Big Cat Rescuers

“PDKats” EVENT FEEDS THE LIONS AND TIGERS AT BIG CAT RESCUE

2009-05-29T16:25:00.001-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Bonnie Kirstein
558-5300 ext. 230

"PDKats" EVENT FEEDS THE LIONS AND TIGERS AT BIG CAT RESCUE AND THE MINDS OF HILLSBOROUGH STUDENTS

Tampa, FL (May 27, 2009) – The Tampa Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa (PDK), the premier professional association for educators, in concert with the Hillsborough County School District, recently completed their first fundraising contest event for students called "PDKats."

According to Dr. Jacquelyn Masters, Principal of Seminole Elementary School and President of PDK, the program has two goals: "The first goal is to enhance the interest of the students in learning about wild animals and foster their compassion for these magnificent creatures by having them feel the personal satisfaction of raising funds to feed these rescued big cats. The second is to support a wonderful area nonprofit organization that has, for many years, provided our students with a totally unique educational experience."

The month long contest, held in April, was open to all of the schools in Hillsborough County and was chaired by Bonnie Kirstein of Davidsen Middle School and co-chaired by Katey Runey of Farnell Middle School. The goal for each school was to raise $250, the approximate cost of feeding the lions and tigers at Big Cat Rescue for one day. At the final tally a total of $3,783.95 has been donated, which is equivalent to the cost of feeding one tiger or lion for one full year!

Each class that achieved the goal will be recognized on a sign outside Big Cat Rescue's Trading Post for one year. In addition to this special recognition, the students of the class raising the most money to feed the cats will receive free tour passes to the sanctuary. Big Cat Rescue will also film a special podcast of the winning students to post on the sanctuary's YouTube channel, which is currently the 7th most watched non-profit channel. The Teacher of the winning class and the Principal and Area Director of that school, as a reward for their efforts in promoting this educational experience, each receive a 3 day weekend in a Jaguar XF provided by Jaguar of Tampa and a 3 day/2 night stay for two on St. Pete Beach at the Sirata Beach Resort. Both corporate sponsors are long time supporters of Big Cat Rescue.

The winning teacher was David Nelson from the PE Department at Davidsen Middle School, whose class raised $1,400. Brent McBrien, Principal of Davidsen, and Area 2 Director, Jerry Jackson were the other winners, but Mr. Jackson opted to defer his prizes to one of his other teachers, who he felt did the footwork in this effort, Ms. Jani Rouse at Lomax Elementary.

"Education is a critical element of our mission at Big Cat Rescue," said Education Director Beth Kamhi. "On the over 70 school field trips to the sanctuary each year, students benefit by learning scientific facts that are made more meaningful and memorable by the feelings evoked when actually meeting these magnificent animals in person. There is compelling evidence that learning compassion for animals as a child translates into compassion for people as an adult, and this opportunity for affective learning is extraordinary. As students participate in donating to feed the animals, the PDKats program adds a dimension of direct involvement and pride, enriching the educational experience and emotional connection. We are thrilled about this exciting collaboration with PDK and enhancement of our long time partnership with the Hillsborough County School District! We would like to offer our profound appreciation to Bonnie Kirstein for all her hard work coordinating this event, and to PDK and the Hillsborough students, teachers and staff."

About PDK

PDK, the premier professional association for educators, was founded in 1906 and today has chapters across the United States and abroad. The association strives for educational excellence through a wide range of innovative initiatives. These include providing educators with information about current issues to promote dialog about which policies, ideology and methods to adopt. PDK also works to connect members with the community and the school district through service projects and networking opportunities. The local chapter has participated in "Paint your heart out Tampa Bay," "Toys for Students" (a home grown project with the district's social workers to make sure all children have a gift for the holidays), and now the PDKats Program. For further information on PDK visit www.pdkintl.org.

About Big Cat Rescue

Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit organization, provides a permanent home for abandoned, abused and orphaned exotic cats. Over 100 lions, tigers, leopards, bobcats and more reside at the astonishing 45 acre Citrus Park refuge, making it one of the largest sanctuaries in the world devoted to big cats. Big Cat Rescue is located at 12802 Easy Street, across the street from the mall at Citrus Park. For further information on the sanctuary, please visit www.BigCatRescue.org, call 813.920.4130 or send an email inquiry to Info@BigCatRescue.org.

For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Tiger Bone Wine and Medicines

2009-05-14T12:54:00.001-07:00

Source: Open source

Date: 04/24/09

Author: Elise Woods

Recently, WWF Traffic released a publication called Paper Tigers? The role of the US Captive Tiger Population in the Trade in Tiger Parts.pdf (1) which calls for better regulatory overview of the tiger population in the United States. Today, the two largest single populations of tigers are now those that reside in captivity in China and the United States (2). Ongoing black market demand has relegated the tiger to a black market status of worth more dead than alive. Much of this black market enters the U.S. and Canada in the form of Traditional Asian Medicines (TAM) or Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM). CBP Agriculture Specialists and CBP Officers are the very tip of the point for recognizing, regulating and whenever possible, referring relevant medicines to US Fish and Wildlife Officials for legal enforcement. Every good seizure of prohibited medicine gives us another bread crumb of information leading to the tangled world of illegal wildlife trade, industrial level pharmaceutical manufacturers, tiger /bear farms and international shipping, all of which hide the dirt under the cover of legitimate trade. With that in mind, allow me to share what I have learned so far.

1. Federal officials have found several tiger medicines this year.

A. Leopard Bone, Musk and Ephedra Plaster Bandage.

One of the most recent is a Chinese Patent medicine manufactured by ZHEJIANG DINGTAI PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD, a "one of the leading manufacturing enterprises for medical dressing materials (bandages, gauze etc) in China according to their website: http://www.zjdingtai.com". Not surprisingly, one of their most interesting products is not listed on their website, and well it should not be as it contains two CITES listed ingredients and a banned FDA ingredient. Z33020963 is the patent trade number for this specific medicine from this specific company. Note: So far, all the Chinese Patents found have contained a similar style number that starts with "Z".

Shexiang Zhuanggu Gao Z33020963, Leopard Bone, Musk, Ephedra,

麝香 (Musk) 、豹骨 (Leopard bone) 、麻黄 (Ephedra

«"Z" number will be found on the lower half of label.

B. Another brand of Shexiangzhuanggu Gao plasters Z42021305?

These (1 and 2) were found in exams this week while the last label with the obvious tiger picture is listed in an online advertisement for the same trade name and number. They are all the same medicated plasters from the same company: HUANGSHI HYGIENIC MATERIAL PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD (http://www.hsssh.com). All three boxes are labeled for the same patent product although the pictures are different. In English on the box label it states the musk is artificial, and no bone is mentioned outside of the online advertisement translations*. The medicine does contain regulated ingredients such as Adeps Lanae (Hydrous Wool Fat), Ephedra and Chondroitin Sulfate for certain, along with several other herbs on which research is ongoing. We will need better determination as to the musk ingredient and possible bone products including tiger or leopard for future Fish and Wildlife Enforcement opportunities. The online business Chinese advertisement translates via Bablefish into the following:

*"Medicinal extract brand Shen Nong the tiger specification 6.5*10*6 ingredient musk strong bone paste extracts… Uses the Shennongjia natural typical traditional Chinese medicine, the curative effect is good, turning head rate is high; Original musk tiger bone paste improvement product; Yunnan natural high quality rubber; The technique of production changes the advanced beating law by the dry pressing… 4th, domestic only through American FDA registration Chinese medicinal plaster (registration number 3003980579); 5th, obtains the Chinese international monopoly and the name brand exposition gold medal. " (Note: For what it is worth, Google search for Shennongjia includes the Shennongjia Nature Reserve which does house some species of protected felids).

Shexiangzhuanggu Gao Z42021305 ,

C. Well known tiger bone pill.

Bug symbol might be different (seen also with butterfly). Compare to pictures on page Traditional Asian Medicine Identification Guide for Law Enforcers- version II (pg. 2.9 #B) . Note: tiger bone character (虎骨) is on ingredient label, chicken symbol on front (H5N1 disease risk) and also contains Deer antler (Anthrax, FMD disease risk), both of which also appear on the ingredient list in Traditional Chinese characters. Gel capsule content inspection will show bone bits under microscope.

Box Bottle and pills Tiger gel cap contents

D. Vietnamese Little Tiger Medication.

According to PAX this had tiger and monkey bone. Note the Black Cat Picture and the word "Cao" which is Vietnamese (vn) word which means "jelly" when associated with TAM. In this case it is referring to animal jelly made by boiling desired animal part (usually bone or Cao xương (Vn)-bone jelly).

2. Canadians win one against tiger bone medicine trader.

I recently contacted a Federal Wildlife Officer for Environment Canada Wildlife Enforcement Division to request pictures and information regarding their recent successful case against Wing Quon Enterprises Ltd., for possessing and attempting to sell medicines containing parts from Tigers and other protected species. Thanks to the recent change in CITES, they were able to make the case on labeling alone. They seized up to 1200 bottles of the endangered plant medication, 200 of one of the bear meds and 50 for each of the tiger meds. 1200 bottles were labeled as was being imported, the rest found in the warehouse either being sold or found during their warrant. Pictures of seizure are found in Attachment A. They have also been instrumental in helping build information on known TAM issues and identification guides.

3. Other important translations from TAM labels and research: Hu, Gu, hổ

Note: Look for Bone symbol "骨" and THEN for tiger or leopard or other animal symbol!

báo (Vn)	panther
Cao xương (Vn)	bone jelly
con cọp (Vn)	tiger
hãc lão hổ (Vn)	"black Tiger"-may be radix dipsaci plant if 黑老虎 also present
hēi lǎo hǔ (Ch-Pinyin)	black tiger
hổ (Vn)	tiger
hǔ (Ch)	tiger
Hu Gu (Os Tigris) (Ch)	Tiger Bones.
Hu Gu Jiu (Ch. Recipe)	Medicated Wine with Tiger Bone,Secretio Moschus,Cornu Cervi,
Hu Qian Wan (1/2) (Ch. Recipe)	Hidden Tiger Pill;
huāng; 衁 (Vn or Ch)	blood
huyết (vn)	blood
lǎo hǔ	tiger
Os (latin)	os, ossis: Latin os = bone; plural - ossa,
Panthera	Large cats
Panthera leo	Lion
Panthera pardus	Leopard
Panthera tigris	Tiger
Shen Rong Hu Gu Wan	Ginseng, Deer Antler and Tiger Bone Pill; Ginseng-Cornu Cervi-Os Tigris Pill
Tiger bone	虎骨
Leopard bone	豹骨
大猫	Big Cat (Chinese)
獅	Lion
獅	Panthera leo
老虎	lǎo hǔ, tiger
虎	hǔ; tiger
虎	Panthera tigris
虎骨	Tiger bone
豹骨	Leopard bone
骨	bone (looks like a person)

4. H5N1 tigers from Sri Racha Tiger Zoo

Has anyone seen this heartwarming e-mail asking can't we just get along like the tiger and pigs in this picture?

*http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/tigerpig.asp

I received this from a friend recently and thought this picture looked familiar. According to Snopes.com, the cute tiger-pigs were actually taken* at Sri Racha Tiger Zoo in Thailand. This zoo also has or had the Sri Racha Traditional Health Clinic on site and were caught selling tiger bone pills a few years ago (3). According to a contact with Zoological Society of London/and International Tiger Coalition (ITC) associate, the difference between zoos and farms boils down to management:

"Zoos keep tigers in natural social groups (alone, a pair, a mother with cubs or possibly a pair with cubs) and practice "conservation breeding" in which the goal is maximum retention of genetic diversity and strategies include avoidance of inbreeding, equalisation of founder representation and lengthening of interbirth interval (slower breeding). Tiger farms, in contrast, are aiming for maximum production of product in terms of bones (and also of tourist revenues as a side benefit). The management strategy necessary for maximum production of tiger bones is parallel to that used in intensive farming of any domestic animal - fixing desirable traits through inbreeding, rapidly selecting for stock that does well in the unnatural conditions, producing as many animals as possible in any given time period, and then housing them all together to save on enclosure costs until they are full sized and can be harvested. "Farming" in this manner results in rapid and large-scale loss of genetic diversity, in direct contrast to conservation breeding as practised by zoos (4).

There exists a lot of controversy with this particular zoo.

Another concern to USDA and CBP is the susceptibility of tigers to High Pathogenic (HP) H5N1 avian influenza (AI) which has been proven to be linked to illegal trade and transport of infected poultry or exotic birds. In 2003, H5N1 in big cats was first documented in a Suphanburi, Thailand zoo where two leopards and two tigers died (5).

Then, in, 2004, there was a H5N1 bird flu outbreak which affected the tigers at Sri Racha Tiger Zoo as confirmed by the National Institute of Animal Health laboratory (6).

At Sri Racha, 147 tigers out of 441 total population died of infection or were euthanized which meant that, as documented, approximately 31% (45 tigers) of the cull were sick tigers, and approximately 69% (102) were culled to control the spread of the disease (6) (9). Note: OIE Follow-up report numbers used as final count.

Standard disease eradication procedures are to dispose of the bodies of the culled animals in a way that eradicates the viral, bacterial or spore disease risk. Previous studies indicated that implementation of control (including disposition of dead animals) is difficult in Thailand (7). News reports at the time raised an alarming issue regarding the disposal of the sick and euthanized tigers.

"Conservationists were alarmed that the dead tigers were not incinerated after their lung tissue samples tested positive for bird flu. Viruses tend to persist and re-infect, and the temptation for profiteers to dig up the valuable skins or tiger bones and smuggle them abroad puts black-market customers at risk as a result. Steven Galster, the director of the conservation group, WildAid, called for a transparent investigation into the tiger mercy killings and wants carcass disposal to be supervised. "Whatever is really happening at Sri Racha, more tigers and people are potentially at threat," he said."(8)

Strikingly, there is no information on the disposition of the affected tiger carcasses in this study, nor in the follow-up reports issued to the World Organization for Animal Health Website-OIE (9). I contacted an ASEAN source to ask if he had any up-to-date information on where and how the affected animals were disposed of. According to the e-mail I received, He does have eye-witness testimony and there are photographs available (although not in his possession) of the tiger burial into a cement container and unknown chemicals were poured over the carcasses prior to being buried (10).

In absence of incineration and given the potential for the burial site to be a "stockpile" of sorts, we should factor in the possibility of "bird flu tigers" in the tiger bone medicine black market as an additional disease risk factor in Traditional Asian Medicine (TAM) or Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

5. Is it too late?

Is there still time or is it too late for tigers?

CBP is actively enforcing US laws against trade in tiger parts and derivatives and by learning to identify these parts and derivatives in Traditional Asian Medications we will effectively limit much of the above ground trade that we encounter every day in ports in the US. By applying the USDA regulations on regulated animal products such as bone, blood, antler, chicken, cow etc, CBP Agriculture Specialists can shut off the flow valve of endangered and/or disease risk components that enter this country every day via the pathway of TAM.

Moreover, in learning to identify what we are dealing with, and in working with other agencies such as Fish and Wildlife, USDA SITC, we can help to lay the groundwork for effective legal action against the middle men and end-point distributors.

As for the tigers, all is not lost. Much is being done by World Wildlife Foundation , ASEAN-WEN, and various Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) and wildlife agencies to reeducate, reemploy and find other sources of income for those often found at the beginning of the tiger trade chain-those living at subsistence level. Much has been done through WWF Traffic to capture enforcement data and provides educational resources for law enforcement agencies on a global level.

Studies by Luo et al, measured the genetic variability of the worldwide captive tigers to assess whether they can be used to save the tiger species from extinction. (11). The results speak for themselves:

"Tigers (Panthera tigris) are disappearing rapidly from the wild, from over 100,000 in the 1900s to as few as 3000 [Javan (P.t. sondaica), Bali (P.t. balica), and Caspian (P.t. virgata) subspecies are extinct, whereas the South China tiger (P.t. amoyensis) persists only in zoos. By contrast, captive tigers are flourishing, with 15,000–20,000 individuals worldwide, outnumbering their wild relatives five to seven times. As of 2007, there are approximately 421 Amur (P.t. altaica), 295 Sumatran (P.t. sumatrae), 72 South China (P.t. amoyensis), 198 Bengal (P.t. tigris), 14 Indochinese (P.t. corbetti), and 113 Malayan (P.t. jacksoni) tigers in captivity as recorded in regional and international zoo studbooks . The tested captive tigers retain appreciable genomic diversity unobserved in their wild counterparts, perhaps a consequence of large population size, century long introduction of new founders, and managed-breeding strategies to retain genetic variability." (11)

Perhaps a quote by Dr. Ullas Karnath, a University of Florida alumni that has spent the past 20 years in India working for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"A century from now there could be 30,000 to 40,000 tigers in India alone. The real question is whether we can muster up the political will and raise the level of protection to make sure that this happens". (12)

Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.
— Henry Beston, American Author, also known as "The Vagabond of the Dunes" (1888-1968)

References:

Paper Tigers? The role of the US Captive Tiger Population in the Trade in Tiger Parts.pdf

Ibid.

Black Market-Global Syndicates Profit From a New Contraband; Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia. Ben Davies and Jane Goodall. Publisher: Earth Aware Editions ISBN-13: 9781932771220 ISBN: 1932771220.

Personal email with Sarah Christie, Carnivore Programme Manager, Zoological Society of London/International Tiger Coalition.

Keawcharoen, Juthatip et al., 2004. Avian Influenza H5N1 in Tigers and Leopards. Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 10, No. 12, December 2004

Thanawongnuwech, Roongroje et al., 2005. Probable Tiger-to-Tiger Transmission of Avian Influenza H5N1. Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 11, No. 5, May 2005

Yee, Karen., Tim Carpenter and C. Cardona. 2008. Epidemiology of H5N1 avian influenza * Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 29 April 2008.

McGirk, Jan. The Temple of The Tigers. The Independent, Nov 4, 2004

World Organization for Animal Health Website. 2004 Thailand H5N1 year end report.

Personal email with ASEAN source who prefers to remain anonymous at this time.

Luo, Shu-Jin et al., 2008. Report-Subspecies Genetic Assignments of Worldwide Captive Tigers Increase Conservation Value of Captive Populations. Current Biology 18, 592–596, April 22, 2008.

Black Market-Global Syndicates Profit From a New Contraband; Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia. Ben Davies. Pg 126

Attachments

Wing Quan Canadian Sucessful Prosecution.pdf Pictures of seized products

Luo, Shu-Lin et al., 2008. Report-Subspecies Genetic Assignments of Worldwide Captive Tigers Increase Conservation Value of Captive Populations.

Keawcharoen, Juthatip et al., 2004. Avian Influenza H5N1 in Tigers and Leopards. Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 10, No. 12, December 2004

Thanawongnuwech, Roongroje et al., 2005. Probable Tiger-to-Tiger Transmission of Avian Influenza H5N1. Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 11, No. 5, May 2005

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Feds seize lion, tiger, ivory from yacht

2009-05-14T05:06:00.001-07:00

Feds seize lion, tiger, ivory from yacht

Associated Press

13 May 2009

MIAMI (AP) - Federal authorities say they seized 29 illegal wildlife items from a yacht in Miami including tiger, lion, zebra skins and elephant ivory.

The items were taken from the yacht "Mystere" as part of a prosecution under the Endangered Species Act and other laws. The corporate yacht owner - Ruzial Limited - pled guilty earlier this month and paid 150 thousand dollars.

The seized items will be used in efforts to educate the public about illegal wildlife trafficking. US Attorney Alex Acosta says poachers continue to kill protected animals because there is a strong market demand. Officials put the value of the contraband at over 85 thousand dollars.

http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10359342

Machester MI Bans Exotic Pets

2009-05-09T16:51:00.001-07:00

A recent case of an alligator being kept at a local residence prompted
safety concerns from many people in the Manchester community.
At its April 20 meeting, the Manchester Village Council took a step in
alleviating fears by adopting a new ordinance regarding exotic and wild pets.
Village Ordinance 272, which bans the owning or keeping of exotic animals
in the community, was passed unanimously.

The ordinance will go into effect in late May around the Memorial Day
weekend.

At the council's April 6 meeting, village residents expressed concern about
an alligator being kept at a residence on City Road.

"The main concern was the health and safety of the people in the
community," Village Manager Jeff Wallace said. "There was nothing in our
ordinances

regarding the issue, so when the police and Humane Society came there was
nothing they could do about it."

During that meeting, members of the council reviewed four exotic pet
ordinances from different communities and agreed that an ordinance against
exotic pets be implemented in Manchester.

The ordinance reads that no person, corporation or organization can house
or maintain any exotic or wild animal within the Village of Manchester. A
person who owns or keeps such an animal on the effective date of the
ordinance must remove it from the village within 30 days.

The ordinance defines "exotic or wild animals" as those not occurring
naturally in the state. Among the animals listed were alligators, antelope,
badgers, bats, beaver, bears, bisons, bobcats, camels, cheetahs, chipmunks,
constriction snakes, cougars, coyotes, crocodiles, crows, deer, ducks,
elephants, elk, fox, gamecocks (or other fighting birds), geese, goats, gophers,
groundhogs, hippopotami, hyenas, jaguars, lions, leopards, llamas, lynx,
mink, moles, moose, muskrats, opossums, otters, ostriches, owls, panthers,
peacocks, pheasants, piranha fish, porcupines, primates, apes, chimpanzees,
gibbons, gorillas, orangutans, siamangs, baboons, pigs, wild pigs, pumas,
mountain lions, quail, raccoons, reptiles, rhinoceroses, seals, sharks,
skunks, poisonous snakes, snow leopards, poisonous spiders, squirrels, tigers,
whales wild rabbits, wild turkeys, wolf-dog crosses, wolverines, wolves,
zebras and any other traditional farm animals.

"If you allow someone to keep an alligator in their homes and do nothing
about it, how far can people go?" Wallace said. "That's why we tried to make
it as specific as possible."

The general penalties for violation of the ordinance could include up to a
$1,000 fine and possible 90 days in jail. Each violation is considered a
separate offense.

For more information on the exotic pet ordinance, visit the Village of
Manchester's Web site at _www.vil-manchester.org_
(http://www.vil-manchester.org/) .

Staff Writer Ed Patino can be reached at 428-8173 or _epatino@..._
(mailto:epatino@...) .

Click here to return to story:

http://www.manchesterenterprise.com/stories/050709/loc_20090507009.shtml

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Forever Wild must pave road to open

2009-05-09T16:45:00.001-07:00

Forever Wild must pave road to open

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

By Bob Banfield

From tigers to reptiles, cougars and leopards, The Forever Wild Sanctuary
is the last stop for many exotic animals. But the facility in Phelan can't
open its doors. San Bernardino County officials say the sanctuary must pave
the dirt road leading to the sanctuary, at a cost of about $1 million.

Twenty-four big cats, tigers, lions, 60 reptiles and several birds are
housed in the Learning Center at the Forever Wild Sanctuary in Phelan.

The sanctuary was featured in a recent Extreme Makeover: Home Edition show
on ABC.

The sanctuary owners were given a new home and the Learning Center was
built from the ground up.

_Story continues below_
(http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/inland_empire&id=6800144&p\
t=print#bodyText)

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Deadly Cargo: Order Almost Any Exotic Online

2009-05-09T16:43:00.001-07:00

Posted: May 7, 2009 12:23 PM PDT
Updated: May 7, 2009 12:55 PM PDT
By Trey Paul

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - There is no law in South Carolina that makes it
illegal for you to own any type of exotic animal, but how easy is it to get
a deadly snake shipped right to you?

WMBF News decided to find out. We had one of the world's deadliest snakes
shipped into the Myrtle Beach International Airport.

For about half a day, WMBF News Anchor Trey Paul actually owned one of the
world's most venomous snakes: a gaboon viper. They have the largest fangs
of any snake and some of the most venom.

All we had to do was go online. We found a website that gave us access to
dozens of venomous snakes that were for sale around the world.

We picked a snake, agreed on a price of $120, gave a credit card, and that
was it. No one asked an age or about experience.

We had our snake delivered to the Myrtle Beach International Airport and we
went inside with hidden cameras to pick it up.

We were told it would be shipped on a Delta Cargo plane, but after talking
with one of the clerks at the counter, we learned our snake, which was
packaged in a box, was actually shipped on a passenger plane inside of a cargo
area.

"He's all the way in the back, but if a bag were to come down and bust it
open or something like that, and it gets out, then what?" asked the Delta
clerk.

We didn't want to open our snake in a box on our own, so we met with a
local snake expert to help us out.

"A gaboon can kill a person and is potentially fatal," said Ken Alfieri.
"[It's] way more dangerous than our copperheads or cottonmouths. It's not an
animal you want to get bit by and end up in the hospital with."
Alfieri is a herpetologist and is trained to handle these types of snakes.
We asked him what he thought about how easy it was for us to get this
snake.

"I'm sad they didn't ask your age," he commented. "That should be a
requirement. Most people know what they're getting into and know what they're
dealing with. It's certainly not for the beginner or novice. You hope it
doesn't end up in the wrong hands."

According to a study done by researchers at the University of Florida,
there are 7,000 venomous snake bites per year in the United States, 15 of which
are fatal.

"If you look across the United States, nobody's ever been hurt by somebody
else's venomous snake," Alfieri noted. "It's never happened in the keeping
of the whole trade."

We found a 911 call from an Ohio man who was found dead after his "pet" boa
constrictor wrapped around his head, and another case in 2002 in South
Carolina when an 8-year old boy was bitten on the leg by his father's "pet"
tiger. In Myrtle Beach, a man was cited for keeping a hyena in his backyard
inside of a chain linked fence.

Dr. Jarratt Lark, an ER physician with the Grand Strand Regional Medical
Center, told us that the third ever reported case of a king cobra bite also
happened in Myrtle Beach.

Lark didn't treat that patient, but he did tell us that treating a venomous
snake bite is not easy, especially if it's from another country, like the
West African gaboon viper we purchased.

"It's kind of a chain of communication where I'd have to go down through
this chain of communication, identify the venom needed, find out where the
venom was, and then arrange to have the venom transferred here," Lark
explained.

The federal government leaves it up to individual states and cities to
decide if you can buy and keep an exotic animal. South Carolina law says you
can.
"Conceivably, you could probably get a lion shipped here," says State Rep.
Thad Viers (R-Horry County).

We showed Viers what we did and he called it "disturbing."

A Senate bill was introduced that would ban exotic animals, but we're told
since the committee chair wasn't briefed on it, it was killed.

"Without going into the merits of why, it just seemed like it was a
superficial reason why the bill did not move forward," Viers said.

South Carolina is one of nine states where you can do what we did, and our
investigation proves it can happen.

Since the issue doesn't seem to be getting anywhere inside the Statehouse,
Viers says he's taking a different approach. He says since the State of
South Carolina gives the Department of Natural Resources the authority to
regulate these types of animals, he's talking with officials about requiring
training or age certification.

He says this way is a lot quicker.

http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=10322811

Reminds me of the 9 year old boy who used his mother's credit card and had a tiger shipped to his door. That was in the late 1990's, I think.

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

You Can't Even Talk About It 20/20 of Farming Tigers to Eat Them

2009-05-09T16:39:00.001-07:00

Please see below, regarding the tiger-farming promotion on ABC's 20/20. Please post comments at:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/AmazingAnimals/comments?type=story&id=7529068

Ban on Wild Tiger Sales 'a Complete Failure'?
John Stossel Says Killing Endangered Species Would Protect Them

By JOHN STOSSEL and JEFF DIAMOND
May 8, 2009

Tigers may be going extinct. There were once 100,000 of the grand animals, but today just a few thousand survive.

How do we save them and other endangered species? Well, here's an idea: Let's eat them!

Wild tigers are disappearing because poachers kill them for their skins and to get crushed tiger bone, which is made into paste that some people use as a painkiller.

Actor Harrison Ford does public service announcements supporting the international ban on the sale of exotic animal products.

"When the buying stops, the killing can too," he says in the PSA. "Case closed!"

But the case isn't closed, because outlawing buying and selling hasn't worked. The international ban has been in effect for 33 years, but the population of wild tigers has continued to shrink.

Watch John Stossel's special "You Can't Even Talk About It" tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

Grace Gabriel, Asia regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, says what's needed to save the tigers is better law enforcement.

"There needs to be judicial systems in place so that there will be punishments for wildlife crimes [that are] strong enough to have a deterrence power." But Terry Anderson from PERC, the Property and Environment Resource Center, disagrees.

"If we continue the current approach of no killing, no trading, I think the tiger is doomed," he said.

He believes governments have repeatedly failed when they tried to save animals by banning their sale.

PERC suggests the opposite: let people own wild animals, farm them and sell them.

That's what saved another species. High in the mountains of Montana, Pam and Craig Knowles raise bison.

Millions of these animals once roamed America, but 100 years ago they were almost extinct. Why? Because no one owned them. No ranchers like the Knowles had the incentive to protect them, and people killed them and sold their hides.

"There were a few trappers who saw what was going on and said, this is wrong," said Pam Knowles. "Here's an animal that could provide the whole country with meat."

So people began to fence bison in and eat them. Now America has half a million bison -- that's a way to save animals.

Does America have a shortage of chickens? No. Because we eat them. Do we have a shortage of minks? No. Because people have a reason to protect them.

The Debate Over Farming Endangered Animals

In Africa, rhinos were disappearing because poachers killed them for their horns. African governments banned poaching, but this did little good.

"We're talking about countries, governments and police forces that are often involved in the poaching," said Anderson.

Some government game wardens took bribes, or slept on the job.

"It was a complete failure," said Dr. Brian Child, associate professor of African studies at the University of Florida, who spent years in Africa trying to save rhinos. "Wildlife was disappearing everywhere."

What finally worked, he said, was letting landowners own them and make money off tourism. Suddenly each tribe had skin in the game, and an incentive to protect its own rhinos. Those indifferent security guards became fierce protectors of their tribal rhinos. Anderson asked one what happened if he caught a poacher.

"He said, 'We don't kill them, we just beat them up badly enough, they go back to their village, and don't ever come back,'" Anderson said. "These people don't tolerate poaching because they want to keep the animals alive. They allow hunting. They allow photography. That is the way to save wildlife."

And it's worked.

But Judy Mills, Conservation International's wildlife trade advisor says that farming tigers won't necessarily stop poaching.

"Bears are farmed in China. There is more than enough bear bile to go around to the whole of China. [But] wild bears are still being poached for their gall bladders."

And this is true. It's impossible to stop all poaching. Rhinos too are still being poached. But their numbers have steadily grown since farming began in Africa.

"There are a lot more rhinos alive on private land where there were no rhinos 50 years ago, 40 years ago," said Child.

Right now in China, thousands of tigers survive only because some tiger farms protect them. About a dozen farms are currently breeding tigers, and their owners hope that next year the Chinese government will lift its ban on tiger sales.

Gabriel believes that would be a disaster for wild tigers. She says it's expensive to raise farmed tigers, and legalizing the sale of tiger parts would just increase poaching.

"If you allow farmed tigers to be traded on the market, you're going to restimulate demand," she said. "You're going to undermine over a decade of conservation work to reduce demand."

But Anderson says "that's a silly idea."

"It ignores what supply and demand is all about," he said. "Legalizing trade is not going to increase the demand. Farming is a way to take the pressure off of those wild tigers."

Farming Animals to Save Them: 'Magical Thinking'

So who's right?

"Let me tell you about a survey that we did recently in China, which showed that 90 percent of Chinese people actually support the ban," said Mills. "They support the ban, and they see the greater good in keeping the ban in place."

But many of the same people who supported the ban also admitted to having products made from tiger bone.

Gabriel says we need more time to educate the Chinese consumer, that "we haven't had a lot of time to work at all the steps" to reduce the demand in China for tiger products.

But how long can we wait? Mills claims the ban has worked in America, where it's illegal now even to sell medicines that pretend to contain tiger parts. But even in relatively law-abiding America, we easily found these products in New York City's Chinatown neighborhood that used images of tigers to promote sales.

Nonetheless, Mills says, "The bans have worked tremendously. By my calculations, more than 2,000 tigers are still alive in the wild today because of the ban."

But thousands more have vanished because people aren't allowed to own and sell tigers. It's quite the conceit that a few conservation groups think a government decree can get a billion-plus people to just change their culture.

"The demand is there by people for thousands of years who have felt that this is a useful medicinal product for them," said Anderson. "That isn't going away."

So it makes sense that farming tigers will meet that demand. But Judy Mills disagrees.

"Believing that farming tigers and reopening trade in their products will somehow save wild tigers is magical thinking," she said.

Magical thinking? No. Anderson says farming has already worked with elephants in Botswana, rhinos in southern Africa, and the bison in America. He believes it will work again with tigers in China.

"If we make animals a marketable product," said Anderson, "they will be saved. "

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

The Facts of Tiger Farming from ITC

2009-05-09T16:28:00.001-07:00

The Facts of Tiger Farming

Tiger farming is a threat to safety of wild tigers. Otherwise, tiger farming will make the king of the jungle − and the jungle − disappear forever.

Bans on tiger trade have nearly stopped the killing of wild tigers for their skins and bones. Improving enforcement and public awareness of these bans can end tiger trade once and for all, allowing tigers to thrive in the wild.

When we save wild tigers, we save the rich forests in which they live, with all of their climate-cooling trees, fresh water, herbal medicines and all the other irreplaceable resources needed for a healthy human society and a healthy planet.

We will save wild tigers, if we stop trade in tiger parts and products from all sources, including tiger farms.

FACT: Tiger trade bans work.
•    China’s 16-year tiger trade ban has been an overwhelming success in reducing trade and demand.
•    Bans on tiger trade have helped Russia’s tiger population recover and other wild tiger populations to persist.
•    Trade bans will only work if they are enforced and backed up with demand reduction campaigns.

FACT: Tiger conservation works.
•    Traditional tiger conservation methods work when they have adequate political and financial support.
•    Protection of tigers and their habitat and prey do stabilize wild tiger populations.
•    Protecting wild tigers protects large tracts of the world’s most valuable natural resources.

FACT: Legalizing tiger farming will increase killing of wild tigers.
•    Legalizing trade in farmed tiger products will expand opportunities to sell parts and products from wild tigers.
•    Illegal tiger trade is run by organized criminal networks, which will exploit loopholes opened by legalizing trade.
•    Organized criminal networks will not give up illegal tiger trade just because farmed tiger products are available. Poaching tiger brings big gains to criminals with little risk.

FACT: Tiger products are not needed for human health.
•    Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) gave up the use to tiger products 16 years ago.
•    Leaders of the TCM community say they no longer need or want tiger bone, and China’s TCM agency has changed the official TCM pharmacopeia to remove tiger bone as a legitimate treatment.
•    Alternatives to tiger bone are effective, plentiful, sustainable and embraced by TCM practitioners.

FACT: Legalizing tiger farming will stimulate demand for wild tiger parts & products.
•    Tiger farming will reignite demand for tiger products among China’s 1.3 billion consumers.
•    Since wild tiger bone is believed to be more effective, demand for the bones of wild tigers will go up, too.
•    Rekindling China’s appetite for tiger products could quickly wipe out wild tiger populations.

FACT: Wild tigers can come back in the wild.
•    Wild tigers breed like cats.
•    Wild tigers can come back quickly when they have enough habitat, prey and protection from poachers.
•    Wild tigers do not need outside help when they have plenty of food and shelter.

FACT: People benefit when tigers come back in the wild.
•    Local people benefit economically when tiger are present and tourists can see wild tigers
•    Protecting tigers and their habitats protect air, water and other forest resources that sustain the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

FACT: Stopping tiger trade is a global issue.
•    An international treaty signed by 174 countries prohibits international trade in tiger parts and products and discourages tiger farming.
•    Countries with the largest wild tiger populations stand to lose the most if tiger farming is legalized.
•    Any country that allows tiger farming and trade will bear responsibility for the loss of wild tigers.

END TIGER TRADE

Facts by International Tiger Coalition

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Tiger Farms: A TICKET TO EXTINCTION

2009-05-09T16:12:00.001-07:00

International Tiger Coalition: Statement

Tiger Farms: A TICKET TO EXTINCTION

ABC's 20/20 promotes flawed economics and false conservation value, says International Tiger Coalition

Washington DC – The International Tiger Coalition (ITC), an international group of organizations committed to ending tiger trade, rejects the false and deeply flawed argument that tigers bred on industrialized farms can save wild tigers as presented on ABC's 20/20 tonight.

Tiger farms were established and are managed primarily for commercial trade, not conservation, driven by profit from the sales of tiger-bone wine and skins. At present, all commercial trade in tigers and their products is illegal. But as long as there are tiger farms that promise a future reopening of tiger trade, the ban cannot be effective.

Since initiating a domestic ban on tiger trade in 1993, the Chinese government has removed tiger bone as an ingredient in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) pharmacopeia and invested in the development of effective alternative medicines and public awareness campaigns. It has been very effective in protecting wild tigers by stopping the previously legal market, reducing demand and allowing some fragile tiger populations to stabilize, such as the Siberian tiger in the Russian Far East.

A contingent of business owners with financial interest in large-scale tiger farms and their supporters are now pushing China to rescind the ban. Permitting even a limited trade in farmed tigers within China will undermine decades of conservation efforts across the range of the tiger by reigniting a market demand that has nearly been extinguished and increase poaching of wild tigers.

Poaching will always be too cost-competitive an option to ignore: consider the price of a bullet, trap or poison to kill a wild tiger against an estimated US$4,000 to US$10,000 to raise a farmed tiger to maturity. Wild-sourced products are also consistently perceived to be superior by consumers, a situation that has resulted in wild Asiatic black bears being poached despite the saturation of the Chinese market with bear bile from farmed bears.

Finally, the notion that tigers bred on a farm can be reintroduced to the wild, thus contributing to the survival of wild populations, has no factual basis. Farmed tigers are likely to be too genetically and behaviorally compromised to be released into the wild.

Farming tigers for trade will only hasten the irreplaceable loss of a species on the brink. With improved enforcement, existing bans can wipe out tiger trade before tiger trade wipes out wild tigers.

###

QUOTES:

"It is inconceivable that profit and the bottom line was the only lens through which 20/20 approached the issue of tiger farming," said Grace Gabriel, Asia Regional Director of IFAW and ITC member, who was interviewed by the show. "Every player in that trade chain is criminally responsible for the depletion of tigers in the wild, from poachers to smugglers to traders and to those who promote tiger trade: investors and owners of tiger farms."

"Unfortunately, 20/20 focused on sensational and unproven free-market theories applied to tiger farming instead of presenting a balanced report on the inherent risks to the tiger's very survival in the wild," said Judy Mills of Conservation International and Moderator of the ITC, who was interviewed on the show. "All our science and studies indicate that opening tiger trade and encouraging tiger farms is bad news for wild tigers and by extension, for people and the planet."

Note to editors:

B-roll (TRT: 2.06, NATSOT): http://www.divshare.com/download/7307598-cf7

High-resolution images: http://www.savethetigerfund.org/Content/NavigationMenu2/News/MediaKits/TigerFarmMediaKit/default.htm

The population of wild tigers has plummeted from 100,000 a century ago to around 4,000 today. China, the country where the tiger species is believed to have originated, has fewer than 25 tigers left in the wild along its borders with Russia and Laos. China's population of tigers on its border with Russia could recover—as long as trade remains closed within China.
Tigers are vital to the health of ecosystems. The loss of these flagship species impacts biodiversity, deprives nations of rightful revenue from tourism and agriculture, and puts food security and the health of people at risk.
Tigers are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which bans the international trade of tigers, their parts and derivatives, for commercial purposes. In 2007, the 171 CITES member governments decided by consensus that tigers should not be bred in farms for their parts and products—because they agreed tiger farming threatens the survival of wild tigers.
A 2007 poll in China by Save the Tiger Fund found that 90 percent of Chinese people favor keeping the tiger trade ban in place for the sake of wild tigers and China's international image. Legitimate Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners have also moved away from using tiger bone in medicine.
A 2007 survey by TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade programme of WWF and IUCN) of over 500 retail TCM shops in China showed that hardly any shops stock tiger bone as medicine. Of 518 shops, only 2.5 percent claim availability of tiger bone and 64 percent are aware of the trade ban. Today, TCM colleges no longer teach the use of tiger bone as medicine, and legitimate, law-abiding practitioners around the world no longer use tiger bone.

For more information:

International Tiger Coalition: Trishna GURUNG, WWF E: trishna.gurung@wwfus.org T: 202-203-8863

Conservation International: Judy Mills E: j.mills@conservation.org T: 202-674-4588

International Fund for Animal Welfare: Grace Gabriel E: ggabriel@ifaw.org T: 508-496-4471

Tell 20/20 That You Oppose the Farming of Tigers

2009-05-07T19:39:00.001-07:00

Tell 20/20 That You Oppose the Farming of Tigers

Their contact form is here: http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=20/20

Activists Fight Over How to Save Tigers
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7531536

[Elizabeth Vargas] Hello, I'm Elizabeth Vargas and welcome to 20/20 In Touch.
We breed cows and pigs and chickens to satisfy our appetite for food so why not breed endangered species to satisfy poachers' needs? It's a radical proposal and as John Stossel reports Friday, you can't even talk about it.

[John STOSSEL] Wild tigers are disappearing. There were once a hundred thousand of these grand animals. Today, just a few thousand survive. They are disappearing because poachers kill them for their skins and mostly they get crushed tiger bone, which is made is made into a paste, which is supposed to kill pain.

[Harrison Ford] We have a situation here...

[John STOSSEL] Harrison Ford's public service announcement that support the ban of exotic animal product.

[Harrison Ford]…when the buying stops, the killing can too. Case closed.

[John STOSSEL] But the case isn't closed but the ban hasn't worked. It's been in effect 33 years but the population of wild tigers has continued to shrink. This tiger is in New York's Bronx Zoo.

[Grace Gabriel] There needs to be judicial systems in place so there will be punishment for wildlife crimes that is strong enough to have deterrence power.

[Terry Andersen] If continue the current approach of no killing, no trading, I think the tiger is doomed.

[John STOSSEL] Terry Andersen of PERC, the Property and Environmental Resource Centre points out that governments have repeatedly failed when they try to save animals by banning their sale. PERC says the opposite. Let people own wild animals, farm them, and sell them.

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Big Cat Summer Camp in Tribune

2009-05-07T07:13:00.001-07:00

Tampa summer camp registration

By Jared Leone, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, May 8, 2009

School's out for summer. Well almost. And you still haven't decided what to do with the kids while you're at work? From athletic to academic, from cooking to swimming, somewhere around town a camp is waiting for your child. Here are just a few:

Terrace Community Middle School: Summer SLAM (Summer Learning and More) features 17 different programs including Lego Mania, digital photography, volleyball, basketball, archaeological digging, vegetarian cooking and more.

When: Half-day camps from 8 a.m. to noon or from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.; full-day from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Cost: $15 one-time registration fee, and programs are $65 each week.

Contact: (813) 987-6555; 11734 Jefferson Road; tcmstornadoes.com.

Tampa Chess Club: Learn chess tips and tricks. A camp for all levels from beginners to tournament skill.

When: 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. or all day June 15 to 17, June 29 to July 1 and July 13 to 15.

Cost: Half-day camp is $30 for chess club members and $40 for nonmembers; all-day is $50 for members, $70 for nonmembers.

Contact: (813) 727-8852; 10936 N 56th St., Temple Terrace.

Hillsborough County Summer Fun Camp: The Summer Fun Camp is for ages 6 and older and takes place at 43 playground and recreation centers locations throughout the county.

When: 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 8 through Aug. 14.

Cost: $300, discounts are available based on income.

Contact: (813) 635-3500; visit hillsboroughcounty.org/parks.

Hillsborough County Traveling Teen Camp: Six one-week camps take kids ages 12 to 17 to area attractions like Wet-n-Wild, Universal Studios, and the Museum of Science and Industry.

When: Camps start June 8.

Cost: $90 to $123, depending on field trips.

Contact: (813) 635-3500; visit hillsboroughcounty.org/parks.

Carrollwood Cultural Center: Children ages 2 to 14 can check out the 22 half-day camps in four focus areas, including movement and performance, music, art, and construction and engineering.

When: June 8 to July 17.

Cost: $90 for members and $100 for nonmembers each week; $180 for full-day camp for members and $200 for nonmembers each week.

Contact: (813) 269-1310; 4537 Lowell Road; carrollwoodcenter.org.

Big Cat Rescue: Children ages 8 to 15 can discover the outdoors with more than 100 big cats at the 45-acre Citrus Park facility.

When: 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting June 15.

Cost: Early bird registration through May 29 is $175. The cost is $190 for each four-day session.

Contact: (813) 920-4130; 12802 Easy St.; bigcatrescue.org.

Independent Day School: Children from grades pre-K3 to 8 can participate in more than 60 full- and half-day camps including sports, academics, recreation and field trips.

When: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; extended care is available starting at 7:15 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m. starting June 15.

Cost: From $90 depending on the camp.

Contact: (813) 961-3087; 12015 Orange Grove Drive; idsyes.com/summer-camps.htm.

Wharton Wildcats soccer camp: Learn technical and tactical tips to step up your soccer game. Camp is for students entering grades 3 to 12.

When: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting June 8.

Cost: $100 each session.

Contact: (813) 340-5285; whartonsoccer@verizon.net.

Rocket Science Summer Camp: Students in grades 5 to 8 can learn all aspects of model rocketry including design, building and safe launch. Completion of this camp qualifies scouts for the Space Exploration Badge.

When: 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. June 8 to 25 at Gaither High School, 16200 N Dale Mabry Highway.

Cost: $237 for 12-day session. Register by May 29.

Contact: (813) 975-4818, ext. 449; or e-mail david.maag@sdhc.k12.fl.us.

YMCA Summer Day Camps: This program is for kids age 6 and up. Speciality camps are available for preschool ages 3 to 5 and teens 13 to 17.

When: Full day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 8 to Aug. 21.

Cost: $120 to $200 each week; there is a 10 percent off second child discount.

Contact: Check your neighborhood YMCA for more information or go to tampaymca.org.

Compiled by Jared Leone, Times Staff Writer

http://www.tampabay.com/news/briefs/article998500.ece

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Congress may set limits on sale of exotic pets

2009-05-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

By LINDSAY PETERSON
Media General News Service
Published: May 4, 2009

The boa constrictors, iguanas and hedgehogs in Bobby Rex's store are his
babies. But the federal government could turn them into outlaws.

A congressional subcommittee heard testimony last week on a bill to place
new controls on animals that aren't native to the United States.
"It's insane," Rex said. "It could put me out of business."

He has dozens of snakes, lizards and small mammals in his Brandon pet
store, nearly all of them bred from nonnative animals.

They're harmless, he said. But he couldn't sell or breed them under the
proposed law until they were assessed by federal officials and placed on a
list of approved animals, and that could take years.

"We need controls, but this isn't the answer," Rex said.

Humane society officials disagree. "We need this kind of action. We've
gotten too loose with certain animals," said Sherry Silk, executive director
of the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.

"We know that people get these unusual pets and they get too big or too
expensive to take care of so they turn them loose. From a humane perspective,
we don't want this."

The problem is not that the animals die in the wild, federal officials say.
It's that they survive and breed.

Burmese pythons now cruise the Everglades. One of them attracted national
news in 2005 when it tried to eat an alligator. The Gambian pouched rat
brought monkey pox to the Midwest. The snakehead fish, native to China, has
devoured native fish in the Potomac River.

Alien plant and animal species cause about $120 billion a year in damage
across the country, said David M. Lodge, a Notre Dame biology professor who
testified on April 23 before the House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs,
Oceans and Wildlife.

The committee chairwoman, Rep. Madeleine Bordallo, D-Guam, sponsored the
bill. Three South Florida representatives are co-sponsors, Rep. Ron Klein and
Rep. Alcee Hastings, both Democrats, and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a
Republican.

Multiple agencies inspect pet stores and breeders, including the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission.

Last year the state labeled several types of pythons and the Nile monitor
lizard as "reptiles of concern," requiring buyers to pay a $100 licensing
fee and have the animals implanted with micro-chips.

But there's no scrutiny of many animals being carried across the border
into the United States, Lodge said. Generally, animals are classified as
injurious only after they've arrived and started to do damage.

He listed several species that could be brought into the country legally,
including the Gaboon viper, the African puff adder, another type of snake,
and the Australian saltwater crocodile.

"Every conceivable sort of creepy-crawly, together with their diseases, are
flooding into the U.S. from every part of the globe," he said in his
subcommittee testimony on April 23.

With careful screening, the most dangerous animals could be kept out and
the others could be sold and bred without problems, he said.

But that screening process is complicated. Bordallo's bill would establish
a method to assess all nonnative animals in the United States, excluding
the common ones like dogs, cats, goats and horses.

Each would be approved or blacklisted, based on the danger it poses the
economy, environment or other animals. And the animals on the blacklist would
be barred from the country. If they were already here, they couldn't be
sold, bred or taken across state lines.

"This is too open ended for me," said Jim Carper, owner of Animal House
pet store in Tampa."I like it that somebody is taking the initiative, because
there are some bad animals out there, but Florida Fish and Game already
has the power to say we don't want certain things going on. So why do we need
this?"

Pet industry lobbyist, Marshall Meyers, wondered if Bordallo realized how
many people could be affected by her bill, pointing out that 16 million
people across the country kept reptiles as pets and 42 million had fish.
And how would the government determine that an animal was safe? "Absent a
crystal ball, it is impossible to demonstrate that no harm has ever nor will
ever occur at anytime, anywhere in the United States," he said in his
testimony before Bordallo's committee on April 23.

The way it seems to Rex, of Scales pet store, the people who wrote this
bill don't understand non-traditional pets.

"People think snakes are creepy and they don't like snakes so they don't
want other people to have them," he said. "But you start taking away
people's rights like that and somewhere along the way, they're going to take your
chihuahua."

And who says animals like that are not a threat? he asked. One of the most
dangerous creatures in most cities is the feral cat, which feeds on birds
and other small animals and has liter after liter of other wild cats.
Does that mean we ban cats? he asked.

http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/politics/article/congress_may_set_limits_on_sale_o\
f_exotic_pets/34520/

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

The story behind the cat killer story.

2009-05-04T10:17:00.001-07:00

Dear Chris,

The story behind the cat killer story.

I hate to hear that any creature has been killed just for being who they are, but the real story here is that anyone who buys an exotic cat or an exotic cat hybrid is contributing to horrific abuse, neglect, abandonment and the death of thousands of cats. If people knew the truth, there wouldn't be such a lucrative market for these designer pets. You can get the whole story here: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/hybrids.htm

I hope you will check it out and let your readers know that the worst villains here are those who support the trade in exotic cats in the first place.

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Cat killer suspect arrested in Violet as owner mourns $3,500 feline

by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune
Friday May 01, 2009, 9:30 PM

The $3,500 cat

Ever since Raja arrived by airplane from California in late 2007, Linda Authement and her daughter, Jaylin, had marveled at the intelligence of the rare $3,500 Savannah cat they had saved for years to buy. It could fetch, retrieve and even open the door to their Violet home with its paws.

Two weeks ago, the clever feline escaped. And soon after, Linda Authement received a telephone call that sent chills racing down her spine.

It was a neighbor who had seen a reward sign for her missing spotted cat, she said, and he let on that he shot at it while grilling outside the night of April 18.

"He didn't tell me he shot the cat, he said he shot at the cat," Authement recalled. "That's when I frantically told him, 'You didn't shoot the cat? Please tell me you didn't shoot the cat.' And he said, 'I missed.'"

She raced to the home of the caller, Rene Paul Desselle, who lived two doors down from her. He told her he had seen the skinny, leopard-like cat come near him and was worried it was a wild animal that might harm his dog.

So he shot at it, Authement was told.

The accused cat killer

Authement and her husband searched around Desselle's house for several minutes, after being told the cat might have hidden beneath it. Then Desselle pointed out the cat, dead, in the vacant lot next door. It clearly had a hole in its head.

Fuming and heartbroken, Authement called the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office.

"I could have accepted it if the cat got hit, if something would have happened accidentally to it," Authement said. "But a cat getting shot in the head point blank like that, I can't accept it."

Desselle's wife, Cora Desselle, said Friday he didn't kill the cat. She said their gun was never taken out of its cabinet.

She said he told the Authements that he "shooed" the cat when it came near, which might have sounded like "shoot."

"We didn't shoot the cat. We don't hurt animals," she said.

Nonetheless, Rene Desselle, 50, was booked Monday with a felony, aggravated cruelty to an animal, and illegal discharge of a weapon. He has since been released on a $6,000 bond.

Linda and Jaylin Authement said they had been saving up for years to buy Raja from breeders in California after spotting a Savannah in Cat Fancy magazine. Linda Authement said they paid $3,500 for the cat, plus airfare for it to be shipped to Louis Armstrong International Airport.

"That cat didn't have a claw or a mean bone in his body," said Linda Authement, whose animal-loving household also includes three other cats, three golden retrievers, two tortoises and a cockatiel. "The cat slept with us in the bed. The cat was part of the family.

"We can get another, but it'll never be the same. Nor will we be able to afford a cat that cost that much ever again."
. . . . . . .

Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.

Vernon Yates Producing More Inbred Cubs

2009-05-03T13:06:00.001-07:00

Vernon Yates Producing More Inbred Cubs

Vet, hospital team up to
save cub

Updated: Thursday, 30 Apr 2009, 9:40 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 30 Apr 2009, 4:54 PM EDT

Frank Robertson

ST. PETERSBURG - A tiger cub may find a new lease on life at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

"Fabian" is one of two cubs born on Easter Sunday at a wildlife sanctuary in Seminole. He's now been taken by Safety Harbor veterinarian Dr. Don Woodman.

The cub's parents never appeared to be more than just friends.

"They are roughly 19 years of age and they've been housed together for 14 years, is my understanding, and never shown any real inclination to breed. Easter Sunday, I got a phone call -- there was a surprise," Dr. Woodman told FOX 13.

Both of the baby tigers were born with a cleft palate. Essentially, there's no roof to their mouths.

Several veterinary specialists recommended euthanizing the cubs -- a step Dr. Woodman wasn't willing to take.

"I was born with a cleft palate and I just didn't have it in me to euthanize an animal simply because they were born with a severe cleft palate," he explained.

So Dr. Woodman turned to All Children's Hospital and pediatric plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Gallant, who was willing to perform corrective surgery. Unfortunately, the second cub did not survive, but Fabian will undergo surgery in about two months.

Dr. Woodman and his wife are caring for the cub both at his animal hospital and at home. Fabian has to be fed with a squeeze bottle and a feeding tube because he's unable to nurse as he would in the wild.

The Woodmans are optimistic, saying Fabian is a fighter.

Baby Tigers Treated at All Children's Hospital

When it comes to some unique patients at All Children's Hospital, the cat's out of the bag.

Make that cats - Chester and Fabian. They're tiger cubs, born Easter Sunday at Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation in Seminole, FL. A local veterinarian contacted to check out the newborns quickly discovered they both had a problem - cleft palate, a hole in the roof of the mouth that makes it difficult for babies of any kind to suck, swallow and grow. Tiger cubs born with this defect usually don't survive, and might ordinarily have been euthanized on the spot.

But this vet just couldn't do that.

Dr. Don Woodman, from the Animal Hospital of Northwood in Safety Harbor, was born with a cleft lip and palate that was repaired by Virginia surgeons forty years ago. He knew - in theory - the cubs' cleft palates could be fixed.

But as Woodman began checking with veterinarians across the nation, he could find no one who had attempted a cleft repair in a big cat. Undeterred, Woodman turned to an expert in human cleft repair - Dr. Michael Gallant, a pediatric reconstructive surgeon at All Children's Hospital. For more than thirty years, Gallant has been changing the faces of newborns at All Children's with miraculous results.

Could he help a pair of tiger cubs?

Maybe - but first, he'd need more information. And the best way to get it would be through an MRI study. Gallant approached administrators at All Children's Hospital, which agreed to scan one of the cubs, so long as it could be done without additional costs or impact to patient care.

On Wednesday night April 22, the Woodmans brought the cubs through a rear hospital entrance close to the MRI unit. A group of doctors and hospital staff volunteered their time to help out, including pediatric anesthesiologists Linda Jo Rice, MD and Michael Garcia, MD; pediatric radiologists Kevin Potthast, MD and James Anderson, MD; MRI Radiology Technologist Deb Brannon; Speech-Language Pathologist Margie Wells-Friedman and orthodontist Amy Anderson, MD, members of the All Children's Cleft Palate Team.

It's hard to ask a baby - or a ten-day old tiger - to hold still for an hour-long MRI scan. So Fabian had help sleeping through the study, thanks to Drs. Rice and Garcia.
Dr. Potthast and MRI Technologist Brannon collaborated to customize the scans to a tiny tiger's anatomy. And, all the while, Dr. Woodman stood at his furry little patient's side in the MRI Unit.

Meanwhile, Chester was surrounded by his own group of specialists. As he nestled in the lap of Susan Woodman, vet tech and wife of Dr. Woodman, Dr. Anderson used a special material to cast a mold of Chester's upper jaw and cleft. It allows Anderson to fashion a cleft feeding appliance like ones occasionally used for babies. Much like a retainer, it snaps into place, covering the cleft with a hard surface that will make it easier to suckle.

Then, it was time for Chester's dinner. Until this point, the Woodmans and their staff had been feeding the cubs their formula through a tube into their mouths. Speech Pathologist Wells-Friedman showed Susan how to use a baby bottle with a special nipple designed for human infants with cleft palate. Bottle-feeding will be much easier than the tube approach once the tiger's teeth begin to come in.

Sadly, five days after their visit to All Children's, one of the tigers - Chester - passed away due to respiratory arrest. Despite the best efforts of Animal Hospital staff, he could not be revived.

It will take some time for Drs. Woodman and Gallant to evaluate the cleft repair possibilities for Fabian, but they are hopeful the surgery can be done. Fabian will need to grow before surgery - at least two months from now. In the meantime, he's getting the best of care at Animal Hospital of Northwood - with All Children's ready to help if needed.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/pinellas/tiger_cub_cleft_palate_043009

While the doctors and hospital are to be commended for their compassion, Vernon Yates of Wildlife Rescue should be ashamed for allowing yet another "accidental" mating that has resulted in more tigers being bred for life in a tiny, concrete jail cell in his back yard in Seminole, FL. Given the fact that tigers can breed several times a year, the far more likely scenario is that this poor captive tigress has been getting pregnant and then killing and eating her own cubs all these years, which is what captive cats often do. Real sanctuaries do not breed, buy, sell, trade nor enable those who do. Find out what a real sanctuary looks like at SanctuaryStandards.com

Cass Sunstein for Souter slot?

2009-05-01T18:32:00.001-07:00

Cass Sunstein for Souter slot?

Regulatory czar nominee favors gun grab, animal rights, 'Fairness Doctrine' for
Net

WASHINGTON - The announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter
could result in Barack Obama's nomination of a man who has been an outspoken
proponent of tough restriction on gun sales and ownership, a ban on hunting,
animal rights and what has been characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the
Internet.

Cass Sunstein, a law professor friend of the president and his current nominee
to be regulatory czar, is on a list of eight possible names, including Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, to replace Souter in an article in Atlantic Monthly.

"Among those who might make the list of replacements: incoming solicitor general
Elena Kagan, formerly the dean of the Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein, a
brilliant constitutional law prof who now works at Obama's Office of Management
and Budget, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appellate judge Diane Wood, and
Leah Ward Sears, the chief justice of Georgia's Supreme Court," reports Marc
Ambinder. "A dark horse might be Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District
of New York. Less known but equally potent candidates would be Stanford's Pam
Karlan, an intellectually brilliant liberal, and Johnnie Rawlinson, an appeals
court judge and the first African American woman appointed to that circuit. Of
all these candidates, Wood and Karlan are probably the brightest lights, and
Wood would be most palatable to conservatives. Cato's Ilya Shapiro, a former
Wood student, said that she'd offer a "seriousness of purpose and no ideological
ax to grind, this making her the best nominee for supporters of
constitutionalism."

WND reported earlier this week on Sunstein's advocacy for a "Fairness Doctrine"
for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and his
suggestion that angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology
that would require a 24-hour cooling off period.

The revelations about Cass Sunstein, Obama's friend from the University of
Chicago Law School and nominee to head the White House Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs, come in a new book by Brad O'Leary, "Shut Up, America! The
End of Free Speech." OIRA will oversee regulation throughout the U.S.
government.

Sunstein also has argued in his prolific literary works that the Internet is
anti-democratic because of the way users can filter out information of their own
choosing.

"A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is
not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government," he wrote.
"Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in
freedom's name."

Sunstein first proposed the notion of imposing mandatory "electronic sidewalks"
for the Net. These "sidewalks" would display links to opposing viewpoints. Adam
Thierer, senior fellow and director of the Center for Digital Media Freedom at
the Progress and Freedom Center, has characterized the proposal as "The Fairness
Doctrine for the Internet."

"Apparently in Sunstein's world, people have many rights, but one of them, it
seems, is not the right to be left alone or seek out the opinions one desires,"
Thierer wrote.

Later, Sunstein rethought his proposal, explaining that it would be "too
difficult to regulate [the Internet] in a way that would respond to those
concerns." He also acknowledged that it was "almost certainly unconstitutional."

Perhaps Sunstein's most novel idea regarding the Internet was his proposal, in
his book "Nudge," written with Richard Thaler, for a "Civility Check" for
e-mails and other online communications.

"The modern world suffers from insufficient civility," they wrote. "Every hour
of every day, people send angry e-mails they soon regret, cursing people they
barely know (or even worse, their friends and loved ones). A few of us have
learned a simple rule: don't send an angry e-mail in the heat of the moment.
File it, and wait a day before you send it. (In fact, the next day you may have
calmed down so much that you forget even to look at it. So much the better.) But
many people either haven't learned the rule or don't always follow it.
Technology could easily help. In fact, we have no doubt that technologically
savvy types could design a helpful program by next month."

That's where the "Civility Check" comes in.

"We propose a Civility Check that can accurately tell whether the e-mail you're
about to send is angry and caution you, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil
e-mail. do you really and truly want to send it?'" they wrote. "(Software
already exists to detect foul language. What we are proposing is more subtle,
because it is easy to send a really awful e-mail message that does not contain
any four-letter words.) A stronger version, which people could choose or which
might be the default, would say, 'warning: this appears to be an uncivil e-mail.
this will not be sent unless you ask to resend in 24 hours.' With the stronger
version, you might be able to bypass the delay with some work (by inputting,
say, your Social Security number and your grandfather's birth date, or maybe by
solving some irritating math problem!)."

Sunstein's nomination to the powerful new position will require Senate approval.
He is almost certain to face other questions about his well-documented
controversial views:

* In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.

* In his book "Radicals in Robes," he wrote: "[A]lmost all gun control
legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the Court is right, then
fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an
individual right to bear arms."

* In his 2004 book, "Animal Rights," he wrote: "Animals should be permitted
to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives ."

* In "Animal Rights: A Very Short Primer," he wrote "[T]here should be
extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific
experiments, and in agriculture."

The American Conservative Union is offering an opportunity for Americans to
sound off on Sunstein's agenda. The organization has created a website called
Stop Sunstein through which readers can submit petition signatures to members of
the U.S. Senate.

"As one of America's leading constitutional scholars, Cass Sunstein has
distinguished himself in a range of fields, including administrative law and
policy, environmental law, and behavioral economics," said Obama at his
nomination of his regulatory czar. "He is uniquely qualified to lead my
administration's regulatory reform agenda at this crucial stage in our history.
Cass is not only a valued adviser, he is a dear friend and I am proud to have
him on my team."

O'Leary disagrees.

"It's hard to imagine President Obama nominating a more dangerous candidate for
regulatory czar than Cass Sunstein," he says. "Not only is Sunstein an
animal-rights radical, but he also seems to have a serious problem with our
First Amendment rights. Sunstein has advocated everything from regulating the
content of personal e-mail communications, to forcing nonprofit groups to
publish information on their websites that is counter to their beliefs and
mission. Of course, none of this should be surprising from a man who has said
that 'limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not
necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.' If it were up
to Obama and Sunstein, everything we read online - right down to our personal
e-mail communications - would have to be inspected and approved by the federal
government."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=96775

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Car thieves beware: Leopard in trunk

2009-05-01T18:25:00.001-07:00

Car thieves beware: Leopard in trunk

Tue Apr 28, 2:49 pm ET
SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) – The owner of a rare species of leopard said his
car was stolen on Tuesday in Saint Petersburg and the thieves were in for a
surprise. There is a baby leopard in the trunk.

"My driver and I were in the process of settling the leopard in the trunk
of my Mercedes... when three masked assailants attacked us. They managed to
get away with the car," Mikhail Barakin told AFP.

Barakin is offering a reward of 70,000 euros (90,940 dollars) for the
return of his exotic pet, an Asian Leopard Cat, worth more to him than the
Mercedes SUV.

"I am worried about the leopard. I don't need the Mercedes. If someone
returns the animal, I won't press charges," he said.

Barakin, who heads a private television station in Saint Petersburg, said
the rare breed of Asian Leopard Cat was a gift from a Moscow businessman he
had dealings with. He could not say where the animal had been procured.
The leopard is worth about 270,000 euros (350,760 dollars) by Barakin's
estimates.

The Asian Leopard Cat, which is no bigger than an average house cat, is
native to Russia's southern border with China and across Southeast Asia, but
only a few thousand of the rare species remain. It is not an endangered
animal.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090428/od_afp/russiaanimalscrimeenvironmentoffbea\
t_20090428184922
)

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Pat Craig says Auto Deductions Saved His Sanctuary

2009-04-27T09:11:00.001-07:00

Every day, usually as the sun just starts to break over the distant
prairie that surrounds his Wild Animal Sanctuary near Keenesburg, Pat Craig
makes his rounds.

He chuffs and puffs and talks in his high-pitched, almost squeaky voice, a
voice that doesn't fit a body big enough to wrestle a bear (which,
incidentally, Craig will do). The big cats he's saved from neglect and
outright abuse answer back, in the same pitch, and rub against the cage.

Craig talks to the lions and tigers and bears, and, oh my, he might even
get in the cage with them and toss a ball or stroke their fur. He visits
with the chirping, purring mountain lions and the playful foxes and reserves a
special chunk of his day for Eddy, the black leopard he raised since he
was a cub.

And then, these days, Craig drives down the long, dirt road to his office
to work.

Even just a few years ago, Craig might spend a lot more time with the
animals. It was the favorite part of his 12-hour days. It still is. But that
was before his place nearly died. In fact, it did close briefly, and Craig
pondered the horrible possibility that he would have to put the animals to
sleep.

He knew some changes had to be made, and that meant changing his approach.
He started working in an office instead of a trailer next to the animals.
Then he hired a staff, launched a gift shop and opened the sanctuary to the
public. He even boosted his marketing and advertising. He and Toni
Scalera, director of the sanctuary's board of directors and a close partner
in operations, worked 16-hour days, seven days a week, for three years, and most
of it was in that office.

He'd rather be out there, with the animals. He'd rather shovel manure all
day, honestly.

"My time with the animals is one-tenth of the day now," Craig said. "I
had to become this business guy, and that's not why I did it in the first
place. But I know it makes a difference."

Craig, after all, is grateful to have a place at all. When he started the
sanctuary, he always was able to keep up with all the new additions, but
just barely. It was, at times, month to month. That finally caught up to him
three years ago, when people gave money to the tsunami and Katrina and
forgot about his place. He sent out one plea, and enough donations came to save
his place. Then he grew tired of begging people for money and, after a
long, hard decision, he had close the sanctuary.

Donations, however, came again, and rather than put down the animals and
essentially destroy everything he worked for most of his life, he put in
even more hours than he already was, consulted with experts and came up with a
plan.

He started a program that withdraws donations automatically from his top
givers' credit cards, as if they were paying a cell phone bill. Consistency,
he discovered, was the key to staying open, not large one-time donations,
no matter how generous they were. As a result, more than 50 percent of his
donations now are automatic. That means there's more newsletters and other
stuff to handle, and his mailing list has doubled in the past three years —
he had to hire a staff person just to handle most of that, but it's worth
the trouble.

"It's no longer out of sight, out of mind," Craig said. "That's made
a huge difference. Even if everything else fell off, we wouldn't have to close."

But far beyond that, Craig developed a for-profit mentality for his
nonprofit business. He spent a lot more than he wanted on advertising, such as
billboards along U.S. 85. One year he spent $20,000 on ads, and that irked
some of his board members and longtime donors. It irked him, too.

"I go crazy thinking about what I could do with that $20,000," Craig
said, "but that $20,000 probably brought in $100,000."

He doesn't want to become an attraction, but he did open his place to the
public, allowing people to walk over a bridge to gaze at the tigers nearby
and the lions, wolves and other animals in the distance through binoculars.
When they enter his place, they walk through a gift store. He probably
makes enough in the gift store to cover the costs of running it, but he also
believes that his paid staff, who know the mission of his sanctuary, will
draw in a few more monthly donors, and that brings even more money.

Donations are always needed, and Craig has had longtime donors cut back on
what they give because of the tough economy. Gas prices also hurt him
because all the free bear food he gets from restaurants and grocery stores
isn' t really free — he pays for insurance and gas for volunteers or staff
members to haul the food in large trucks. With new additions to the sanctuary
that is once again steadily growing, trucks arrive all day, like he's a
Walmart or something. He even has to think about chemicals for the tiger pool.

"We used to talk in pounds of food," Craig said. "Now we talk in
pallets."

As for the sanctuary's future, there are a couple of possibilities that
excite him.

One is a tentative alliance with a few zoos. In the past, when zoos needed
new animals to replenish their stock, they would breed or get another zoo
to breed. But lately, Craig has supplied a couple of zoos with animals that
he's adopted for the sanctuary.

Rather than breed a wild animal that isn't used to captivity and only add
to the problem of the captive/wild crisis, why not put one of his creat
ures, who are accustomed to captivity, to good use? The zoo, for instance, was
thrilled with his lion because it interacted with the crowd and seemed to
enjoy the "company" of people, even if, of course, people weren't petting
him or throwing him a ball.

If zoos started accepting more of his creatures, he could rescue more
animals that need to be out of bad situations. There's always other creatures
that need help — Craig still gets calls every day asking for help because
somebody was keeping a tiger in his garage or whatever. Also, Craig could keep
pushing zoos to stop breeding, improve their habitats and provide more
space and resources for the larger animals that need it.

The second is a way to keep his sanctuary alive even after the time comes
when he can no longer do the physically demanding work. It's possible that
his son, Casey, wants to take over the place. He can do everything now. He
leads most of the rescues and can sedate the animals and bring them back,
something only Craig could do at first. Casey also knows a lot about
construction. Those are tools that will only help him down the road, and
that's why Craig, who at first discouraged him, now encourages him to learn as much
as he can.

"He knows way more about this than I did when I was 20, that's for sure,"
Craig said.

But there's just one problem. Casey doesn't want to manage the place.

Craig can relate. Sometimes he longs for the days when it was just him,
his family and his trailer and a few dozen big cats on his property. But he's
come around, and when he does make his rounds in the morning, he knows why.

He rescued 16 bears in the past year from two facilities in Ohio, and they
went right into a new, 15-acre bear habitat, with freshly dug dens, a
water tank and all sorts of fun toys to play with. A few of the bears had never
touched grass before and lived in 400-square-foot cage. When they first
arrived, they lifted their feet off the grass gingerly, as if the tickles
were torture, and they circled around and around, as if they were still
enclosed in the bars.

But a month later, they started to wander around, amazed at the space, and
began to enjoy the grass. And what's this tub of water?

"They finally figured out that they could go in the tank, and pretty soon,
we had all eight bears in one tank," Craig said. "It was just hilarious.
They were partying in it 24 hours a day, and we had to keep refilling it
over and over."

Then he paused.

"That's why we do what we do," he said. "That's why I do what I
do."

On those morning rounds, sometimes he watches those bears horsing around
before he trudges back to his office. He may not have started an animal
sanctuary to sit behind a desk. But he doesn't have to see them all day long
to know they're out there, safe, happy and, most of all, wild.

(http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20090426/NEWS/904249923/-1/rss07)

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Cats...of all kinds, on planes

2009-04-27T09:04:00.001-07:00

From the outside, you'd barely notice the Heathrow Animal Reception Centre
- just another shabby-looking building, on the edge of a dual
carriageway, wedged between cargo sheds, car parks and storage areas and
squeezed
between the M25 and Heathrow's Terminal Four.
But the moment you step inside - through the double-locked and mirrored
security doors, past the offices and into the animal holding area - it's
a different world.
The first thing that hits you is the noise. Dogs bark and yap, puppies
whine, cats miaow, parrots screech and wolf-whistle, monkeys from Madagascar
jump about and pull at their wire mesh cages - and every few minutes a
buzzer signals the arrival of 'five cats', or 'eight boxes of fish', or maybe
'a dozen ferrets' and a lot of door-slamming and banging.
Only a 4ft Komodo dragon is quiet, swishing its tail about in its big
wooden crate and presumably rather irritated by all this racket after a 12-hour
flight from South Africa.
'We call it the Arc, but the animals don't exactly come in two by two -
more like 20 by 20, and that's on a good day - sometimes there are a
hundred,' says deputy manager Bob Wingate, who is 65, sports a splendid white
beard and is my guide for the day.

'As well as thousands of dogs and cats, we've had one-toed sloths, giant
octopuses, bears, elephants, tigers, lions, alpacas, venomous snakes, vampire
bats, racehorses from the Gulf, the Olympic equestrian team -
everything you can think of,' he says, scratching his whiskery chin.
'In fact, the only thing we haven't had in the centre's 31-year history is
a giraffe, but that's probably because it'd be a bit of a packaging
nightmare.'
Maybe, but it can't be that easy crating up an elephant, or a pair of
skunks, or a lion?
'Oh no! The big cats are relatively easy and we don't always get them out
of their crates. Dogs and cats can give you more grief - they're much
more likely to bite - and they're what we deal with most of the time.'
The Animal Reception Centre (ARC) - formerly known as the Animal
Quarantine Station and run by the City of London Corporation - is the
destination for hundreds of thousands of animals flown into Heathrow every
year.
Last year, the centre handled more than 11,000 cats and dogs, 331,000
hatchling poultry, 40 million invertebrates and 37 million fish.

Some are here to stay, others are in transit and some - like Paddi, a
very sad-looking black labrador from Oslo with only a stuffed pink reindeer
for company - are off for six months in quarantine.

Flying visit ARC deputy manager Bob Wingate holds up a tortoise recently
arrived at the Heathrow centre

After hours cooped up in the dark, they're all blinking and bewildered as
they have their pet passports and/or travel documents checked, stamped and
logged, are X-rayed and given a brief medical once-over to check they're fit
to travel on.
The pets are then either reunited with their delighted owners in the
'reunion conservatory' ('it can be very emotional - put it this way, we have
to have a mop on hand as the animals get very excited') or, if they have more
than an hour or so before their next flight, popped in a kennel and let
out for a little, er, constitutional.
'Most are too scared to have a wee in the plane, so as soon as they get out
they're desperate,' says Bob. ' Particularly if they've come from
Australia.
'We let them out of their crates and they literally can't stop peeing for
about ten minutes. It's a right mess.'
Clearly, nobody works here for the glamour factor. 'Most days, it's 90 per
cent cleaning up, and working here can be quite pressured with all the
flights coming in,' says Joel Theobald, 26.
'But the highlights more than make up for it - like having a play with
some lion cubs, or hand-rearing hyena cubs that are too young to travel
farther, or just getting to see a Komodo dragon.'

Lunchtime: Jane feeds some ring-tailed lemurs hungry after their
flight
Bob's been at the Arc for 16 years: 'I love it here, just love it. On my
second day, I flew to Glasgow Airport with a customs officer, boarded a ship
and seized 17 large parrots from some Russians, and it's been pretty varied
ever since.'
The level of care is impressive. The dog and cat kennels are heated and
have access to surprisingly big outdoor runs.
Everyone wears wellies and long green coats and washes their hands
obsessively.
The animals are checked and reassured constantly and their travelling
crates given a thorough inspection.
'We prosecute airlines for flying in animals in carriers that are too
small,' says Bob.
Each crate has to be big enough for the animal to stand up, sit down, turn
around and lie down - all in the natural position.'
So a bit more space than humans in economy - though it can't be very
nice being sealed in for up to 30 hours at a time.
'Animals travel surprisingly well - they're sitting in a darkened,
pressurised hold and the steady drone of the aeroplane is strangely soothing,
so
they generally sleep. Cats in particular are zonked out for the whole
journey.'
Maybe, but some of the dogs seem a bit shell-shocked. Not least Penny, a
very shaky-looking beagle who's emigrating from Denver, Colorado, to Swindon
with Alan Wyatt, 39, her analyst owner.
And Vita, a ridiculously fluffy puppy en route from Sweden to Sydney, is
enough to tug anyone's heart strings.
'It's a long flight and she'll be in a box for more than 24 hours, so we
can't give her any food here - but she'll be fine. Animals put things
behind them very quickly.
'Cats tend to sulk a bit, but dogs seem to be a bit more: "Hello! there's a
person!" They're just pleased to see someone, anyone, and forget to be
cross.'
As well as being unbelievably noisy, and not a little smelly, the Arc is
like a Tardis.
There are corridors of kennels, four reptile and amphibian rooms full of
venomous snakes, scorpions and spiders, and a huge room with adjustable cages
for big cats - currently populated by about 60 tortoises nibbling on
bits of apple and basking in the warmth of a fan heater ('Mind where you put
your feet,' says Bob).
Outside, there's a separate fish wing ('They're sealed up in cardboard
boxes, so there's not much to see'), a dedicated bird wing with a
state-of-the-art air filtration system ('Bird flu has changed everything - we
used to
handle 250,000 a year, but now it's more like 2,000') and a horse section
at the back.
As well as racehorses and polo ponies, a large section of the Canadian
mounted police have been through ('such smart red jackets'), plus a horse given
to the Queen by her Canadian subjects.
The larder's quite something, too. Hundreds of tins of dog and cat food, a
huge black bin crawling with crickets for the scorpions, wriggling
mealworms for the meerkats, fresh meat for the big cats and an enormous chest
freezer brimming with dead chicks, baby mice, dead birds and dozens of black
and
white rats.
A scribbled note on the noticeboard reads: 'Night shift - please get out
45 chicks.'
The busiest time is the morning, when most of the long-haul flights arrive
from Australia and America and each animal, still in its crate, emerges out
of the hold, down a bright green conveyor belt, is hoisted into a lorry
and whisked away to the Arc for processing.
It might all sound a bit daunting, but it's a step up from the human
immigration controls, because the staff here clearly adore animals.
Deaf to the terrible racket, their voices are full of cooing and soothing
and they'll fit in a cuddle wherever they can.
'I'm always on the lookout for someone who needs a little word, a bit of
reassurance or a "Hello, are you OK?"' says Julie Hyatt, who's worked here
longer than she'll admit.
'I like reassuring the animals and they do remember you the next time you
come down the corridor to see them - it cheers them up a bit.'
And the noise? 'We've got ear defenders, but it's not usually too bad.
Sometimes, the really big dogs can get a bit deafening.'
Blimey. We're yelling already - I'm not sure how much louder it could
get, or more hectic.
For exotic animals, the 23 members of staff usually get at least a day's
notice ('If it's something exciting like a crocodile or a lion, we'll all
come in on our day off to have a look,' says Joel).
And big shipments are usually booked in - such as when an elderly
British couple relocated their animal rescue centre from Greece to the UK, 53
cats and three dogs - 'It took us hours to process them all,' adds Bob.
Things don't always run so smoothly. BA might turn up with a box of puppies
right at the end of a shift, or a recalcitrant flamingo might not fancy
donning its straitjacket for the journey.
'It's very fiddly, but it's the only way to travel if you're a flamingo -
they have to be held upright because if they collapse in their box
they'll probably not get back up again.'
And there was the time one of the big cats escaped from its box in the
hold...
'A puma, I think it was,' says Julie. 'The armed police were rushed over
and had to dart it with a tranquilliser to get it back here. It would have
woken up with a nasty headache, poor thing.'
Not all animals make it out the other end. Some aren't deemed fit enough to
travel on, such as Joel's hyena cubs. Others don't have the right
paperwork.
A few are stuck here indefinitely, as their owners wrangle over them in
court - one blessing is that since 9/11, the smuggling of exotic animals
has been dramatically reduced.
Popeye the yellowheaded parrot has been here so long that he barks and
miaows more than he screeches.
And a few are here to stay - the poisonous vipers and scorpions in the
padlocked and bolted venomous snake room; the pet tarantula, all thick hairy
legs and bulbous body, in a glass tank on Bob's desk; and the occasional
stowaway - a snake that came in on some tiles, or an exotic spider that
caught a lift on a banana.
'We'd never destroy anything here - we'll always look after it,' says
Bob.
A tiny handful, however, never actually make it off the plane.
'Very occasionally, you go to pick something up from the flight and it
comes down the belt and it's not moving. You look in the box and you know
straight away whether it's alive or dead, and it's a horrible moment.'
And almost invariably it's the result of an overprotective owner who has
sedated a pet in the hope of making the journey less traumatic.
'Never, ever drug your animal,' says Bob. 'It lowers blood pressure and so
does altitude and it can cause heart attacks. Nothing is worse than telling
an owner - it's just heartrendering, and worse because they'll blame
themselves.'
Happily, there's none of that today. Everything is going to plan - the
Komodo dragon is off to London Zoo to find a mate, Paddi the labrador's off
to quarantine, Popeye the parrot is still barking and miaowing.
And in the reunion conservatory, it's Penny the beagle's big moment.
She's ready to start her new life in Swindon and suddenly couldn't look
happier - a spring in her step, tail wagging like a mad thing, just the
teeniest accident on the floor, and not even a backward glance at Julie, Bob,
Joel or all that racket behind the double-locked door.

_http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173770/The-beagle-landed--mention-
snakes-cats-dogs-fish--Komodo-dragon.html?ITO=1490_
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173770/The-beagle-landed--mention-snak\
es-cats-dogs-fish--K
omodo-dragon.html?ITO=1490)

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Why Fish and Game Agencies Can't Manage Predators

2009-04-26T11:01:00.001-07:00

Why Fish and Game Agencies Can't Manage Predators

The War on Predators

By GEORGE WUERTHNER

http://www.counterpunch.org/wuerthner04172009.html

In the past month or so, helicopters with gunners skimmed over the Alaskan tundra and forests shooting wolves to "protect" caribou herds. In Nevada, the state Fish and Game agency wants to kill more mountain lions to increase mule deer numbers. In Idaho, the Idaho Game and Fish wants to kill more than a hundred wolves in the Lolo Pass area to benefit elk. In Maine, the state agency encourages hunters to shoot coyotes to reduce predation on deer.

Without exception, state game and fish agencies do not treat predators like other wildlife. Even though state agencies are no longer engaged in outright extermination of predators, persecution and limited acceptance of the ecological role of predators is still the dominant attitude. State wildlife agencies only tolerate predators as long as they are not permitted to play a meaningful ecological role.

In general, they seek to hold predator populations at low numbers by providing hunters and trappers with generous "bag" limits and long hunting/trapping seasons. For some predators, like coyotes, there are often no limits on the number of animals that can be killed or trapped. The attitude of many hunters towards predators is not appreciably different than what one heard a hundred years ago, despite a huge leap in our ecological understanding of the role top predators play in the ecosystem.

Beyond the general hostility towards predators that many hunters hold, state wildlife agencies are not the objective, scientific, wildlife managers that they claim to be. Wolves, mountain lions, bears, and other predators are a direct threat to state wildlife budgets because top predators eat the very animals that hunters want to kill. Because state wildlife agencies rely upon license sales to fund their operations, maintaining huntable numbers of elk, deer, moose, and caribou is in the agencies' self interest.

Before anyone accuses me of being anti hunter, I want to make it clear that I hunt, and most of my close friends hunt. We value the wildlife success stories created by past and present wildlife agencies actions. And to give credit where credit is due, hunters and anglers have been responsible for many successful wildlife recovery efforts, and through their lobbying efforts, sweat, and money, they have protected a considerable amount of wildlife habitat across the Nation for many wildlife species, not just the ones hunted. Well known early conservationists and wilderness advocates like Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, Charles Sheldon and Olaus Murie were all hunters. But that doesn't mean hunters are beyond criticism when it comes to wildlife management policies, particularly when it comes to predator policy.

TOP PREDATORS ARE NOT JUST LIKE OTHER WILDLIFE

With the delisting of wolves by the Secretary of the Interior Salazar, several states are poised to begin managing wolves. Proponents of wolf control suggest that Americans should let state wildlife agencies manage predators "just like other wildlife."

The problem is that top predators are not "just like other wildlife." Indeed, they play a crucial ecological role in maintaining ecosystem stability and integrity. In addition, predators, more than most other species, have well developed social structures that demand a much more nuanced approach to human/wildlife relationships than most wildlife agencies are prepared to deal with, much less even acknowledge.

ECOLOGICAL VALUE OF PREDATORS

Much recent research has demonstrated many ecological values to predators. As top-down regulators of ecosystems, predators like wolves, mountain lion, and bears help to reduce herbivore numbers to slow or reduce over-browsing or overgrazing of plant communities.

Perhaps more importantly, predator shift how prey animals use their habitat. For instance, it is well documented that the presence of wolves in Yellowstone has changed how elk use the landscape, with less browsing on riparian vegetation as one consequence.

But wolf-induced habitat shifts by elk has had other benefits as well. Since the road system in Yellowstone tends to follow the river valleys, movement of elk away from streams to adjacent uplands increases the likelihood that a certain percentage of the animals will die further from a road. This has important consequences for grizzly bears that have been shown to avoid feeding on carcasses located close to roads. Finding even one more elk carcass in the spring in a place that is "safe" for feeding is like winning the lottery for, say, a mother grizzly with several cubs to feed.

Some scientists have even postulated that wolves may ameliorate the effects of climate change on scavenger species by providing carrion throughout the year.

Predators can also limit the effects of disease, like chronic wasting disease found in elk, deer, and moose since infected animals are more vulnerable to predators.

The presence of a large predator has a cascading effect on all other predators as well. For instance, the present of wolves results in fewer coyotes. Since coyotes are among the major predators on pronghorn fawns, presence of wolves, has led to higher pronghorn fawn survival.

And because of the single-minded bias of state wildlife agencies for maintaining large numbers of huntable species, they fail to even ask whether predation might have a positive influence on ecosystem sustainability.

For instance, in certain circumstances, top predators like wolves, bears, and mountain lions will hold prey populations low for an extended period of time, especially if habitat quality is marginal for the herbivores. These "predator sinks" provide the long term "rest" from herbivory pressure that plant communities may require on occasion to reestablish or recover from past herbivory pressure. Almost universally when predators begin to "hold down" prey populations, state agencies want to kill them so the targeted populations of moose, caribou, elk, deer, or whatever it might be can "recover." That is the justification, for instance, for the proposed slaughter of approximately 100 wolves near Lolo Pass by the Idaho Fish and Game.

Unfortunately for predators if their numbers are sufficiently high for them to have these ecological effects on other wildlife as well as the plant communities, state wildlife agencies tend to view them as too high for their "management objectives."

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

I won't dwell on it here, but top predators have sophisticated social interactions that state wildlife agencies completely ignore in their management. For the most part, state agencies' management of predators is based on numbers. If there are enough wolves or mountain lions to maintain a population, and they are not in any danger of extinction, than management is considered to be adequate.

The problem is that top predators have many social interactions that complicate such crude management by the numbers.

Many social animals pass on "cultural" knowledge to their young about where to forage or hunt. Researcher Gordon Haber has found that some wolf packs in Denali National Park have been passing on their prime hunting territory from generation to generation for decades. Loss of this knowledge and/or territory because too many animals are killed can stress the remaining animals, making them more likely to travel further where they are vulnerable to conflicts with humans.

For instance, predator control can shift the age structure of predator populations to younger animals. Since younger animals are less experienced hunters, they are more likely to attack livestock than older, mature predators. (Young animals are more likely in rare instances, to even attack people. Nearly all mountain lion attacks are by immature animals.)

Furthermore, predator populations that are held at less than capacity by management (i.e. killing them) also tend to breed earlier, and produce more young, increasing the demand for biomass (i.e. food). Both of these factors can indirectly increase conflicts between livestock producers and predators.

Wolves, mountain lions, bears, coyotes, and other predators all possess such intricate social relationships. Yet I have never seen a single state wildlife agency even acknowledged these social interactions; much less alter their management in light of this knowledge.

WHY HUNTERS ARE NOT A SUBSITUTE FOR WILD PREDATORS

Despite the self serving propaganda coming hunting groups that hunters are an adequate "tool" to control herbivore populations, research has demonstrated sufficient differences in the animals selected by predators compared to human hunters. In general, hunters take animals in the prime of life, while predators disproportionally take out the older, younger or less fit individuals. As poet Robinson Jeffers has noted, it is the fang that has created the fleet foot of the antelope.

Human hunting has other long term genetic consequences as well. As was recently reported in PNAS, sustained human hunting has led to universally smaller animals, as well as other suspected genetic impacts that may affect their long-term viability.

REASONS FOR STATE WILDLIFE AGENCIES' FAILURE

Despite the long history of hunter conservationists, when it comes to predators there are two major reasons for the failure of state wildlife agencies to adopt objective and biologically sound predator policies. The first is that most hunters are ecologically illiterate. Though there are some sub-groups within the hunting community who put ecological health of the land first and foremost, the average hunter cares more about "putting a trophy on the wall or meat in the freezer" than whether the land's ecological integrity is maintained. The focus is on sustaining hunting success, not ultimately on the quality of the hunting experience, much less sustaining ecosystems as the prime objective. Such hunters are the ones using ORVs for hunting, use radio collared dogs to "track" predators, object to road closures that limit hunter access by other than foot, employ more and more sophisticated technology to replace human skill, and not coincidently they tend to be the hunters most likely to be demanding predator control.

On the whole, I have found most state wildlife biologists to be far more ecologically literate than the hunters and anglers they serve. In other words, if left to the biologists, I suspect we would find that agencies would manage wildlife with a greater attention to ecological integrity.

However, curbing such impulses by wildlife professionals are the politically appointed wildlife commissions. While criteria for appointments vary from state to state, in general, commissioners are selected to represent primarily rural residents, timber companies and agricultural interests—all of whom are generally hostile to predators and/or see it as almost a God-given requirement that humans manage the Earth to "improve" it and fix the lousy job that God did by creating wolves and mountain lions.

The other reason state agencies tend to be less enthusiastic supporters of predators has to do with funding. State wildlife agencies "dance with the one that brung ya." Most non-hunters do not realize that state wildlife agencies are largely funded by hunter license fees as well as taxes on hunting equipment, rather than general taxpayer support. This creates a direct conflict of interest for state wildlife agencies when it comes to managing for species that eat the animals hunters want to kill. Agency personnel know that the more deer, elk, and other huntable species that exist, the more tags and licenses they can sell. So what bureaucracy is going to voluntarily give up its funding opportunities for "ecological integrity?"

Adding to this entire funding nightmare for agencies is the decline in hunter participation. There are fewer and fewer hunters these days. Many reasons have been proposed for this—a decrease in access to private lands for hunting, decrease in outdoor activities among young people, and fewer young hunters being recruited into the hunting population, a shift in population from rural to urban areas, and a general shift in social values where hunters are held in less esteem by the general public. Whatever the factors, state wildlife agencies are facing a financial crisis. Their chief funding source—hunter license tags sales are declining, while their costs of operations are increasing.

This creates a huge incentive for state wildlife agencies to limit predators. Most agencies are beyond wanting to exterminate predators, and some even grudgingly admit there is some ecological and aesthetic value in maintaining some populations of predators, but few are willing to promote predators or consider the important ecological value of predators in the ecosystem.

Yet these inherent conflicts of interest are never openly conceded by the agencies themselves or for that matter few others. It is the elephant in the room.

DO WE NEED TO "MANAGE' PREDATORS?

With the exception of killing predators in the few instances where human safety is jeopardized as with human habituated animals, or to protect a small population of some endangered species, I find little good scientific support for any predator management. Predator populations will not grow indefinitely. They are ultimately limited by their prey. Leaving predators to self-regulate seems to be the best management option available.

In general, predators will have minimum effects on hunting. Even now in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, most elk populations are at or above "management objectives." Climatic conditions and habitat quality typically have a far greater impact on long-term viability of huntable species than predators.

Arguments that people will "starve" if they can't hunt are bogus. Alternative foods are usually far less expensive and more easily acquired than a moose or elk. Furthermore, in our society where food stamps and other social security nets are available, no one will starve for want of an elk dinner or caribou steak.

In my view, we need to restore not only token populations of wolves to a few wilderness and park sanctuaries, we ought to be striving to restore the ecological role of top predators to as much as of the landscape as reasonably possible. While we may never tolerate or want mountain lions in Boise city limits, grizzly bears strolling downtown Bozeman or wolves roaming the streets of Denver, there is no reason we can't have far larger and more widely distributed predator populations across the entire West, as well as the rest of the nation. But this will never happen as long as state wildlife agencies see their primary role to satisfy hunter expectations for maximized hunting opportunities for ungulates like deer and elk rather than managing wildlife for the benefit of all citizens and ecosystem integrity.

George Wuerthner is editor of Wildfire: a Century of Failed Forest Policy.

Joe Schreibvogel Says He Has to Breed

2009-04-25T20:25:00.001-07:00

Exotic animal display: Where the wild things are
Despite vociferous criticism from animal rights groups, traveling showman
says he offers a once-in-a-life experience

By _TRENT JACOBS_
(http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/04/24/mailto:tjacob\
s@coxnews.com)
The Daily Sentinel
Friday, April 24, 2009

Lions, tigers and bears took over the University Mall earlier this week,
and tonight residents are promised a free anti-drug and alcohol magic show
at 6 p.m. in the middle of the mall concourse, courtesy of none other than
Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel.

Schreibvogel is the ring leader of a traveling zoo and magic show that has
performed for audiences young and old across the country for several
years. Schreibvogel was to perform several magic shows earlier this week, but
his tour bus broke down, leaving him stranded at his animal park in
Wynnewood, Okla, After chartering a bus and starting an emergency fund-raising
effort to fix the bus, Schreibvogel was scheduled to arrive in Nacogdoches
sometime Friday afternoon. He said he will take the stage tonight before
heading back out of town Sunday.

Preceding Schreibvogel's arrival was an 18-wheeler trailer carrying baby
lions, bears and tigers that have been on exhibit at the mall all week. For
a $25 donation, mall patrons can take pictures and visit with the animals
for eight minutes. Schreibvogel owns and operates a non-profit animal ranch
in Oklahoma called the G.W. Exotic Animal Park. The park was founded in
1997 and named in honor of his brother, Garold, who was killed by a drunk
driver in Corsicana, Texas. Schreibvogel says his brother was passionate about
wildlife, and he now uses his traveling magic act to build awareness among
young people about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and bullying. He will open
and close tonight's show with songs he wrote about his father's inability
to express love to his dying son and how he was forced to take his brother,
who spent a week in a coma due to his injuries, off life support.

Schreibvogel says he is on a constant hunt for donor money to help keep
his park, which also houses various volunteers, afloat. He says he takes no
salary, and the only people on his payroll are the commercial truck drivers
he uses for the traveling baby animal show and to pick up meat for the
animals. He also mentions that he used his inheritance from his grandfather to
keep the park running and it's 1,400 animals fed, which he says takes about
$60,000 a month.

It's because of that large sum of money that Schreibvogel says he is
"forced" to breed young lions and tigers and take them out on the road. Despite
his claim that he gives the baby lions and tigers to zoos and other
accredited preserves, it is an action that animal rights groups like the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals oppose vehemently.

According to Lisa Wathne, who is a captive exotic animal specialist with
PETA, said, "Joe Schreibvogel is directly contributing to the exotic-animal
trade that he says he is against. But the truth of the matter is, he is
putting a lot of animals into that trade. It's despicable."

But Schreibvogel claims that patrons to his wildlife park cannot sustain
the costs of operation, and Internet scams have dissuaded people from
donation through his Web site. On the site, he talks about a crusade to save
"dying malls across America" and describes his traveling act as a
once-in-a-lifetime experience for the over 2 million people he meets a year.
"We help the malls, and they help us by letting us use the space for free.

I meet 2-year-old people and 95-year-old people that have a life dream of
being able to go see a tiger in real life. So, here they have the option to
sit in a cage, get educated, fall in love with and get a personal aspect
of a baby tiger that otherwise they would have never seen in their life,"
Schreibvogel says.

But it's that chance encounter that James Bias, spokesperson for the SPCA
of Texas, said is a misrepresentation of true wildlife advocacy.
"You know you're taking wild animals, regardless of how they've been
raised, and they are still wild and not domesticated, and putting them on
wheels and trucking them around. That's just not what these animals were geared
to do, and, of course, you're increasing their stress levels and the
potential for abuse," Bias said. "For somebody to claim that this is an
opportunity for the community to see wild animals up close, this usually
doesn't represent what their normal environment is. You're not going to see someone who's holding a tiger in a shopping mall realize that these animals deserve dignity. I mean this is the least dignified way for animals to be cared for."

In fact, Schreibvogel, his animal park and his traveling animal show have
all been fined and cited for numerous infractions by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, which is responsible for enforcing federal animal welfare
laws. In January 2006, the USDA filed a lawsuit against Schreibvogel, and he
along with his park were put on 18 months of probation for 14 infractions,
including poor living conditions for the animals, unsanitary conditions and
a general lack of proper care for the animals by untrained staff, the suit
said. Schreibvogel was also ordered to pay $5,000 in fines and has since
been taken off probation. Schreibvogel says the USDA "targeted" him after he
was cited for not having "a readily identifiable employee" within proximity
to some rescued baby deer. In a moment of passion, Schreibvogel says he
threw the USDA inspector who issued the citation out of the park a move he
now says he regrets. Schreibvogel says he is now in compliance with the
USDA and provided The Daily Sentinel with copies of 11 inspection reports
dated from November 2006 to January 2009 reflecting his claim, with only one
infraction concerning proper recording keeping.

Schreibvogel also claims that a YouTube video made during his probation
period in 2006 by the PETA group was a "frame job," and the undercover PETA
agent used sympathetic friends to incriminate the park. The video depicts
park volunteers debating whether or not to properly euthanize a lame horse.
They argue that using chemicals on the animal would prevent them from
feeding the meat to some of the other animals, and that a gunshot to the head
was more appropriate. The video also shows an animal handler hitting tigers
with the butt of a rifle and a goat with a horn ripped off exposing its
brain. The video says the goat was left injured for days before being shot and
fed to the big cats at the park. Another portion of the video has an audio
recording of one park volunteer explaining how easy it is doctor the "feed
report," because inspectors cannot prove you did not feed the animals on any
given day. The park volunteer goes on to acknowledge the park was in
violation of the law when the park ran out of meat and did not feed the animals
for three or four days. The volunteer also says they are only allowed to
fast the animals for a single day, according to U.S Department of Agriculture
regulations. "They can't go back, unless they've got video cameras out
here, and prove that we didn't feed them that day. There's no way they can go
back and prove we didn't feed them," the volunteer says to the undercover
PETA agent. Other parts of the video show park staff kicking and swatting
animals and shows the erratic behavior of some of the captive tigers and
bears, describing them as having gone "cage crazy" from lack of psychological
stimulus in their tight confinements.

Schreibvogel says that all but one of the employees in the video had been
fired for other infractions and that the USDA had cleared him of any
wrongdoing after an investigation into the claims made in the video.
Schreibvogel says that the animals he rescues come from private owners, and due to
newly imposed restrictions in cities across the nation on exotic-animal
ownership in the past decade, he has taken in dozens of animals like tigers and
chimpanzees.

Summing up his long-lived feud with PETA, Schreibvogel says, "They believe
the animals are better off being put to sleep rather than being put in a
cage. Unfortunately, I don't think that's fair."

In response, Wathne maintains PETA just wants Schreibvogel to change his
business plan, saying, "We don't want to euthanize his animals. What we
would like to see Joe do is stop breeding animals ... stop bringing them into
an already overcrowded world and into a situation where he has to dump the
animals after he's done using them, and provide the animals he has with
appropriate space, food and shelter. If he were operating as a true sanctuary,
we would have no concerns with him. And, in fact, we would support him just
as we support numerous other sanctuaries across the country." Vote for
this story!

_http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/04/24/exotic_jo
e.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=10_
(http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/04/24/exotic_joe.ht\
ml?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=10)

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Oldest Sumatran Tiger Dies at 21

2009-04-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Thu Apr 23, 9:20 pm ET

ATLANTA â€" One of the oldest known Sumatran tigers in the U.S. has died at
Zoo Atlanta.
Zoo President and CEO Dennis Kelly said Thursday the 21-year-old cat,
called Sekayu (Seh-KYE-yoo), was euthanized after her health declined. Zoo
spokeswoman Keisha Hines-Davis says veterinarians had been treating her for
age-related health issues.
Sekayu came to Zoo Atlanta in 1993 after spending time at the Phoenix Zoo.
She was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1987.
Zoo Atlanta has two other Sumatran tigers, which are considered to be the
world's most critically endangered tigers. Researchers believe there are
less than 400 left in the wild.
Zoo officials did not know how many of the tigers were in captivity.
_http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/ap_on_re_us/us_sumatran_tiger_dies_1_

--
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

Sign our petition to protect tigers from being farmed here:

http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/issues/alert/?alertid=9952801&type=CU

Free ways to join us and help the big cats:

Twitter: Follow Me and be invited to enter our Animal Lover's Dream Vacation Giveaway! http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue

This message contains information from Big Cat Rescue that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended
only for the eyes of the individual or entity named above. You are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, disclosure, and/or copying of the information contained in this communication is strictly prohibited. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Big Cat Rescue accepts no liability for any damage or loss caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Missouri Is The Most Dangerous In The Exotic Animal Trade

2009-04-25T20:10:00.001-07:00

Missouri Is The Most Dangerous In The Exotic Animal Trade

By Chris Hayes
April 23, 2009
FESTUS, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com) - Selling potentially dangerous exotic
animals as pets is big business in Missouri. Now a string of animal attacks
exposes a potential weakness in State Law. In recent months, we've seen reports
of everything from an alligator discovered by two kids in a Jefferson
County pond to a Tiger that mauled a man who was volunteering for a facility
called Wesa-A-Geh-Ya.

Now -- according to the Kentucky based Primate Rescue Center -- two recent
chimp attacks are linked to a Festus business called Chimparty.

Center founder April Truitt told Fox 2 that Chimp-party sold the chimp in
February's Stamford, CT rampage. Truitt told us Chimparty also sold the Pet
Chimpanzee in last month's Winston, Mo attack -- that ended when a police
officer shot it to protect himself.

Jason Coats said that's what he had to do back in 2001.

He said, "Just hearing them gives me the chills."

Several Chimparty chimps escaped and roamed into his Mom's yard. At first
he thought it was funny, until he said one of the animals pounded on his
friend's car -- while they were all inside.

Coats said, "[The chimp] was rocking the car back and forth, windmilling
on the windows."

Then he said his dog, lucky, tried protecting them. He said, "I'm thinking
he's going to run them off. Well, about this time, he bites the one,
Suzie, in the butt and it actually tore a piece of his flesh off and at that
point he kind of screamed and reached around and grabbed him threw him across
the back yard and I realized they're going to kill my dog."

He shot one of the chimps. Then a jury convicted him of felony animal
abuse and sent him to jail for a month. A neighbor had testified that the
chimps owners were trying to get the animals back into the Chimparty complex
and
they'd already been tranquilized.

Coats added, "Up until when I got attacked, I always thought it was kinda
cool living next door to them. You know, who gets to live next door to
basically an exotic farm?"

That might be why other exotics are showing up where you don't expect it.
People think it's cool, until they realize they can't handle a wild animal.
Like an alligator that showed up on Pacific pet shop owner Mike Pigg's
door step.

Pigg said, "There's a cardboard box. I thought it'd be puppies or kittens.
It was an american alligator."

He says he won't resell it, because it's just mean.

"Eventually that alligator will get big enough you know you're in deep
trouble," he said.

Then two weeks after the gator delivery? "I come to work -- there's a
pillow case on my door handle. I open the pillow case and there was a snake."

It's just too easy to own an exotic animal in Missouri. Pigg added, "I
guarantee you a lot of people would be surprised on what their neighbor has in
their house."

Macon, MO holds regular auctions. You can buy just about anything.

While Fox 2 has reported on many past auctions, owner Jim Lolli would not
allow cameras this year. He told us he wants to protect the identity of
customers who want to keep exotic animals without you knowing about it.

The Humane Society's Debbie Hill said, "It's frighteningly easy to obtain
an exotic animal in Missouri and there is very little knowledge or
enforcement of the current law."

That law? Only that you tell police you have an exotic animal. Hill
believes stricter laws would help discourage people from thinking they can tame
a
wild beast.

"Simply raising an animal from infancy does not mean you have domesticated
that animal. It is still a wild animal. A tiger is still a tiger. A
chimpanzee is still a chimpanzee."

That's how Jason Coats said he looked at it when he saw wild chimps in his
yard. He was only 17 when he was forced into a decision he wishes he never
had to make.

Coats added, "There's a lot of people trying to protect the chimps but
there's not a lot of people trying to protect the next 17 year old that's
going to be attacked or the next poor woman trying to help someone reign in a
chimp."

No one from Chimparty would respond to our phone calls or our personal
visit. The Primate Rescue Center said Missouri is one of the worst three state
at regulating the ownership of exotic animals -- along with Texas and
Florida. Missouri Legislators are currently looking at two new bills that would
add guidelines and restrictions.

_Missouri General Assembly_ (http://www.moga.mo.gov/)

_HB 426 Large Carnivore Act Representative -Mike Sutherland -District 099_
(http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills091/bills/hb426.htm)

_SB 227 Modifies provisions relating to dangerous animal registration-
Senator Tom Dempsey, District 23_
(http://www.senate.mo.gov/09info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=597907)

_Primate Rescue Center_ (http://www.primaterescue.org/)

_http://www.fox2now.com/ktvi-fox-files-exotic-animals-042309,0,4141407.story
?track=rss_
(http://www.fox2now.com/ktvi-fox-files-exotic-animals-042309,0,4141407.story?tra\
ck=rss)

Boxer Rescue Event

2009-04-21T10:46:00.001-07:00

Sandra asked me to please pass this along to everyone at Big Cat Rescue since we were nice enough to support them last year with our attendance:

The Art of Rescue

Dancing to a New Beat

Sponsored by Florida Boxer Rescue and The Art Institute of Tampa

Date: June 13, 2009

Time: Starting at 8:00am to 10:00pm (you do not have to be there the entire time)

Where: The Art Institute of Tampa is located at 4401 N. Himes Ave. in Tampa Florida.

Please join Florida Boxer Rescue on June 13th for a day of music, dance, art, food, and many informative seminars. Learn from the best during 90 minute instructional classes in just about every subject. Sample wonderful hors d'oeuvres created by the students from The International Culinary Schools at The Art institute of Tampa. Enjoy wine and beer while listening to live music by the very talented Nick Planitis-McKee. Art auctions, raffles, and prizes to take place all day with proceeds going directly to the boxers rescued by the Florida Boxer Rescue. Please visit our website at flbr.org for detailed information and to purchase tickets for this event.

I would like to open up this event to your rescue group and ask them to be involved in the dance-a-thon as well as the other activities of the day. I am asking your volunteers to collect sponsor support and funds for their rescue group, and put in just 2 hours of dancing which they will be sponsored for. We are going to have instructional dancing (line, belly, salsa, swing etc…) or you can just come and do your own thing. Your members will be allowed to attend one seminar free of charge (Photoshop, digital photography, Scrapbooking, seminar by animal behaviorist, Connie Borwick, culinary and more, and can just basically join in the fun. What will your group get out of this? Well, we will allow you to keep 50% of the donated amount of money you collect, because we are advertising this event in many media venues you will also get the extra publicity for your group, and of course you will be allowed to put up a banner and promote your particular rescue group.

If this might be something your group would like to participate in please contact me at the phone number or e-mail address below.

Phone: 813-920-1965

e-mail: boxerart@yahoo.com

Thank you for your prompt response.

Lori Johannesen 813 coordinator/volunteer

Mom to Brutus & Twinkie

Grandma to KiKi, Ruff & Sprite

Forever Friend to Freddie & Damon

FL Panther Petition

2009-04-21T10:45:00.001-07:00

From: andrew mcelwaine [mailto:andrewm@conservancy.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 6:09 PM
To: Info@BigCatRescue.org
Subject: Please Help the Florida Panther -- Critical Habitat Designation Needed

Can you help alert big cat advocates to the on-line petition, below? It calls on the new Administration to designated Florida Panther critical habitat, something that has never been done – after 40 years on the endangered species list. Thank you – Andrew McElwaine

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/482259706

2002 Articles about Operation Snow Plow

2009-04-21T05:44:00.001-07:00

Exotic Animal Trader Sentenced To Prison

11/15/2002 11:12:41 PM

One of the 15 suspects busted in a Midwest exotic animal ring was sentenced Friday in St. Louis federal court.

A Newschannel 5 investigation exposed the killing and butchering of endangered animals earlier this month. It's a multi-billion dollar black market business with roots in Missouri.

Friday, Stoney Ray Elam, the former operator of a Ft. Gibson Oklahoma exotic animal farm, was sentenced to one year with the bureau of prisons. The last six months of his sentence will include home detention with electronic monitoring.

Elam pleaded guilty to illegally selling two federally protected tigers and three leopards and falsifying federal documents to list the sale as a donation. Elam was busted after selling the five animals to undercover agents at a New Florence Missouri truck stop.

The judge also ordered Elam to pay 5000 dollars to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife "Save the Tiger" Fund.

The Endangered Animal Trade

11/1/2002 5:50:02 PM

By Leisa Zigman

(KSDK) -- Missouri has become a major player in a gruesome industry

that preys on endangered animals. Federal agents say next to the drug

trade, the illegal killing of exotic animals is the second most profitable

business in the world.

Recently NewsChannel 5 learned that Missouri is now a black-market

hub where some breeders and brokers are making a killing; literally.

Members of a secret Midwest exotic animal ring with roots in Cape

Girardeau had chilling plans for some federally protected endangered

tigers. According to Federal officials they were going to shoot, butcher,

and sell their hides, their body parts, and their meat. Why? Because

these majestic animals, are worth a lot more dead, than alive.

Bill Hartwig is the Regional Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He says
many endangered tigers are purchased to be killed and made into rugs.

It's a billion dollar black market business, and it's led federal agents to
Missouri as part of a multi-state sting.

"Animals from Florida, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, were sent to Missouri,

to Cape Girardeau, and were killed, butchered, and shipped to Chicago,"
said Hartwig.

In February, Todd and Vicky Lantz of Cape Girardeau pleaded guilty to

their roles in the exotic animal trade.

Tim Santel, an investigator with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, said, "We find the
illegal animal trade is nationwide, worldwide. The fact that it happened in

Cape Girardeau doesn't surprise me at all."

Tiger hides sell for up to $25,000 dollars a piece. If the big cats weren't
butchered for their pelts, meat, bones, and organs, collectors would pay
thousands to stuff and display them as trophies.

A government informant, who will remain anonymous said, "The person

who supplied the biggest check, got to keep the animal and of course,

they would shoot the animal usually in a caged situation."

Federal prosecutors said the tigers often came through Missouri, en

route to Chicago where collectors paid thousands of dollars to shoot

caged endangered animals. Federal prosecutors say Doctor Robert

Martinez, of Chicago, paid $7000 to shoot an endangered black

spotted leopard while it was still caged.

Hartwig said, "It was a painful situation for them and anyone who has a
conscience to be able to watch."

In August, Steven Galecki of Chicago pleaded guilty to selling and
slaughtering numerous tigers and leopards. When federal authorities

busted Galecki, they confiscated all of his paper work. One of the names

led agents to Warrenton, Missouri, and the Wesa A Geh Ya Sanctuary,
run by Ken and Sandy Smith.

The Smiths admit to selling Galecki two lions, a cougar and a dead tiger

in the mid 90's. Those actions are legal, but they were in direct contrast to
the mission of her animal sanctuary.

"I truly thought, I believed it in my heart at the time, he had right intentions,"

said Sandy Smith.

The Smiths say they used to breed and sell animals but stopped in 1998,
when Wesa A Geh Ya became a not-for-profit sanctuary .

"When I started a year ago this last August, there were 52 animals, and

when I left there were well over 70, and a lot of them were cubs," said Pat
Bohler, a former Wesa A Geh Ya board member.

Bohler and the other former Wesa a Geh Ya board members, volunteers,

and employees, all say the Smiths are not only breeding exotic animals

but soliciting charitable donations.

"Each animal has a story, and each story is a tear jerker, and the more
people cried the more money you're going to get," said Beth Norman,

former grant director for the sanctuary.

Former board members say they repeatedly urged the Smiths to quit

breeding, but the Smiths say they¹re against spaying and neutering.

Former volunteers say there have been several recent deaths at the

sanctuary including Zander, a four-month lion cub. His cause of death has

not been established.

Former board members and employees believe the Smiths need to be
investigated and the sanctuary closed. However, the USDA just renewed

the smith's license and the couple insists they have no part in a Midwestern
black market ring.

Nationwide 12,000 tigers are in private hands and more are born every

day. Federal agents asked us not to reveal where the rescued tigers and

leopards are located. We can tell you, it is within the NewsChannel 5

viewing area.

Today, Dr. Martinez pleaded guilty to killing an endangered animal. He

faces five years in prison and $250,000 dollars in fines.

If you have information about the exotic animal trade that you would like

to report, contact us fish and wildlife call 612-713-5320 or online at
Midwest.fws.gov

Big Cat Rescuers

“PDKats” EVENT FEEDS THE LIONS AND TIGERS AT BIG CAT RESCUE

Tiger Bone Wine and Medicines

Feds seize lion, tiger, ivory from yacht

Machester MI Bans Exotic Pets

Forever Wild must pave road to open

Deadly Cargo: Order Almost Any Exotic Online

You Can't Even Talk About It 20/20 of Farming Tigers to Eat Them

The Facts of Tiger Farming from ITC

Tiger Farms: A TICKET TO EXTINCTION

Tell 20/20 That You Oppose the Farming of Tigers

Big Cat Summer Camp in Tribune

Tampa summer camp registration

Congress may set limits on sale of exotic pets

The story behind the cat killer story.

Cat killer suspect arrested in Violet as owner mourns $3,500 feline

by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune Friday May 01, 2009, 9:30 PM

Vernon Yates Producing More Inbred Cubs

Vet, hospital team up to save cub

Cass Sunstein for Souter slot?

Car thieves beware: Leopard in trunk

Pat Craig says Auto Deductions Saved His Sanctuary

Cats...of all kinds, on planes

Why Fish and Game Agencies Can't Manage Predators

Why Fish and Game Agencies Can't Manage Predators

Joe Schreibvogel Says He Has to Breed

Oldest Sumatran Tiger Dies at 21

Missouri Is The Most Dangerous In The Exotic Animal Trade

Boxer Rescue Event

FL Panther Petition

2002 Articles about Operation Snow Plow

by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune
Friday May 01, 2009, 9:30 PM

Vet, hospital team up to
save cub