We are trying to make arrangements to take a tiger and a bobcat from Diane Zandman 10561 SW 67th CT Ocala, Fl 34476  352-291-1678  According to the only caregiver left at the property, Mary, Diane Zandman the Class I licensee, has been in the hospital for the past 2 or 3 months and is not expected to live.  Her belonging were removed from the house last week.  I am copying you on sections of the discussion I have had with our board, so that you know there are two people on the board of the non profit that owns the property where the tiger and bobcat live, Jeff and Barbara Harrod, who also have Class I felid licenses under the name of Vanishing Species Wildlife.  Mary says you have been calling her and telling her she had to have the cats off the property by Monday Feb. 23, but I think she has lied to us since you could just require that Jeff and Barbara add the 10561 SW 67th CT Ocala, Fl 34476 location to their license, since it was already a facility that was approved by you.  The fact that these cages and the signifcant abuse these cats are subjected to are considered acceptable to the FWC is awful, but that is another matter.

To my board:  Because this is a huge commitment, that will cost us 7500.00 per year, just for the tiger, I want you to be fully advised of the situation.  Like most of these cases, the people we are dealing with are sleazy and if their lips are moving, they are lying.  Much of what Mary told Scott has turned out to be untrue and the rest of it unlikely.  The bottom line is that the owner appears to be a rip off artist who doesn't want the cats any more.  The only way we will assist such people is by having them surrender their license and contract with us to never own another exotic cat.  We will require the same of Diane Zandman, but I do not know if she will refuse when it comes to putting the pen to the line.  I can't take it that far until I know for sure that Tigger has a forever sponsor though, because we just cannot afford to take on one more tiger right now.  Our first commitment is to the cats we already have and taking on another 7500.00 a year in expenses just makes it harder for us to do the most important work, which is to end the trade in these cats altogether.

I did some research on Anita Diane Zandman who is the owner of the tiger and the bobcat in Ocala.

Diane is a Director of Vanishing Species Wildlife, Inc., along with Jeff and Barbara Harrod.  My guess is that this Jeff is the same Jeff that Mary said let the horse starve.  They have big cats too and Mary (the only animal caregiver who comes any more) said Diane got her hours from Jeff, so this seems to fit.  http://vanishingspecies.net/exoticpets.htm 

The 6000 sf house on 6.5 ac that we saw today is owned by Growing Involvement for Teens, Inc. which is a non profit created 5/14/99, just in time for it to have the house deeded to it on 10/99 with no apparent mortgage recorded, so I don't know if the home was donated to the non profit, or if the non profit had a pile of cash to invest.  At any rate, one of the Directors of Growing Involvement for Teens, Inc. is Barbara Harrod of Vanishing Wildlife Species and Diane's son, who we saw today, Steve Zandman. 

I pulled the 990's for Growing Involvement for Teens and it brings in between $5,000 and $15,000 each year and spends almost all of it on animal feed.  It claims a 400,000 asset, and the house and land are tax assessed for 523,000.00, so that is probable the asset.  It says Diane is the only employee, working 40 hours a week, but says she is paid 0.  They are not claiming the fact that she has been living in the house for the past 6 years (that we know of.) 

There is no FL business, nor is there a non profit listed with Guidestar called Animal Rescue Kingdom.  There is a website for it here: http://www.animalrescuekingdom.com/html/contact_us.html There is no web site for Growing Involvement for Teens. Neither of these organizations can be found in an online search of the non profits approved in FL for solicitation at http://app1.800helpfla.com/giftgiversguide/  which means they could be fined 1000.00 a day for illegally soliciting funds. 

Until November 17, 2008 the house and land appeared to be free and clear, but they borrowed 300,000.00 from Edward J.A. Ohanrahan, Jr. with the first monthly payment of 2250.00 due Jan. 1 and a balloon for the balance is due in 2012.  So far no foreclosure appears to have been filed, but they could only be 2 months late, if at all.

The nonsense we were told about some new rescue group buying the place and only wanted to focus on farmed animals seems pretty unlikely.  There has been no sale of the property since 1999, so the same non profit who owned it then still owns it now and Diane's friends, who own big cats via Vanishing Species, and son are still the Directors of that non profit.  Since Barbara Harrod still has big cats and thus has the necessary license to keep the bobcat and the tiger at either facility, it seems the real issue here is that Diane doesn't want to bother with the cats any more and neither does her son. It is not apparent that Growing Involvement for Teens serves any purpose other than as a non profit entity to hold the house and solicit funds.  If they only raised 6000.00 last year, as their 2007 tax return said, it will only pay the mortgage for a couple of months before there is no income.  This may be why the son is moving mom out and a tenant in.  An incoming temant, rather than buyer, is another signal that this property and business has not been sold.

Meanwhile, Diane owns another house in the neighborhood at 10147 SW 87th Terrace Ocala, FL  and her son Steve lists that address as his home address too.  She co owns it with Jason and Stella Yates who she thanks on her Animal Rescue Kingdom web page for 5 years of service. They paid 42,500.00 for that house on 3/20/2001.  It is up for sale now with a Realtor named David Harden 352.482.1822

There is no way to know if she received any insurance from the death of her husband Marc Zandman in January of 2008.  He died of an unexpected heart attack at the age of 52 while visiting his sister in Atlanta.  His MySpace page said he had been a cop.  There is also no way to know what her hospitalization has cost her, and if that may be why she borrowed 300k on the house.  It would be completely inappropriate to take that money for her personal use, but who would ever know given the lack of non profit oversight?  By law you cannot shut down a non profit and keep the assets.  They have to be donated to another non profit, but by borrowing all she could get out of the house and then walking away from it, she could thumb her nose at the law and count on the fact that they will not pursue such a little fish. 

Under the circumstances, I think we should insist that Diane Zandman sign a letter saying she will never own another exotic cat on her own, or with any other group.  Otherwise we are just enabling her to go out and get cubs she can use.  Mary told us today that there have been a number of cubs who were brought to them by breeders for bottle raising and picked up by "zoos."  Her website claims she has had lions, jaguars, cougars, bobcats and caracals to name just the cats.  She claims to rescue them and send them to "forever homes."  Just 3 months ago Diane was advertising tea cup poodle puppies for sale and it looked like more than half of the animals still in their care are pregnant.

None of this changes the fact that there is a bobcat in a tiny, barren, filthy, rain soaked cage and a tiger in a metal shed, on cold, wet, concrete floors, who has spent her entire six years there. 


Note to FWC: 

We have taken photos and videos of the deplorable situation there.  The is not a USDA facility, but in the two visits we made there, people were constantly letting themselves in to feed the animals and there is nothing to keep people from sticking their fingers into the torn screen window where tiger resides.  There is chain link there, but we were able to stick our hands in with no one noticing and most of the time, no one is there.  Mary says the cat hasn't been out of the shed in three years.  She has never had a cage that gave her sunshine, fresh air or access to walk on the earth.  As for the bobcat, the cage was tied shut with a string.  The water bowl was filled with feces and the cage floor is made of mulch that has been recently proven to kill pets.  The only shelter was a carrier with a grated lid so there was nothing to keep the cat from being soaked.  We tried to get Mary and Steve to release the bobcat to us that day, but they said we had to take the tiger too, and that is a huge financial commitment that we couldn't make at the time.  We are trying to raise the funds now.

This has to stop.  Your rules say people can't have tigers as pets.  USDA says you can't exhibit wild cats unless you are licensed.  This situation, like so many more, are examples of people playing the FWC against the USDA and circumventing the intent of your rules that would keep people from having tigers as back yard pets.  There is no coordination between you, USDA, the IRS and the Department of Consumer Services when it comes to verifying that these entities are acting within the law.  If you allow "sanctuaries" as this place touts itself, to escape USDA supervision or that of the public eye, you are just enabling more abuse. 

For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue