To anyone who will listen about a horrible crime:

I have a friend, from the Philippines who was a crime victim while visiting the US. She came as a journalist to do a story for PAL in Las Vegas, and wanted to extend her stay in the states. She has an
interest in exotic cats, so she applied to the Tiger Touch resort in Fallon NV (5820 Mission Road, Fallon NV 89406), via email in hopes to be accepted there as a student/volunteer. They accepted her so she
extended her visit to Nov. 6th, however because of the situation, she is currently back in Manila now.

She arrived Las Vegas on Oct. 3. After she finished her work for PAL, she arrived at the Tiger Touch about Oct. 6. The owners, and the only other people tending to the animals besides herself, pressured her and tried to persuade her, repeatedly, to take her clothes off, get naked with them, have threesomes with them, and smoke marijuana with them. She refused their offers and they grew cold and started trying to isolate her from the outside world, limiting and monitoring her use of the phone and computer.

On Oct. 13th, she was bit by one of their big cats. They claim sanctuary for lions, tigers, cougars, lynxes, bobcats and servals.  She was bit by a cougar and they resisted getting her medical care, insisting that she allow it to heal 'naturally', and they gave her the drug tramadol for pain. After I insisted she have them take her to the hospital the owner pointed a gun at her, he and his wife took her to the ER, but, made her tell a ridiculous story about how she accidentally stabbed herself, had some kind of spasm and stabbed herself again, then slipped and fell on the bloody floor landing on a pile of jagged broken bones to explain the puncture wounds.

They were threatening her and holding a gun on her, told her that in Nevada they can shoot her first and ask questions later if they think she is a threat, and when they returned from ER, they demanded to see
emails she had sent to people and stopped allowing her to make or recieve phone calls. Then on Oct 17th, their internet service mysteriously (suspiciously) went out.

In the morning of Oct. 18th called the Fallon Sheriff's office and asked them to go check on her. After the Sheriff left, they told her to pack her bags and get out. I WU $200 so she could rebook her flights, and the couple told her she could not use the phone to rebook, she should try rebooking online. Fallon Sheriff case report #14385-08.

The owners of Tiger Touch drove her to the Reno airport on Oct. 19th and she flew to Las Vegas hoping to make a connection to Manila as a stand-by with PAL. When she got back to Las Vegas Int. Airport, on
the 19th, she called me and told me about the gun and how she was unable to report the truth to the Sheriff because she was afraid for her life from the owner's threats. She gave another statement to the Las Vegas Airport police before she got on the flight back to Manila.

I'd like to know if justice is going to be served? Does anyone here even care or are you all too paranoid that she might not be an innocent victim, but is more likely a spy???? The USA already has a pretty bad reputation worldwide, and what these people did at their Tiger Touch facility is worse than what OJ Simpson and his possy of thugs did in Las Vegas.

Because of all the things my friend has told me, I'm also concerned that there may be other victims that did not make it out of Tiger Touch alive. She is currently back in Manila with a serverly injured and infected stitched up hand, wounded by a cougar attack, but only treated for a knife wound. The hospital in Fallon treated her for a knife wound, not an animal bite. She reported to me just before boarding her flight that she is still in extreme pain, and she needs medical treatment. She started getting anti-rabies shots, but has no money to continue the shots or treatment for the infection. Her hand is badly swollen and leaking a lot of pus.

I think she might lose her hand or her life over this.

I have serious concerns not only about my friend, but who is looking after the cats?

Sharlene  harmonyhil@

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--- In Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com, Katarina Sardoti <WACKOKITTEN7@...> wrote:
Does anyone know where I can volunteer to assist big cat keepers in a U.S.facility for a month this October? Can you please help me in my search?   I'll be in Las Vegas, Nevada this October 2, on official media coverage (I'm a journalist by profession) but I'll be free by October 4.    I'd prefer a facility close by, if there's one, but I'll do my best to find a way to access any suitable facility for as long as I can access it by public transport and within my very limited budget.   I've emailed inquiries to a number of U.S. tiger sanctuary websites and they said they don't take volunteers who cannot commit at least 3
months. Interns are required to commit 1 year and are not allowed direct contact with big cats. That's what they told me at the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary,Texas and at Animal Ark, Reno, Nevada.

My problem is I can only spare one month for 2008.I just want to take advantage of my unexpected freetrip to the U.S. to further my knowledge of the big cats I love.   This will be my third visit to the U.S. and I've been granted a multiple-entry "I" (Journalist) visa. But because this is an unplanned visit (I was notified I'll go to the U.S. just a week ago), I have to return to my work in my country by mid- Novemberand have to be with my mom, who just lost my dad, for Christmas. Also, I have to honor my promise to an Asian sanctuary where I have cared for 23 Corbettstigers, 2 Gir lions and one Asian leopard early thisyear. I have been re-accepted in the facility for February 1-April 1, 2009.   Of course, if I can train in a U.S. facility next month, I can return to work with big cats in 2009 and in the coming years - if the facility, or some other U.S. tiger sanctuary will have me.   If I can sustain myself with what I earn as a big catkeeper, I will change careers and become a keeper full-time.

Right now, I feel that I need a license as a big catkeeper plus official training in big cat husbandry if it will be possible for me to have it in one month in the U.S., from October to November this year.    I have no formal training in keeping big cats thoughI have interacted with captive adult Siberian tigersand Bengals in my teens and have grown up in a household full of felines.

The Asian facility where I volunteered for a full month early this year was not really meant to be a zoo or a sanctuary. The tigers, lions and leopard I handled do not habitually respond to verbal commands nor can they be classified as "trained" in the true sense of the word. There was no "formal system" or protocol.
 
I believe I was able to handle these big cats in an unprotected, full contact basis and emerged unscathed simply because I was sensitive to their moods and individual personalities. But I know there is so much more I need to learn.
 
By the way, would you also know about the Tiger Touch University Resort in Fallon, Nevada? Will you recommend it as an ideal facility and good training ground for big cat keepers?   You can email me at WACKOKITTEN7@...   I will be very grateful for your help.

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Just so you know.... This did happen... 

I've been in near-constant contact with who did indeed have untoward experiences with John and Barbara Williamson of Tiger Touch. She was injured there (though the part of "forcing" her to report her hand injury as an knife accident may not be entirely so as I had discussed such things with her at the time it was happening via email to come up with a plausble explanation for the cause of the wound other than one of the cats biting her (for those who know me, the emails are available... but if you know me you should know that I'm nowhere near full of sh*t when it comes to privacy matters).

Yes, she is a journalist for a Manila newspaper, she did travel via Philippines Airlines to Las Vegas, both of which I've verified via outside sources.... so unless the organization has tapped into major computer systems including the US Customs Service to fake a passport number and photograph, she is indeed who she said she is, and since she's been conversing directly with me regarding questions about big cats, handling, circumstances she's encountered there AT Tiger Touch regarding the cats there... and other matters I have no reason to believe that she has been other than truly genuine and honest about aspects.
This being Emmie, the journalist, as I don't know Sharlene.... though Emmie has mentioned her several times to me in emails.

You all will believe what you want to believe.... but the evidence before me (that I'm truly hesitant to share on the open list) says something completely else to me. Whether parts of it are true or not, I cannot say. Other parts I have no reason in the world to disbelieve.

Admittedly, having something like this stated publicly in one large blort does indeed lend to the feeling that it is incredulous. But nonetheless.... I remain in contact with the originating individual (Emmie) and as a result I'm privvy to things the open list isn't.

And, just for what it's worth, I did apologise for you all making snide remarks before her visit, and did apologise on behalf of other big-cat owners as well as the nation entire for her untoward experience
here.... and I wasn't meaning the bite.

So don't be so quick to judge. Sharlene has some right to bitch about it, even though in reality she's asserting someone else's experience in her ire.

Timothy J. Fuller
President, NEOPOA

Bringing fire as the light of reason to mortals and morons for better than two
decades.

Prometheus Horse <prometheus_horse@

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