane shelter for Nyla leopard after moving her next to her brother, Simba after years of them being separated.   Moved Bailey Bobcat in with Anasazi and Moses the Bobcats.   Moved Rose Caracal to a double cage and introduced her to Cachanga Caracal.  Moved the African Civets to Bailey's old cage after it was civet-ized.  Reintroduced Dances with Wolves and Shatia the Canada Lynxes.  Our cats are altered so that no accidental births will occur from these groupings.  Spayed Zabu the white tigress and Bella the tigress.  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00143.htm   Raked the entire park before freezing weather to try and kill fleas and eggs and may switch products again as efficacy is fading.  Refurbished all 18 pools and one of them twice thanks to TJ the tiger being an absolute maniac when it comes to chasing fish.   Every year the cats get pumpkins to smash after Halloween  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00062.htm, but this year they also got Christmas trees  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00162.htm.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  In addition to our monthly, on site volunteer training courses, Tiffany Deavor took several online training courses, Scott Lope and Dr. Liz Wynn are scheduled for Safe Capture course, Sharyn Beach, Howard & Carole Baskin and Susan Mitchell attended D.C. conference on effective grass roots efforts.  Carole continues to take online courses and audio seminars to enhance her efficacy in legislation and leadership.  Fine tuned some of our training methods and tracking.   Education:  Joined the International Tiger Coalition with the mission of preserving 10,000 tigers in the wild in the next ten years.  More about that here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/internationaltigercoalition.htm   Assisted WNET and SeaStudios.org in ascertaining the number of big cats in the U.S. for their film about a world without humans.  As there is no government agency responsible for tracking these animals, it falls to anecdotal evidence that we have been compiling for many years.   The illegal portion of the 15 billion dollar trade in exotic pets is second only to the market for illegal drugs. In 2005, some 210 million wild animals were brought legally into the U.S. and many more were smuggled, because there are just 120 USFWS inspectors to cover 39 International airports and all of the border crossings. In just the legal importations, that means each inspector must view and approve the health of almost 15,000 animals per day, every day of the year.  Big Cat Rescue provided the photos and resources for an eBay guide to let buyers and sellers know that it is illegal to trade in many exotic cat furs.     We also provided this information to the World Wildlife Fund in Poland to enable them to train their border guards to recognize endangered cat species that are frequently smuggled through customs. Provided bobcat and Canada lynx photos and info for a scientific training / educational presentation on wildlife awareness for Environment Canada.   Cambridge University Press selected Carole Baskin's article on Cause Related Marketing for their Professional English in Use Series textbooks called Professional English in Use – Marketing.  It is a new addition to the Profession English in Use Series that is a self study reference book that will be used for classroom work and tutoring. Cambridge included Baskin in their 2008 Who's Who Among Executive and Professional Women “Honors Edition.” as well.   We implemented our first Artificial Intelligence V-host on a page called Ask the Cat where you can type in any question and the virtual cat will answer you in an intelligent way:  http://bigcatrescue.org/askthecat.htm  All of our species information pages were recorded and now each page offers the visitor the opportunity to read and/or listen to the information.  This can be downloaded onto mP3 players as well.   Jamie Veronica's photos of cougars were requested by wildlife biologist Anna Huckabee Smith, AWB for use in her 5 year status report for USFWS and Wildlife Trends which will be covering the topic of captive cougars being turned loose when they are no longer wanted as pets.   We harnessed the powerful mapping technology available with google maps and posted online, interactive maps that show the accredited and non accredited facilities (mostly back yard pet owners) who keep dangerous big cats.  It took four maps to hold all of the information, but they can all be accessed online here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/map.htm  This was offered to the FWC as they had stated they would be releasing this data online soon, several months ago, and this saved them the time and effort.  It will be helpful to the media when tracking maulings, killings and escapes and to emergency response personnel in the event of natural disasters.  Until now, this information has not been immediately accessible to fire fighters, the police or animal services.   Visitors:  In 2007 Big Cat Rescue had 26,497 visitors for guided tours.  16,424 were adult tours that generated $409,587.03 which is up 2.62% from last year.  Our biggest leap was in our kids tours for families with children under the age of 10 and with 3,271 participants that was up 44.31% and generated $54,668.60.  All of our tours are guided and are educational.  Our Education Program also convenes camps, special field trips and such and those were attended by 4,969 and generated $66,309.71 which is an increase of 15.37%.  In keeping with our desire to give back to the community we provided 27 free field trips for Title One schools and others on a needs-based application.   Prices:  Because we were nearing  capacity at the end of 2006 we raised our prices considerably in 2007.  This slowed our growth sufficiently to keep the sanctuary a serene home for the cats but increased our bottom line.  Prices were raised from $20 to $25 for adults and from $12 to $15 for children under ten.  All of our specialty tours were raised to $50 from $25.  Our supporters understand that as word spreads about Big Cat Rescue being such a magical experience people have been flocking here, and that we had to raise the prices in order to keep the number of guests down to a reasonable roar.  The added benefit is that people who visit really are committed to the animals and we are not just another tourist attraction.   Legislation/Education:  Presented testimony, statistics and charts to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commissioners in Destin, Key Largo and St. Petersburg, asking to ban contact with big cats and their babies and to allow counties to enact more restrictive rules to protect the animals and the public.  Presented testimony, statistics and charts many times to their staff at planning sessions before and after the Commission meetings.  Provided the same to the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking.   Testified at a Congressional briefing about the need for Haley's Act, a bill to ban contact with big cats.  The International Fund for Animal Welfare liked the presentation materials so much that they asked permission to reproduce them for their own legislative use, which was, of course, granted.  Presented a slide show on using the secret, the law of attraction, to assist in lobbying efforts in the exhibit hall at the Taking Action for Animals conference in Washington, DC.  There were 950 registrants and many more visitors throughout the two day exhibit.   Through our online video marketing we are educating more people in a week than we have visit the sanctuary in a year!  We are changing the way people think about animals and as a result they are acting more compassionately.  The recent outcry at Michael Vick's involvement in dog fighting shows that people care about animals more than ever before.  As wonderful as that is, however, it isn't enough.   Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Legislation can't change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.”  Knowing this to be the case, we are using our online marketing to change legislation too.   In December 2003 we had to turn away more than 300 unwanted big cats and every other year that number was doubling.  That same year a new law, that we helped pass, banned the sale of big cats as pets across state lines. The following year, for the first time ever, the number of abandoned big cats dropped to 160.  We decided, then and there, the only way to stop the suffering and abuse was through the creation of better laws that would ban the private ownership of lions, tigers and cougars as pets.  Thanks to the laws enacted below, the number of abandoned big cats in 2007 has dropped to 72.   By December of 2004 we launched a new section of our website www.CatLaws.com that would enable people to learn about pending bills and enable them to connect to their lawmakers to ask for laws that would protect our communities while ending the suffering and abuse of big cats.  We believed that if people knew what was happening and knew how to help that they would.   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 legal matters and we feel that we have had considerable success in doing that since we have been able to track 1,147,174 visitors to our legislative pages in 2007.  The combined number of visitors, between our main web site bigcatrescue.org and our legislative website, is now 10,020 visitors per day with an average of 4 pages viewed by each visitor or roughly 40,000 page views per day.  Our peak day in 2007 was March 15 with 55,184 page views.   The next step was to get a person to take action by composing a letter to their congressman and that is even harder yet, but we believe the numbers speak for themselves:  33,596 letters were successfully sent from the legislative site asking for better laws to protect the community and to end the suffering and abuse of big cats kept in backyards and basements.  The Legislative Action Center report shows a steady, quarterly increase.   The results are measurable in more than just statistics however.  In the past 2 years seven states banned the private possession and barter in big cats and the numbers we have to turn away continue to drop. The USDA has issued policy statements against the private ownership of big cats and against heretofore accepted practices such as walking a 500 pound cat on a leash in public and allowing people to pet big cats at fairs, malls, parking lots and schools.  Details on these here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/lawsbigcatbans.htm   USDI issued their new rules that went into effect in September 2007 that ban the transportation of big cats across state lines by non USDA entities.  They also defined a sanctuary as a place that provides a permanent home and does not breed, sell, trade nor allow public contact with the big cats.  Before now there was no definition of a sanctuary and many places that were adding to the problem were doing so under the guise of being sanctuaries.  The language used by USDI is practically verbatim from our web sites at bigcatrescue.org and SanctuaryStandards.com.  http://bigcatrescue.org/laws/lawscaptivewildanimalsafetyact.htm   In 2007 the Florida legislature unanimously agreed to impose a $10,000 bond on anyone in the state who exhibits big cats.  This bond is used as a surety in the case of injury to the public and can be used by the FWC to care for dangerous wild animals when they have been abandoned.  Big Cat Rescue had been a strong proponent of this bond and our supporters, via our CatLaws.com site had made their wishes known to their legislators.  On July 2 Governor Charlie Crist signed the bond requirement into law and the FWC drafted the rules to enforce the new law in 2007.   The Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission put together a task force to review their policies that still allow the breeding and selling of big cats in the state with only the addition of a $40.00 USDA permit.  Public opinion polls on our web site indicate that  76% of those polled would support a ban on all exotic animals as pets.  That same percentage also agrees that hunting should be outlawed.  Florida's Wildlife Conservation Commission is funded almost entirely by issuing hunting permits and permits to people to own exotic animals so the fact that they are reviewing their own policies in view of changing public opinion is certainly measurable  evidence of Big Cat Rescue's impact on this very serious situation.   The FWC staff announced that they are making recommendations to the Commissioners that include proposed rules:   1. Raise the classification of a cougar from a Class II pet to a Class I animal that may not be kept as a pet. 2. Prohibit contact between big cats and their babies in accordance with the new federal bill that is pending which would ban the practice. 3. Prohibit transport of big cats to flea markets, parking lots, etc. 4. Require that exhibitors have all of their animals on exhibit as there is a current issue of meeting the letter of the law by exhibiting one animal while warehousing dozens more in minimum size cages that would appall the public. 5. Require Class II owners to secure a $10,000.00 bond as is now required for Class I.   As mentioned above, there is a federal bill called Haley's Act HR 1947 that is gaining momentum in the U.S. House and is expected to pass this session.  This bill is being broadly marketed by Big Cat Rescue because it will ban contact between the public and big cats, including their babies.  Baby tigers and baby lions are bred to be used as photo props and for petting sessions and then are discarded when they get too big.  This bill would stop the unscrupulous breeding for this industry and ultimately would end the biggest cause of the over abundance of big cats in captivity.   Using the email targeting feature of the CatLaws.com site we were able to convince the Medieval Fair to not allow a shabby traveling circus to set up shop by having our supporters write Hunsader Farms, the owner of the property, and telling them how they feel about such abuse.  3,236 of our online supporters sent letters to the Chinese government urging them to ban the farming of captive tigers for their fur, bones and organs.  All of these advances have been made possible by getting our message out to the people who can make a difference.  See below how we got the message out.   Fundraising and Marketing:  We were in the press 85 times.  Howard Baskin was featured in the Nov. 5th issue of U.S. News & World Report for his charitable work with Big Cat Rescue. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/aboutbcr/usnewsandworldreport.htm   Scott Lope was quoted in Newsweek about the escape of Tatiana the tiger from a zoo where she mauled three young men and killed a teenage boy. http://www.newsweek.com/id/82067/page/1   Awards:  In January of 2007 Big Cat Rescue was awarded the People's Choice Award by WEDU, our local PBS affiliate. We won again in Jan. 2008.  More than 80 charities competed in a 16 county radius for this award, but Big Cat Rescue took 31% of the vote.  Next year the contest is going national.  Won Parenting Magazine's Best of Tampa Bay Award.  In August Big Cat Rescue was Change.org's Pick of the Month.   TV:  Animal Planet show called Ms. Adventure aired our episode in March and Real Strange aired in Europe.  The first episode of “Big Cat Rescuers” ever aired on: April 11, 2007 cable channel 19 7:00 PM and April 15, 2007 cable channel 20 6:30 PM.  This one hour episode was created by our own Jamie Veronica, Brian Czarnik and Honey Wayton, and features several of our keepers, partners and of course, Scott Lope our manager. Our big cat expert Scott Lope was interviewed on the History Channel's MonsterQuest‘s search for the elusive big black cats that are frequently reported roaming wild all across the U.S.   Roar and Rolling:  Lindy Melendez with EGS Printing has generously donated a van “wrap” that is valued at $5000.  See the stunning artwork here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/images/EasySt/van/index.htm  The wrap was done with a lot of love from everyone at ESG Printing.   Memory Lane:  Our cemetery was transformed from a pitiful little hodgepodge of cage placards to a wall of memories created in stone and inlaid with marble headstones that feature a laser inscribed image of the cat, his or her date of birth and death and the sponsor of the plaque.  This was done as a fund raiser for the living cats and in its first year generated enough money to support a tiger for a year.  Thanks to Babs Riddle the grounds were luxuriously sculpted to include gardens, a shell path and benches where our volunteers can rest and reflect on the lives they have known who continue to inspire them.  Great marble lions that were donated to us now flank either side of the impressive entrance.  http://bigcatrescue.org/foreverremembered.htm   Google:  In today's fast paced environment we have to stay quick as a cat and be as entertaining as a basket full of kittens.  We have found mini videos, or podcasting, to be our most effective way of marketing our message.  On July 8, 2006 we launched our first video on google.  We now have 195 live videos playing and have had 183,514 viewers.  Our most popular video is an hour long film about all of the plights faced by exotic cats in the wild and in captivity and it has been played 51,357 times.  None of our tracking can tell how many times people play our videos on their iPods after downloading them.   YouTube:   (the fastest growing web site in the world) In August of 2006 we launched our YouTube account and have 72 of our videos playing that have been viewed 1,752,846 times.  We have 881 subscribers to our videos with more joining all the time and are the #2 Most Viewed (All Time) – Non Profit and #9 – Most Subscribed (All Time) – Non Profit.  In late December we launched two additional sites dedicated to our Educational Department and our Animal Communicator.   MySpace: myspace.com/1BigCatRescue In August of 2006 we launched our MySpace account and are one of the top ranked sites as we have 221,617,683 in our network who have visited our profile page 22,928 times and we have 4,276 subscribers to our videos there. MySpace has become such a popular portal that it now ranks in the top 10 list of referring sites that send visitors to our main website at bigcatrescue.org.  That ranks our own MySpace account just behind such powerful referrers as the google, yahoo and aol search engines.   VEOH:  In 2007 we began posting our videos to Veoh.com   We have 143 videos playing and these videos are getting thousands of plays each.  Veoh is the next generation in T. V. viewing.  Videos can be watched in low resolution for free, or for a fee can be downloaded in high resolution and watched on a television set or computer.  We post most of our videos as a free download, but post PSA's in high resolution so that the media can get b-roll from us instantly for less than the cost of mailing a disk.   We now film, edit and post 1-2 videos each week.  Our videos have been so popular that they have been picked up for use on Current TV and many online content providers.  In addition to our online video marketing we have been in the press 427 times and if you haven't heard of the Fur Ball, you don't watch TV, listen to the radio or read the papers.  We have been blessed with complimentary ads from all of the biggest media outlets such as Cox Radio, The Tampa Tribune, The Tampabay Business Journal, the Maddux Report and the St. Pete Times to market our biggest annual fundraiser each year.  We also have Public Service Announcements running on Brighthouse cable TV and nationally on Animal Planet.   Search Engine Ranking:  Our goal was to increase the number of web visitors by increasing our web site's visibility on the Internet.  The most dramatic breakthrough was in revamping the underlying html so that browsers other than IE could view the site.  The second more important feature was implementing navigation that enabled visitors to see every level of our 12,000+ file site.  Even though this was not accomplished until November the pages viewed increased 33% in 2007 when the even though the number of new visitors only increased by 12%.  For the first time in history we have risen to the top page of google's search page for the keyword “tigers” and are number 18 of more than 43,000,000 competing sites.  To see the ranking on our most important key words visit:  http://bigcatrescue.org/get_more_hits.htm   Party of the Year:  That's what a lot of people in the know call it.  The Fur Ball netted more than $120,000.00 with a sell out crowd of 700 people.  That's up $80,000.00 over last year!  See the entire recap including photos of Bo Derek and our colorful, cat themed guests here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2007FurBall.htm   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats:  The Jaguar Trust.  Trapping is the furthest thing from our mission, except when it comes to camera traps for tracking and aiding wildlife. Our own Big Cat Rescue president Jamie Veronica went to Guyana, South America with a fellow volunteer on a mission for the sanctuary. Jamie and Justin Boorstein were in Guyana for ten days setting new digital camera traps with video to track Jaguars, Ocelots and Pumas. Our partner, Foster Parrots, tells us that with the recent import ban of all birds into Europe, Guyana now finds herself in a position to change the long practiced wildlife export industry there. Many trappers are finding that there are no markets for their “products”! Many of these trappers now find themselves unemployed and the government may start to look at the potential revenues of eco-tourism to fill the gap. If we can make a concerted effort with our conservation project we hope to serve as an example and to garner the support of Guyana to create the world's premier rainforest destination. Our plans include the promotion of our project here in the US and a marketing strategy to heighten the visibility of this important move in Guyana.   Visitors to Guyana will have a choice of tour itineraries ranging from an ambitious 3 and 4-day Kanuku Mountains hike that will bring them to the realm of the Harpy Eagle, to more leisurely tours that will encompass sightings of Red Bellied, Scarlet, Red and Green, Blue and Yellow Macaws, Giant Anteaters and a wide variety of primates.   Horseback and canoe excursions will let tour groups experience the wilds of Guyana at an intimate level.  Visitors can also travel to Kaeiteur Falls to witness one of the world's tallest single-drop waterfalls of 741 feet.   Construction on the first of two planned lodge complexes, located in Nappi Village, has been completed by the local tribes with funds from Foster Parrots and Big Cat Rescue. Contact SaveTheCats@bigcatrescue.org to spend your vacation dollars saving the wildcats in the rainforest.   Africa:  President Jamie Veronica and volunteer Barbara Stairs also toured Africa to see the issues first hand that have resulted in game parks being virtually the only lands left that house wild cats.  She will work with relatives there to check out sources for offering handmade products in our gift shop that could help preserve wildlife there as we currently do in the Jaguar Trust.  (Barbara Stairs funded this excursion)   Since 2005 Big Cat Rescue has provided both funds and volunteers to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya .  Lewa relocates problematic wildlife to protected areas and provides education to children in the area who would not otherwise be able to read or write.  In addition to the funds that Big Cat Rescue donates, we also provide a U.S. market for Kenya ‘s craftsmen and send clothing with our volunteers to distribute when they visit.  Our volunteers take their skills and attitudes of compassion for all life into these barren regions and share a message of hope.   China, India, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia and Pakistan:  Every year since 1997 Big Cat Rescue has donated to the countries that are home to the Himalayan mountain range where the elusive snow leopard is found.  One whole corner of the gift shop explains how the sale of items made by the villagers helps save the snow leopard in the wild.  In 2006, Dr. Tom McCarthy, the Conservation Director for the Snow Leopard Trust, came to Big Cat Rescue to explain just how crucial each sale was to protect these exquisite cats.   The snow leopard lives in regions where the average person makes the equivalent of $1.00 per day.  Most of the people who share the same highlands with the snow leopard are herders and to them, the loss of one sheep or goat can mean the difference in their survival.  Most of the snow leopards that are killed are retribution killings; meaning that the cat has been blamed for killing one of the herd and the herdsman has killed the next snow leopard he saw.  The herdsman can eat the cat and sell the hide for 25.00 which for them is a month's wage.  There are many other middle men along the way who are anxious to get their hands on a snow leopard pelt or penis for the Asian medicinal trade or for the black market.   The pelt dramatically becomes more valuable as it goes down the line and can cost $5,000.00 or more to the final buyer.   The Snow Leopard Trust members in China, India, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia and Pakistan work closely with the local people to find out what they need.  In some cases, they can create handicrafts like those we sell and make five times what they can make from herding.   The programs are structured with reducing reliance on Snow Leopard Trust funds for each consecutive year and to remain in the program the community must ensure that no snow leopards are killed.  If anyone in the community kills a snow leopard, the entire community risks losing their right to participate in the program for a year and that is enough to keep everyone watching out for the snow leopard.  Their claims of protection must verified by the game wardens and governmental agencies who actually have incentives to discover poaching because they are often paid a portion of the confiscation if they can catch a poacher.     Big Cat Rescue is the second largest retailer for Snow Leopard Enterprises.   We collected fecal samples from our captive snow leopards for the Snow Leopard Trust to use in training dogs to be able to tell one wild snow leopard from another just by sniffing the scat left behind.  This will greatly enhance conservation efforts and is a cost effective method as well.  The video we produced is being aired on our sites, and also being used as a marketing tool for the new program and the Snow Leopard Trust.   The U.S. State Department enlisted our help in saving the critically endangered Amur Leopard because of our ability to reach so many people who care about wild cats and their habitat.  You can learn all about what is happening with the Amur Leopard & Tiger here:   http://bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/leopard_save.htm. For more details on our International work visit:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2007AttachmentAInternational.htm   Other:  Big cat breeders, dealers, collectors and exploiters hate us because as we educate the public about the truth behind their abusive practices such as breeding white tigers, ligers or babies for photo booths their profiteering opportunities are drying up.  There is no justification for their activities so their only recourse has been to file a plethora of false complaints with authorities who regulate us and to make false accusations to anyone who will listen.  The only gain they could expect was to keep us busy proving ourselves so that we would be diverted from our mission of ending the abuses that result in so many unwanted big cats.  Now the regulators are on to them as we have proven time and again our integrity which is illustrated in our perfect inspection reports and our continued accreditation by The Global Federation of Sanctuaries and the Better Business Bureau.  Only one media outlet in 2007 repeated their slanderous accusations, but the article went on for many pages explaining that the reason such libelous statements are made is likely due to our success in exposing the activities that result in Florida having the highest incidents of maulings, killings and escapes by big cats.   Created pages devoted to the cats who have live and died in cages here with tributes from the keepers who loved them and who work ceaselessly for their freedom:  https://sites.google.com/site/bigcattributes/home  Thanks to the work of our AdvoCat LaWanna Jones we added hundreds of new e-Cards here:  http://www.bigcatfun.com/ecards/  and added hundreds of new online puzzles, new bookmarks and hundreds of new free online games here: http://bigcatrescue.org/game/games.htm.    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            2006 Visitors                                                                              85                26,497 Total Expenses                                             $1,686,386           *$708,607.00 Total Income                                                                     $0           $1,236,237.00 Total Net Assets                                       $148,455.00           $2,419,227.00 Spent on Program Services                               100%            91% ** *funded by Founder        **4% spent on Management and 5% spent on Fundraising   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2007 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:  We went from 3 paid staff to 7 and now provide worker's comp insurance.  We still can offer no other benefits than the peace of mind in knowing their work is changing the world. • 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) • Social Science Director Brian Czarnik $18,400.00 (leaving for Chicago early 2008) • Gift Shop & Guest Services Bridget Czarnik $18,400.00 (leaving for Chicago early 2008) • Gift Shop & Guest Services  Honey Wayton $22,800.00 • Intern Director & Lead AdvoCat Tiffany Deavor $25,000.00 • Education Directors Dr. Beth Kamhi & Coleen Kremer $14,000.00 combined • Vernon Stairs Cage Builder and Maintenance $35,600.00 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 2007 who clocked in 57,302 man-power hours in addition to staff and Volunteer Committee member hours.  Roughly the equivalent workforce of 27 more full time staff.  Created the S.A.V.E. award for Scratch's Award 4 Volunteer Excellence.  The recipients were January – Julie Hanan, February – Cathy Monroe, March – Tiffany Deavor, April – Glen Yancey, May – Kym Marszal, June – Merrill Kramer, July – Barbara Frank, August – Marie Schoubert, September – Edith Parker, October – Babs Riddle, November – Anne Canterbury and December – Angie Gabor (the first Red Shirt to ever win)  Winners of the S.A.V.E. award are allowed to direct $500.00 to the cat project of their choice.  Created pages devoted to our dedicated volunteers at:  http://bigcatrescue.org/hero/000hero.htm and our 2007 Volunteer of the Year is Barbara Frank.   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.

Howie's letter to Leonora LaPeter Anton   Leonora, I would be happy to speak with you if we can do it in person - it seems to me the nature of your inquiry deserves that, and I would enjoy meeting you.   For me there actually is a lighter side to the serious email Carole sent to you that makes me smile.  I was 54 when we married, and it is my first marriage. You can probably imagine that at that age this was quite a decision.   If I had to point to one single thing that clinched the decision for me, it is something that perhaps you can sense from her email - she openly says what is on her mind directly.  You know where you stand, with no games.  I love that.   I have my nephew arriving Thursday for a week, so if it possible for us to talk either before he arrives or after he leaves that it would be most convenient, but if not I will try to work with your schedule.  This Wednesday afternoon would be particularly good if that happened to work for you.  Sincerely,   Howard Baskin   8/14/07 Carole writes Jamie and Volunteer Committee:  Subject: 2 lions   I need a consensus if we are going to rescue the two lions that were confiscated from Diana Mc Court in Ohio.  She is the woman USDA shut down, but she continued letting people come pet and get mauled by her cats and 60 Minutes, or one of those guys did an undercover story on her to show it.    Animal Control has taken possession and is awaiting a Judge's ruling saying that the cats can be placed permanently.  There are 4 tigers and 2 lions and I have tentatively told Animal Control and HSUS that we would take the lions if Diana cannot take them back, but I need your vote before I can commit for sure.  For the cats,  Carole Baskin   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.

2006 Annual Report   (Bo Derek was at the 2007 Fur Ball so this image is out of sequence. )   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.   Advances:  Big Cat Rescue qualified for the Combined Federal Campaign's National book and was certified by Independent Charities of America as one of the Best in America.  This means that any government employee in the country can choose Big Cat Rescue from their 2007 gift guide next year to receive auto-deducted donations from their paychecks.  We have been longstanding members in the local campaign but this will expand our exposure from the sun-coast area of Florida to the entire United States.   In January Ringling Bros. Circus announced in the Tampa Tribune that they had dropped tigers from their new show and that if the format was successful they intend to drop the big cats from their other acts as well.  The UK announced the end to tigers and other big cats in traveling shows. Jamie traveled to Guyana, South America to help set up an eco-tourism lodge to save jaguars, ocelots, jaguarundi, margay and others in their native habitat.  She began camera trapping and instructed local Amerindians in how to change the film and mail the results to us.  She has been camera trapping in the U.S. as well and has participated with wildlife offices to help catch poachers.  Read more about what we are doing to save cats in the wild at http://bigcatrescue.org/conservation.htm   Big Cat Rescue was welcomed into the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) bolstering its global Member Society network. WSPA now has 692 affiliated organizations in 142 countries and there are only 50 US members and most are Humane Societies. The WSPA is the world's largest federation of humane societies and animal protection organizations. Through direct field work, campaigning, legislative work, education and training programs, WSPA strives to create a world where animal welfare matters and animal cruelty ends. We are proud to be inducted into this membership.   Animal Care:  Thanks to oversight by our Operations Manager, Scott Lope, and the devotion of more than 100 well trained volunteers, the cats continue to thrive.  Our enrichment program has advanced from once a week per cat to twice to three times per week per cat. Thanks to Jen Ruszczyk coming in before work, after work and on weekends, 57 of our 142 cats are now in the operant conditioning program with expertly trained volunteers. Thanks to Dr. Wynn, DVM and Dr. Wadsworth, DVM, our cats have been healthy and Cheetaro the leopard was neutered and Zabu the white tigress was spayed.   We rescued a Jungle Cat hybrid and reunited him with his owner.  Scott Lope and some volunteers rescued a local neighborhood from a marauding python and found a home for him as well.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  Sharon Marszal went to eBay school and then trained Bridget Bolger as her replacement. The intern and volunteer programs continue to evolve and this year included interns from Canada, Wales, CA, MA, NY, OR, PA, & VA.   We hosted Tom McCarthy of the Snow Leopard Trust as he shared breathtaking photos of snow leopards that he has been studying in the wild for more than 15 years.  We support the Snow Leopard Trust through our gift shop sales of items made by the local villagers.  Big Cat Rescue is the second largest retailer for Snow Leopard Enterprises, despite the fact that many huge zoos are also retailers.  We hosted Snow Leopard Trust's CEO Brad Rutherford subsequently and entered into a co-branding campaign where we sell, and allow the Snow Leopard Trust to sell, our Snow Leopard Screensavers with all of the proceeds going to snow leopard conservation. We shipped 100 of the screensavers to them as our donation and we continue to offer them in our gift shop and online.  Read more about snow leopard conservation at http://bigcatrescue.org/snow_leopard_save.htm   Several of our staff and volunteers attended the Carnivore Conference hosted by Defenders of Wildlife and were happy to get to spend some time with Jeff Corwin and Dr. Alan Rabinowitz.  The volunteers staffed a booth there to expose others in the animal world to the work Big Cat Rescue is doing for both captive and free roaming wildcats.  Three of our volunteers, including Susan Mitchell, attended a course in effective, mainstream lobbying sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States.   Education:  We brought in two new Educators: Beth Kamhi and Coleen Kremer who work as a tag team to cover all of our educational outreach and field trip activities.  They provided 171 field trip tours for 5,263 students and hosted 60 summer campers on site.  Beth and Coleen were able to add mini camps during holidays to our already popular summer camp. They did outreach presentations to 60 schools and other educational venues reaching tens of thousands more people.  With help from our donors we were able to offer 43 of these outreach programs for free.   Our new zoning from 2004 allows for a Natural History Museum so we took the remains of cats that have died over the years to be taxidermied so that these rare cats will still be able to educate future generations.  We filmed portions for an expose on the small cat and hybrid cat trade.  We created a new Education brochure and inserts with the help of some donors who specifically asked to help with our Education Programs.  With the help of AdvoCat, Robin Kitzmiller, we were able to put the Cat in FCAT by offering a complete online resource of K-12 study guides that teach the necessary skills for kids to pass the FCAT in Florida.  Pass it on to your favorite teacher here http://bigcatrescue.org/teachersresource.htm   Shere Khan was the cover cat for Big Cats the USBorne Discovery Internet Linked book by Jonathan Sheikh-Miller and Stephanie Turnbull.  This book was discovered in the Dead Zoo in Dublin, Ireland by Jamie Veronica while she was visiting there and is available world wide. Click on the photo to order your copy. AdvoCat, Lawanna Jones, created and we began distributing the Child Safety ID Kit at the Fur Ball and to the principals of all of the area's schools.  We have approached a number of child protection organizations to achieve a cooperative marketing program of this important tool.   Laura Lluellyn-Lassiter joined our volunteer force and is known as an animal communicator.  She has helped give insight as to the true nature of the cats and produces her own blog called Cat Heart Whispers on our blog page.  She works with our cinematographer, Brian Czarnik, to produce regular episodes of Animal Talk that can be seen here http://bigcatrescue.org/podcats.htm  If people knew who these cats really are inside, they would not support industries that use them as props.   With the professional voice talent of supporter, Bonnie-Jean Creais we were able to add audio options to our educational pages about the different species of cats. There are a number of reasons why this is helpful.  Children learning to read, can play the audio while reading the text to learn more difficult words.  The visually impaired can click on the large image link and listed to the information without struggling to read.  The audio can also be downloaded via subscription to our RSS feed at http://savethecats.hipcast.com/rss/animaltalk.xml that enables a person to listen to the information on their iPod or other portable player.   Our White Tiger page continues to be the most popular page on our site (after our main page) accounting for 7% of all of the visits to our 17,000 page site.  We believe that this has had a tremendous impact on the white tiger situation because the price of white tiger cubs (which can only be produced through severe inbreeding) has dropped from $30,000 to $3,000 and the American Zoological Association has come out publicly against the practice of breeding and exhibiting white tigers. Breeders are giving away adult white tigers because the public now knows the dirty little secret behind white tiger breeding.  If you don't know it yet, check out http://bigcatrescue.org/white_tigers.htm   Legislation:   • Ban big cat contact to save human & big cat lives • While escaped big cats are being shot in Ohio • Those who are responsible for breeding so many excess lion and tiger cubs are pimping them out at an OH mall  • AdvoCat News for October 2011 • Meet 3 new tigers, see a purrsonal tribute to Steve Jobs, vote for us to win $25k and more  • Cubs Dragged From Mall to Mall. • Ask these mall owners to consider the lives these poor cubs endure and end big cat displays at their properties.  • YOU can be a part of the most thrilling rescue of the year!  • Most Important Comment Period Ever to End the Trade in Generic Tigers! • Ask USFWS to Rescind the Generic Tiger Exemption. You only have until Oct. 21 to Comment.    With the help of our supporters sending 30,765 letters we promoted state bills to ban the exploitation of exotic animals and several federal issues to curb the breeding, buying, selling across state lines as well.  In 2006 sixty state bills were passed to protect animals and 11 were defeated that would have endangered animals.  Thanks to all of our supporters who sent 2,282 letters asking for it, the USDA enacted rules to prohibit declawing big cats, barred walking big cats on leashes, banned using expired medicines on exotic cats and prevents shooting cats as a form of acceptable euthanasia.  The USDA also stepped up their enforcement by shutting down 9 facilities this year as compared to only 3 in the prior two years.  Three more states banned private possession of exotics in 2006 and seven countries enacted laws to protect the big cats including the banning of circus acts, barring possession of big cats as pets and closing down canned hunts.   The API did an excellent under cover investigation into the private possession that is espoused by Phoenix Exotics and the Feline Conservation Federation. Carole Baskin presented HB 1459 and SB 990 to Committees in Tallahassee on April 17th and 18th and she attended a luncheon with Senator Robert Byrd in Washington, D.C. She spoke at Capitol Advantage's conference in D.C. on smart strategies for building advocacy influence.  As a result of the speech, the President of the American League of Lobbyist, Paul Miller, has joined our Advisory Committee and has agreed to donate his time to helping us end the abusive trade in big cats.  Attorney Jowita Wysocka has also agreed to donate her time to researching cases to help us promote Haley's Act, a bill to ban contact with big cats.  She and Paul have both joined Big Cat Rescue and IFAW in starting the Big Cat Caucus.   Patricia Massard took over the daily posting to the Big Cat Rescue Yahoo group, which now has 157 members and to all of our blogs at http://bigcatrescue.org/blog.htm   Fundraising and Marketing:  Thanks to a couple of HUGE cat lovers, Big Cat Rescue got its first donation of $30,000.00 from a single family foundation.  Many other large donors stepped up this year as well with $10,000.00 donations each.  Through our participation in the Chrysler Birdies Championship we were able to get a matching grant in the amount of $10,000.00 and were one of the top performing charities in the league thanks to all of you who earmarked your donations to this program.  Thanks to Cynthia Montayre, the gift shop on-site and online grew exponentially.   WEDU awarded Big Cat Rescue as second runner up in to the Top Charity in their 16 county viewing area at their first annual Be More Awards.  We were originally selected because of our excellence in Marketing but were included in the overall Top 5 based upon the scope of what we do and the way we do it.  We have been chosen for inclusion again for 2007.   Howard Baskin joined the Downtown Tampa Rotary and has been a speaker at the Center Club.  We are attending a lot more Chamber meetings and joined the Governmental Affairs Committees in two of the Chambers.  We were featured in A Kid's Guide to Giving (ISBN 1-58476-489-9) by Freddie Zeiler as one of 100 kid approved charities.  The Fur Ball had more than 500 attendees and netted more than $52,000.00.  As always it was THE party of the year!   TV Stars:  Our most exciting innovations have been in the movie realm.  Big Cat Rescue was granted its own weekly, half hour, regular series on cable T.V. and will air its first episode soon.  Jamie Veronica, Brian Czarnik and Honey Wayton took the courses necessary to bring top quality nature films to T.V.  You can already see mini clips online at http://bigcatrescue.org/podcats.htm.  These mini movies, that run from 2 minutes to 1 hour in length, are available online at Google Videos, My Space, You Tube and VEOH.  Just type in “Big Cat Rescue” and you will find us in all of these hot social networking sites.  Brian Czarnik has been cranking out at least two episodes each week to keep the content fresh and has been responsible for the upkeep of these sites and several more behind the scenes.  All of these are available through iTunes now too.  People just can't get enough of seeing their favorite cats!   Big Cat Rescue was specifically mentioned in the press 117 times (that we know of) in 2006.  This included such media as, The Washington Post, O, The Oprah Magazine, Associated Press, Geraldo At Large, Der Spiegel and Glamour Magazine.  Big Cat Rescue was also pivotal in supplying background information on the number of people killed and mauled by captive cats to reporters from ABC's Prime Time 20/20.  Read all of the headlines here: http://bigcatrescue.org/news.htm   Thanks to coordination efforts of Julie Hanan and more than 50 volunteers, Big Cat Rescue provided a gift wrapping station at Borders Book Store for the weeks leading up to Christmas.  They raised over $5,000.00 for the cats and handed out thousands of brochures and newsletters.  This good-will effort cost our volunteers valuable family time during the holidays, but they did it to spread the word about the plight of the big cats.  Barbara Frank has become our Wedding planner and has hosted 12+ weddings at Big Cat Rescue, raising $8,000.00 for the cats this year.   Charity Guide:  Big Cat Rescue is now featured in Charity Guide's Directory of volunteer opportunities. Our organization appears in the “How to Make a Difference” section of Charity Guide's article titled Big Cat Rescue: Save Exotic Felines. Charity Guide publishes an editorially reviewed directory of opportunities to make a difference – which influences the volunteering decisions of over half a million “would-be volunteers” per year. Inclusion in their directory is based on research and extensive evaluation.   Our database of visitors and supporters has grown to a little over 45,000 and Catherine Monroe has been crucial in keeping that list up to date.  Our Ezine recipient list has grown to more than 26,000 and AdvoCat, Christy Anderson, keeps them posted monthly on the happenings at Big Cat Rescue.  We were the recipient of a Google grant that gave us $1,187,258.63 in free advertising that resulted in over 200 million impressions and 2,800,000 click throughs to our website. At the peak of this grant period our website was receiving more than 1,000,000 hits per DAY.  We are now averaging about 30,000 page views per day, according to Google Analytics, and have a continuing grant for $15,000.00 a month in Google advertising.   Grounds Improvement:  Our entire Board of County Commissioners voted in favor of Big Cat Rescue's rezoning of 3 acres to allow for more onsite intern housing, overflow parking and access to a paved road.  This access allows us to move forward on the major zoning that we had approved two years ago because much of the actual building was contingent upon us securing alternative access.  This year we added room for four more interns and an indoor area where we can offer air conditioned facilities for parties and weddings at the sanctuary.  This indoor area is also used for our monthly meetings in inclement weather, and as an area where we can offer video showings, slideshow presentations and meeting space.  It augments our small E-Center so that we can accommodate larger school groups.  Before now, if children come for a field trip and it is raining, they have to stay on the bus, but now they can come inside, see a video about the sanctuary and then as soon as the rain lets up go out and meet the cats. This area is a 2800 square foot mobile home with a 1500 sf covered patio and decks.   We built a new Cat-a-tats for Alachua Bob and Nairobi the Serval. With the help of a lot of donors we completed the new Cat-a-tats for the orphaned cougar cubs.  Shatia and Dances With Wolves, the Canada Lynx, both got new cage additions and a gateway to each other with the hopes that these two old females can one day live together.  Flavio's pool had to be rebuilt and the waterfalls for both he and SARMOTI had to be rebuilt.  Hurricane shelters that double as safety cages were started for Banjo, Bean, Mocha and Thing, the bearcats.  Many of the cages were painted to prevent rust and lots and lots of flowering bushes were planted around the cages to attract butterflies and to provide shade as they grow up and over the tops of the enclosures.   We built up the paths and dug out and landscaped retention ponds to alleviate muddy paths for next rainy season.  We shored up our sinking wall along the lake side and improved the road so that we can drive entirely around the property for better patrolling purposes. We began construction on a wall of memories for the cemetery.  The stone wall has marble plaques that are laser engraved with the names and photos of cats who have passed on.  These also bear the name of the Forever Sponsor who donates 500.00 two the purchase of the plaque.  See how you can be forever remembered here at http://bigcatrescue.org/foreverremembered.htm   Helping Others:  We provided offsite housing for Humane Alliance members who have come here to help ACT set up a low cost spay and neuter center and offered to transport animals to and from the clinic once a week for the rescue groups.  We hosted team building events for the Emergency Animal Response Service group and gave them 150 free passes to give to all of the volunteers who help in times of disaster nationwide.  We donated to all of our favorite animal causes (too many to list) giving them Expeditions and Free Passes to auction off to help them raise money to provide services for domestic pets.  The Humane USA PAC (the nation's largest political action committee for animals) hosted its Kids, Cats & Candidates day at the sanctuary.  We donated an Expedition to raise money for our long time supporters Mario & Lenore Infanti who are facing health issues.   When our beloved tiger, Nini, died Brian Czarnik wanted her to live on and so we sponsored a tiger in the wild in Way Kambas Park.  The money donated will help protect the tigers in this critical reserve.  We worked with the Smithsonian Institution in a project to examine the population biology of small carnivores in Gabon, West Africa and Borneo.  We hosted a party and raised more than $1000.00 to aid the campaign that would require the government to provide emergency plans for people who won't leave their pets. This bill became law in 2006 and will protect America's pets in times of disaster.  We also sent proceeds from our Fur Ball to Lewa Conservancy in S. Africa and invested in creating eco-tourism in Guyana, South America to protect the wild cats in that area.  At the request of the World Wildlife Fund in Poland we have provided photographs for them to use in creating a handbook for border guards to prevent the illegal trade in exotic cats and their pelts.   Other:  Merrill Kramer took over our ink recycling program and reports income of roughly $2,000.00 per month now.  You can learn how your old ink cartridges can save cats here http://bigcatrescue.org/ink   Jim Haaf, art director of the Jaycees showed his support for our mission without even asking as is evidenced by this wonderful park bench that we discovered alongside the road.  When Howie called to find out who to thank, he discovered that they have donated two of these lovely benches to us.  We are so grateful to all of our supporters who look for unique ways to express their devotion to our mission.   Tampa Bay Buccaneer, Chris Simms brought a group of children from the Children's Home to visit Big Cat Rescue.   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2006 and meetings: • Founder, CEO, and Board Chairperson   Carole Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • President and Director Jamie Veronica (not compensated by BCR) • Vice President & Director Cathy Mayeski (not compensated by BCR) • Secty and Director   Jen Ruszczyk (not compensated by BCR) • Director Brian Czarnik (not compensated by BCR) These members met for monthly board meetings.   Paid Staff: • Operations Manager  Scott Lope (compensated but not a member of the board) • Gift Shop Manager Cynthia Montayre (compensated but not a member of the board) • Administrative Bridget Bolger (compensated but not a member of the board)   Volunteers:  Big Cat Rescue had 107 volunteers in 2006 who clocked in 32,000 man-power hours in addition to staff and Volunteer Committee member hours.  Roughly the equivalent workforce of 16 full time staff.   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.

L-R Susan Bass, Howard Baskin, Carole Baskin and Carl Bass. This was our annual gala called the Fur Ball.  We met Susan when she was at The Dutcher Group.  Later Howie ran into her husband Carl at the airport and arranged for us to reconnect, around 2011.  Susan had left Dutcher and was working for Lazy Days RV Center, but left them and became our PR person.   Ares, Artemis and Orion    Ares, Artemis and Orion were only 3 weeks old when they arrived from Idaho, their mother having been shot by a hunter.  They had to be fed every four hours and Scott and Liz and Jamie had many sleepless nights caring for them.  Scott arranged for them to be flown in on Southwest Airlines in the cabin. It was wonderful publicity for Big Cat Rescue and its cause, as the captain even played "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" over the loudspeakers so that everyone could hear.  Luckily, Scott drew a lot of attention with Ares and Artemis and drew attention away from Jamie who had Orion, because Orion at the time was having diarrhea which got all over Jamie.  Artemis was Scott's favorite and Ares was Dr. Wynn's favorite and Orion was Jamie's favorite.     They had a very difficult time weaning the cubs from the bottle and would often get completely covered in the milk/meat mixture they were trying to administer to get them weaned.  This went on for weeks and reflects their dedication in giving these animals the best life possible.  Scott even set up a 1/2 door so that the volunteers could come and safely see the cubs being raised.  Because of their dedication, Big Cat Rescue can continue to educate the public about how cougars are still being persecuted in the wild.  Please check your e-mail and the .me site regularly for information on what you can do to help with your voice through letters, e-mail, and other communications with the media and our lawmakers.   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.      

Howie Writes to Glamour Magazine   My wife is not a Don't. Ms. Cynthia Leive | Editor-In-Chief | Glamour | 4 Times Square New York, New York 10036-6593   Dear Ms. Leive,  When my wife Carole and I visited New York last winter we noticed a photographer on the street, but paid little attention.  However, we almost hit the floor with laughter when one of our volunteers recently showed us your September issue, where Carole is the central figure in your “Top 10 Don'ts” (see attached copy).   Little did your photographer know that he was only seeing the tip of the iceberg, as you can quickly gather from the enclosed photo of Carole's closet.  Carole is the Founder of Big Cat Rescue, the world's largest sanctuary devoted to abandoned, abused and retired big cats.  Feline attire has become part of her persona.  Our two domestic cats and I are afraid to even enter this closet for fear of being devoured.  So, I am grateful for ANY fashion advice that you can provide to Carole.   I do, however, feel obligated to point out that your magazine's opinion is not universal.  Enclosed is a copy of our local “lifestyle” periodical, Tampa Bay Best Magazine.  Carole and I were recently featured in it as “people with style” (see tabbed page).  On the other hand, this was probably not based on our attire, and will also invite snickers in your big city about our small town taste, so perhaps it was best left unsaid.  The Publisher of Tampa Bay Best has offered that if you would be kind enough to send a digital copy of that page, he would be happy to run it in the magazine giving Glamour full credit.  If you would be willing to do that, his contact information is in the magazine.   Thanks again for providing a huge chuckle, and for the effort, as unlikely as it may be to succeed, to educate my wife on the dangers of excessive cat print attire.  Sincerely,  Howard Baskin   8/23/05 Howie and I are so happy.  I just can't thank God enough for this wonderful man.  He is all I ever dreamed of.  Jamie is in Seattle for a week following the Dave Matthews Band, camping, visiting the Woodland Park Zoo and visiting with Avi.  I only wish she could find someone so wonderful as Howie.   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.      

2004 Annual Report     Advances:  The biggest advance in our history was this year when we went from “Tampabay'sBest Kept Secret” to a Household Name in the local area. This was due largely to the great media exposure donated by six local Cox Radio Stations. Hillsborough County gave us big green directional signs in 5 locations to direct visitors to our door. For the first year ever, in our 12 year history, we were able to cover all of the sanctuaries expenses from its own income! Thank you everyone! Howard Baskin was able to find a reasonable CPA, Marsha Weiss, and an accountant who completed an audit for our finances for grant writing purposes. This enabled us to apply to the Combined Federal Campaign and to apply to the online version of The Better Business Bureau called Give.org. Christy Anderson launched our first E-zine that carries AdvoCat issues to 5000 subscribers and links to our electronic version of The Big Cat Times. Jamie finished a movie that was nearly five years in the making called “The Big Cat Picture“. This has been widely distributed and 2 minute clips on every species of wild cat has now been added to our website from the movie. We wrote a 20 year plan and began taking steps to reach our goal of eliminating the cause of so much suffering and abuse.   Animal Care:  We took in five new tigers and a lion, but had to turn away 114 big cats. We submitted our anesthesia machine parts to have one usable unit rebuilt.  We built 5 new Cat-A-Tats with pools and dens and another multi-acre enclosure with dens and a pool.  Built new dens for Esmerelda, Tobi, and Little Feather and cage enhancements for Sultan, Canyon, Genie, Maharajah, Bailey, Scratch, Baby Cakes and Hercules. Shere Khan and China Doll got a hurricane shelter and we repaired cages that were badly damaged from the four hurricanes in six weeks. The Enrichment team is growing stronger and more professional in their collaboration with others, such as Disney, to help write a comprehensive Enrichment Guide. Operant Conditioning has been led by Jennifer Ruszczyk with marvelous results.   The cats are learning their cues and are much easier to handle for check ups. All of the volunteers have retaken their animal care classes this year and have re certified their credentials via testing. Dr. Liz Wynn, DVM has been donating time every week as a liaison to Dr. Stacie Wadsworth, DVM. We began using Truly Nolan for regular flea spraying and for rodent control with marvelous results.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  Attended the USDA's Big Cat Symposium.  Jamie Veronica attended AZA's weeklong college course, Managing for Success. Jen, Howard and Carole attended and presented Operant Conditioning and Cage Building at The Association of Sanctuaries' annual conference in Stone Mountain, GA. Susan Mitchell attended Karen Pryor's Clicker Expo and spent some time with Gary Priest from the San Diego Zoo and quite a bit of time with his top trainer of cats.  Susan also completed the Safe Capture course that some of our staff attended last year. Our volunteer program was overhauled to create an administrative branch for the first time in our history. We now have red through green level requirements on both the Keeper side and the Partner (admin) side and the proud recipients of those levels of accomplishment.   We began our first Intern program with three interns. Cathy Mayeski has been screening applicants from around the world and by the year's end we have had 3 successful graduates from the program and two of them moved here to stay in the volunteer program. By the year's end we have 6 full time interns and by next year hope to have 12-15. They have come from Wales, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Peru and all across the U.S. The interns work all day, six days a week for three months in exchange for housing and the experience of a lifetime. They are a volunteer force unto themselves and now have their own Den Mother, Gale Ingham who keeps them busy and makes sure they get the most out of their time at Big Cat Rescue.   Education:  Hired Kathryn Quaas as our new Education Director and started offering regularly scheduled kid's tours every Saturday at 9 AM. Summer Camp 2004 was a big hit. We created, with the help of creator LaWanna Jones, and a grant from Ken and Terri Pereira, an interactive CD called The Truth About White Tigers and distributed 1000 free copies. With the help of PeTA we were able to distribute 1000 copies of their CD about veganism.   Produced a new screen saver called 12 Tigers that has tiger photos and facts. Created an online game with the help of Point 2 Nature that children will be able to access online for free. It is a memory game of matching the cats with their fur and their sounds for fun fact rewards.   Created hundreds of pages of online games, puzzles, calendars, free screen savers, quizzes, polls and colouring activities for children of all ages. These interactive games are part of our campaign to reach the schools and day care centers with activities to teach children about animals and to inspire awe and respect for their beauty and their rightful place in nature. Our Big Cat Expedition continues to be our most pervasive educational tool and Susan Mitchell has trained countless people in the Operant Conditioning program portion that we offer to illustrate the medical needs of the cats and how we meet them. Our tours continue to increase and this allows Denny Mitchell, Brian Czarnik, Bill Lewis and many other great tour guides to educate people about the plight of these animals in the wild and in captivity. The most frequent response that we still hear from guests is “I had no idea!”.   Legislation:  We reviewed the Captive Wild Animal Coalition‘s proposed sanctuary standards and wrote and submitted the sub section specific to felid care based upon a compilation of our own standards, those of ACE and Florida's Fish and Game.  We assisted Animal Control's approach to the State of Florida in an effort to require owners of dangerous exotic animals to post on their property the dangers that exist and to allow the public to easily determine if their neighbors are harboring dangerous animals.  We began promoting a page on our site called Support Legislation and AdvoCats.   We partnered with Capitol Advantage to create the first and only online presence in the Animal Welfare industry that is promoted on MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Congress.gov, PBS, the LA Times and E-the-People. In just the first days of creation is already responsible for about 30 letters per day going out to legislators on important animal issues that are currently pending including: Stopping canned hunts, prohibiting steel jawed traps and asking USDA to quit issuing licenses to people who are circumventing the new 2004 law that prevents the sale of big cats as pets. We noted a drop in the number of big cats being abandoned. Every year the number of big cats in need of shelter was doubling and by 2003 we were turning away 312 exotic cats. After the passage of the Captive Wild Animal Safety Act in Dec. 2003 that prohibited the sale across state lines of big cats as pets that number dropped to 114 abandoned cats in 2004. We posted a composite of all state laws and enabled viewers to go directly to their state's online regulations. Our founder became a major donor to the only Political Action Committee fund for Animal Welfare issues called HumaneUSA.   Fundraising and Marketing:  We purchased a new Point of Sale system with cash register and inventory software.  Implementing this software has enabled us to better track inventory, sales and trends. On May 19 our web site received 29,724 page requests to be our largest day ever. By the end of the year our site is currently averaging about 100,000 hits per day. Jamie and Howard attended Scott Moller's Fundraising Seminar in Tampa and Howard, Carole and Jen attended Scott Moller's Fundraising Seminar in Stone Mountain, GA. Scott Lope and Daniel Capiro have been working closely with players of the TampaBay Lightning to raise awareness. Thanks largely to the lion vs tiger ligers thousands of dollars in radio air time donated by six Cox Radio stations, our Fur Ball attracted 850 guests and we netted 50,000.00 as well as had a Roaring Good Time. Jamie created our first Holiday Card with a collage of the cats for our use and for sale in the gift shop. The Adoption Kits have been so successful that she has had to order them by the hundreds from a printer, rather than printing them one page at a time on her computer as she has done in the past.   Our online giftshop sales soared from $7,914.00 in 2003 to $32,351.00 in 2004. We began monitoring news alerts at Google for exotic cat issues and proactively writing in to the media. We were in the press 63 times compared to 35 times in 2003. Our newsletter The Big Cat Times (formerly Cat Tales) is now in color and goes out quarterly to 23,000 supporters.   Grounds Improvement:  At our January zoning hearing, 96 people wrote letters of support and 47 attended the hearing and spoke in support of the fine work we are doing on a global level. At the second hearing more than 200 supporters came to stand before the Board of county Commissioners in favour of Big Cat Rescue's planned development. In the past we had to haul 30 bags of trash, twice a week to the end of the road. This year we managed to get our very own dumpster on site. We moved the golf cart shed, tore down the old green barn and re-routed the fencing to increase parking area. We repainted the cabins, food prep, painted the E-Center and repainted several of the cages. We installed new signs on the buildings so that they are consistently called by name in our documentation and training manuals and to avoid confusion. Sentry Signs enabled us to put new signs on most of the cats along the tour path that states their name, species, date of birth and how they were rescued.   We began a fence improvement campaign called the Catter-Wall. Two marble lions were donated for our front gate and we may have someone willing to donate a new front entrance next year. Food Prep was tiled and had gutters installed all the way around. Kiss Cote was applied to the Leopard Cat-A-Tat as a rust preventative trial model in March. The roads were reinforced to prevent inaccessibility to certain areas in the rainy season. We started the process for adding a 4 bedroom, 3 bath dormatory for interns. We upgraded to broadband and now have a wireless Internet connection available for guests.   Helping Others:  We covered ad costs for The Association of Sanctuaries annual conference in March to insure that the people who need the training will know it is available.  We also paid expenses for three of the speakers on Cage Building, Operant Conditioning and the No More Homeless Pets approach to companion animal abandonment.  We shared the secret to our high search engine placement with TAOS and CWAPC and members of both organizations. We joined the Sanctuary Workers And Volunteers Association SWAVA and provided material for them to launch their campaign. We send out news alerts to everyone in our new Yahoo group and in the TAOS Yahoo group and include a Tip of the Day feature in which we share ideas that have worked for us. We gave permission to Florida's state government site, at their request, to use our photos to illustrate why we should protect the Florida Panther.   Charities that we donated to this year:  100 passes to No More Homeless Pets Adopt-a-thon and gift certificate for a Big Cat Expedition, 50 passes and gift certificate for a Big Cat Expedition to Florida Voices for Animals, 50 passes to Clearwater High school's Project Graduation, 100 passes to Dress For Success, 300 passes to The National Humane Societies spay/neuter and adoption programs.  Big Cat Expedition to Clearwater Chamber of Commerce's annual fundraiser. Donated a Big Cat Expedition and several Two for One Passes to Animal Coalition of Tampa for their Spay Day fundraiser. Big Cat Expedition for two and 200 passes to the Tampa Museum of Art. 1000 passes and a 1500. Expedition Package was donated to the Global Understanding's Carousel Ball. There were many, many more that we donated to this year that we did not keep stats on.  We offered to let No More Homeless Pets – HC and Florida Voices for Animals utilize our legislative program in a manner that is branded for their constituents.   Other:  Carole Baskin represented The Association of Sanctuaries at the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition's conference in San Francisco and was made The Association of Sanctuaries liaison to The Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition.  She served as the interim President of the Association of Sanctuaries in 2004.    2004 was a grrreat year and we are looking forward to an even better 2005!!!   The narrow mission of Big Cat Rescue is to provide the best permanent home we can for the limited number of abused, abandoned and retired big cats that the sanctuary can afford to take in. However, the sanctuary must turn away over 100 cats per year and the number is growing.   The broader mission, therefore, is to reduce the number of cats that suffer the fate of abandonment and abuse by educating as many people as possible about the conditions that lead to the plight of these animals. We do this through our tours of the sanctuary, our school education programs, our 2100 page website that receives viewers from all over the world, by supporting species preservation efforts, and by providing a hands-on experience for interns from around the world.   We hope, by setting an example and teaching about how animals should be treated, that this will carry over into how we humans treat each other as well, and in doing so make the world a better place for all living creatures.   Our Officers and Board of Directors • CEO Chair of BOD and Founder  Carole Baskin • President Jamie Veronica • Vice President & BOD Cathy Mayeski • Secty/ Treasurer  Vernon C. Stairs • Director and Operations Manager  Scott Lope • Director and Coordinator Brian Czarnik The current board of directors will serve until December 31, 2005. Between now and then, staggered terms of four years and five years each will be set by the existing Board of Directors to insure the uninterrupted good work of Big Cat Rescue.   The financial audits for 2004 are posted here and include total income in the past fiscal year, expenses in the same program, fund raising and administrative categories as in the financial statements, and ending net assets.   Income   Gifts and Contributions cash:   232,597. Program Service Revenue:    314,143. Inventory Sold:  48,076. Rental Income:   31,718. Interest & mortgages     85,041. Events income:   39,631. Total income for the year   751,206.   Expenses   Animal Care:    363,798. Employee Benefits:         74. Payroll Taxes:     4,650. Accounting Fees:       3,525. Legal Fees:        17. Supplies:    39,322. Telephone:   14,232. Postage & Shipping:    4,911. Equipment Maintenance:     9,970. Printing & Publications:     50,583. Travel:    1,476. Conferences:       3,443. Depreciation:    18,116. Total Expense for the year  574,906   Excess for 2004    $  176,300 Net Assets at the beginning of 2004       $ 1,142,039 Net Assets at the ending of 2004            $ 1,318,339   While this accounting appears to show a gain, it does not take into consideration money spent on capital improvements and set aside for more capital expenditures.  Our complete 990 is available online at Guidestar.org under Big Cat Rescue. Neither the Founder nor any of her family nor friends are paid by Big Cat Rescue.   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.  

Tribute to Maya Lioness For several weeks in July and August, Maya had been in intensive care in the Big Cat Rescue Cat Hospital due to complications with her seizures. During that time she had several bad days that made us just about decide that euthanasia was the only humane thing to do, but about the time we would finally decide that she had been through enough, Maya would decide it wasn't time to go yet and would make another miraculous rebound. It has always been our policy to continue to provide whatever heroic efforts were called for as long as the cat seemed to be choosing life over death. Maya seemed to really have a strong will to live.   By August 16th her cage had been outfitted with an air conditioned den and as she was doing better, Maya was moved from the confines of the hospital back out to be in her own familiar grassy cage, next to her buddy Nikita. She was the picture of contentment and although she would occasionally step in her den to cool off she preferred to lounge in the shade. Her favorite pose was up against the cage wall with all four feet in the air.   On August 19 and August 22 most of the regular Big Cat Rescue staff were in Zolfo Springs helping the Peace River Refuge and Ranch recover from Hurricane Charley so only a skeletal staff was left behind. Maya seemed fine and was no longer on round-the-clock observance.   On Sunday the 22nd, Howard Baskin was giving a VIP tour when he discovered Maya breathing hard. He alerted the staff of her condition by cell phone. Within 5 minutes Carole arrived and began hosing Maya down to cool her off. Soon after, Scott Lope, Cathy Neumann, Kathryn Quaas, Becky Gagliardo and Dr. Liz Wynn raced onto the scene. Maya was carried back into the cat hospital where it was discovered that her temperature had spiked to 109 as the result of a severe seizure that must have ended shortly before Howard's tour arrived. Maya was given fluids and Dr. Stacie Wadsworth and Dr. Rose Borkowski were called for advice. This time Maya was not responding. Scott tried to call Carole to ask if Maya should be euthanized because this seizure had left her with no chance of ever enjoying a quality life. Before the call could be answered, Maya made the decision herself and breathed her last.   We are thankful that she got to spend her last couple of hours with the people that she loved most. We are grateful for the time she spent with all of us in teaching the lessons about accepting and making the most of the hand we are dealt. Maya touched so many hearts and inspired so many people. She will always be remembered as a brave little lion with heart of gold and an indomitable spirit. A special thank you to all of the generous supporters that have donated towards Maya's Medical Fund over the years. In her honor, Maya's Medical Fund will remain set up for other animals in need that find refuge at Big Cat Rescue. 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.

(0:00) Show Open Back from a 4 day weekend, and if you think people in Marana don't care to wear masks, People in Phoenix seem to give less than zero F's about it :/ Frank gets called ugly while wearing a mask. How did she know!? Crowds wait in long lines to get into Lake Pleasant for Memorial Day (13:20) Entertainment News John Krasinski slammed as 'sellout' over 'Some Good News' deal with CBS Lowlights from the Charity Golf "Match": Tom Brady Split His Pants, and His Team Lost Lori Loughlin and Her Husband Finally Caved and Pleaded Guilty LARRY KING has signed a $5 million deal to do a celebrity interview podcast. "Tiger King" stars CAROLE and HOWARD BASKIN signed 400 trading cards with their pictures on them and they sold out almost immediately . . . at 99 bucks a pop. Elvis Presley's Rhinestone-Studded Jockstrap Is For Sale (27:40) Scientists Identified the 47 Traits That Make You Good at Flirting Remember flirting?  Well, we might be off our game once life gets back to normal.  But this could help:  A new study in Greece identified 47 different traits that make you an effective flirter.  500 people were asked to name different tactics that have worked on them in the past.  Here are the ten most common answers . . . Humor. Intelligence. Good looks.  Men ranked that one higher than women did. Politeness. Honesty. The level of interest you show in them. Being good with words. Being persistent. Being respectful.  Women ranked that one higher than men. Showing that you have good character. Here are a few that ranked lower, but were still seen as effective:  Confidence . . . having common interests . . . being spontaneous . . . being mysterious . . . giving them a compliment . . . being romantic . . . being bold . . . and smelling good.  (Science Direct) (34:40) The Newest Way to Get Revenge on an Ex Is . . . Hiring a Porn Star to Yell at Them (46:05)  Dumbass of the Day   A Guy Is Busted Stealing People's Garage Doors to Install at Other Homes A guy in Michigan tried to hide a stolen puppy in his pants after a car crash. Four older men got into a paint fight at a Home Depot in Florida and most of it was caught on camera. A Fire Captain in Oklahoma Is Busted for Robbing Two Banks   (55:10) "Good News" Stories from the Coronavirus Outbreak A 101-year-old World War Two vet and his 73-year-old daughter BOTH live at the same nursing home in Maryland.  And they got to celebrate Memorial Day together after they each beat COVID-19. There's a 17-year-old kid in Orlando who started his own radio station when he was 11, and he's still at it.  And he's been raising money for frontline workers by charging $5 for song requests.  In less than a month, he's raised over 30 GRAND. Here's one nice side effect of the crisis:  Robocalls from scammers are way down, because the call centers that run them have fewer workers right now.  Back in February, there were 166 million robocalls a day in the U.S.  By April, it dropped to 97 million.  Pizza Hut is giving away half-a-million pizzas to graduating seniors, and their families. 5.  A Chick-fil-A in San Antonio rolled out a red carpet, and threw a commencement ceremony for five employees who are graduating this year. Support the show: https://podcave.app/subscribe/the-world-famous-frank-show-4eehjczc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a break from usual, we've watched Tiger King on Netflix and ... just wow. American-based big cat and exotic animal owners all getting caught up in a murder-for-hire plot - if this was a made up film, it wouldn't get funded for being too crazy to be believed!  By now you've all seen it and have your own opinions on this madness, join in to hear ours! Tiger King, starring Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, Bhagvan Antle, Howard Baskin, John Finlay, Eric Goode, Rick Kirkham, Jeff Lowe and more