911 Animal Abuse

20 Search Results for ""cub selling""

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  • From: 11233455987
  • Description:

    Exotic Animal Stock Video. Lions, Tigers, Bears, Cubs & More! Choose from our online collection! www.walkingwithlions.com

     

    Animals in their naturalhabitat!Onceinalifetimeexperience!www.BaobabExpeditions.com

     

    Big Cats. Huge selection of Big Cat items. Yahoo.com

     

    AnimalLover0104@aol.com is alias email First name is Janice Real email: Chuffer927@aol.com Thinks that people should be allowed contact with Class 1 animals, regardless of size. Supports white tiger breeding and exotic pet trade.

     

    lndmonk@aol.com Has many emails Hates BCR and supports exotic pet trade Claims BCR abuses and breeds Name: Linda Hunnicutt Address: 27 Beaton Path, Leicester, NC 28748    Phone: (828) 683-2009 She uses a number of other names and aliases as well to make it look like several people are responding on an issue, rather than her, or just her.

     

    President, Phoenix Exotic Wildlife Association

    Name: Jeanne Hall Website: http://www.PhoenixExotics.org P.O. Box 1132 Chehalis, WA. 98532   Phone: 360-767-0746 

    Supports exotic pet trade. Hates BCR. Thinks exhibitors and white tiger breeding are ok. Leads exotic pet organization and disagrees with USDA and AZA.

     

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  • 7 months ago
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• Baby Tigers Exploited at Mall Baby Tigers Exploited at Mall

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Mystical Magic of the Endangered act.
    

     

    Joe Exotic is actually Joe Schreibvogel, the president of G.W. Exotics – an organization with a long history of animal abuse. Please read the information below and feel free to send your thoughts to all those listed below (TV, newspaper, govt officials, corporate sponsors, etc.) It might just help for the next time since he travels the country making money off his "exotic animal mills." Go to www.joeexotic.com and www.gwpark.org and prepare to get mad!

    You can call the mall at (608) 781-4700 or (608) 781-0610. Do it today since Joe will be "on the road" again after this weekend!

     

    "Joe Exotic" is taking up residence at Valley View Mall thru Sunday (http://www.joeexotic.com/). Outside Sears, they have a large area set up that consists of four, approximately 6 foot high, pens/kennels. In 2 of the kennels, there were a few baby Tigers, and in the other 2 kennels, there were a few, what I would consider, young adult Tigers.

     

    They are selling 8 minutes of time with the Tigers for $25 as well as a variety of pictures with the Tigers for different dollar values. Also for sale are stuffed Tigers and other items.

     

    Walking from this area towards Center Court, you will find what appears to be an information table that will probably become an autograph signing table after Mr. Joe Exotic's shows. Walking to Center Court, you will find the entire area outside Macy's set up for a "magic show".

     

    The Health Department and our Animal Control department are aware of the situation. The dilemma – nothing exists in County statue to make any of this illegal.

     

    Concerns that pertain to this situation:

    · Safety for both humans and Tigers including bites and rabies

    · Care of the Tigers

    · The nature of this business – baby Tigers are what everyone wants to see and how they appear to make their money – what happens to the baby Tigers after they grow up?

    · The message this does send to people – this is why we hear of exotic animals like this being found in apartments/homes across the USA.

     

     

     

    SAMPLE LETTER TO MALL PERSONNEL AND MEDIA:

    To: 'jim.sluzewski@macys.com'; 'jcpcorpcomm@jcpenney.com'; 'tips@channel3000.com'; 'news@wkowtv.com'; 'news@nbc15.com'; 'news@wqow.com'; 'news@weau.com'; 'news@lacrossetribune.com'; 'news8@wkbt.com'; 'fox6news@fox6now.com'; 'news@todaystmj4.com'; 'wisntvnews@hearst.com'; 'newsdesk@cbs58.com'; 'jsmetro@journalsentinel.com'; 'Denise.Schaffer@co.houston.mn.us'; 'johnsrudm@cityoflacrosse.org'; 'Heather.Schmid@couleehumane.com'
    Subject: Tigers in the Mall - how safe is this, really?

     

    CC: Valley View Mall

    Senator Feingold

    Representative Kind

    All Major Wisconsin Newspapers and TV Media Outlets

    Mayor Johnsrud

    Macy's, Sears, Herberger's, JCPenney Corporate Offices

    I read, with horror, that the Valley View Mall in La Crosse, Wisconsin is currently hosting the "Mystical Magic of the Endangered" act. Unfortunately, with so little legislation in place to safeguard citizens and allow businesses, malls, fairs, etc. to accurately check out exactly who and what they're getting involved with, the public is being exposed to tremendous danger and the animals on display are suffering horrific lives that few are aware of.

    
    

    Exotic Joe is actually Joe Schreibvogel, President of the infamous G. W. Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, OK. His USDA license is License 73-C-0139 and his USDA violation file is attached (please take the time to read it since it lists many of his animal cruelty violations). He has been slapped with violations and even fined $25,000 which, in the world of USDA animal violation fines, is a huge amount. At any one time, he has housed more than 170 big cats and 1,400 animals on 16 acres. I am a senior keeper at an accredited big cat rescue sanctuary. We currently provide a home for about 125 rescued wildcats on 42 acres and feel we are maxed out given the space we have. With 1,570 animals crammed onto 16 acres at G. W. Exotic, you can imagine the poor quality of life and lack of care these animals must endure.

    
    

    If you check out Joe's website at http://www.gwpark.org/ you will see a website filled with people holding, handling, posing with baby exotic animals. Where do you think all these animals wind up when they are adults? Though he'll claim he doesn't breed or sell, the evidence below is quite the contrary. What quality of life must these animals suffer when they are trucked all over the country for these "magic" shows?
    

    
    

    What you know as "puppy mills" is what Joe runs, the difference being he churns out dangerous carnivores. Joe is a major supplier fueling the exotic animal trade. It's very easy for him to book gigs and travel with these babies since he ties his act to "protecting endangered species" or whatever the buzzword of the day is. But, make no mistake, this is a modern day snake oil salesman making money off the backs of these innocent animals with more and more being churned through his "park." All the while, he is exposing the public to a tremendous amount of danger.

    
    

    I'm sure that if the Valley View Mall, as well as the anchor stores, knew of this man's horrendous reputation, they would not have risked the negative publicity he can generate in order to draw in unsuspecting customers. Isn't it time our state and national representatives enact legislation to protect the general public from this type of deceptive practice and eliminate the public safety risk and the animal abuse it encourages? The maulings and killings become more and more prevalent. Haley Hilderbrand, a high school senior was killed when she posed with a tiger for a photo only a couple of years ago and yet the namesake bill sponsored after her death still lingers in Congress.

    
    

    My hope is that each of you I have copied in this letter will do your best to prevent this from happening again. Don't these animals and your customers/constituents deserve due diligence?? They can't defend themselves, but you can certainly defend them.

    
    

    Sincerely,

    Julie Hanan

    Lutz, FL

    BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON JOE SCHREIBVOGEL, G.W. EXOTIC ANIMAL PARK:

     

    The following quotes are from G.W. Exotic Animal Park:

    · "… I do not in any way breed, sell, ship out, lease, or loan out any of my animals …"
    —[J1], letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, December 6, 2002

    · "[A]ll of our cats are fixed or split up so they can't breed, … we do not buy, sell, or trade any animal…."
    —[J1], e-mail message to PETA, August 30, 2003

    · "I never sell or donate to anyone."
    —[J1], letter to Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, Renewal of Commercial Wildlife Breeders License, November 21, 2001

    Contradictory incidents since 2001:

    · GW sold one male and two female lion cubs for $1,500 each to the Amarillo Zoo in Texas. All three were born at GW in September 2005 and were declawed before they were 1 month old. Parents of the cubs were all GW residents who were allowed to breed.

    · TV news reported an astounding 18 new tiger cubs and one very pregnant tiger at GW. The pregnant tiger, Sasha, was GW's first rescued, and never spayed, tiger.

    · A female cougar, born at GW on March 14, 2000, was shipped to the Seoul Grand Park Zoo in the Republic of Korea.

    · A cougar, born at GW, was shipped to the Sofia Municipal Zoo in Bulgaria.

    · Two cougars born at GW were shipped to the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand.

    · GW reportedly tried to sell an infant baboon named Savannah, born April 24, 2003, to an undercover activist who visited the facility.

    · GW sent a lion cub to Capital of Texas Zoo (Cedar Creek, Texas). The cub was then loaned to Bobbie Colorado, who appears weekly on an Austin TV station. While in the custody of Bobbie Colorado, the lion cub was killed by a dog.

    · GW transferred a tiger named Blondy to the Hillcrest Zoo, a roadside zoo in Clovis, New Mexico, that has been repeatedly cited for a multitude of violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including failing to provide sufficient food to three zebras who all died within a two-day period.

    · In 2003, GW obtained four snakes, four flying squirrels, two sugar gliders, and 10 alligators from Strictly Reptiles, a Florida wholesale distributor of reptiles.

    · GW has purchased animals including a bear cub, a tiger cub, miniature horses, and birds from exotic animal auctions, such as Lolli Bros., which states on its Web site: "From Apes to Zebra—We sell it all!! In addition to 'live' animal sales, we also offer a phenomenal selection of excellent of Taxidermy [sic] at each sale."

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
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• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Baby Ti Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Baby Tiger Booth

  • From: Guatemala
  • Description:

    We just got off a cruise ship that sailed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  At the marina, a man was selling photo ops to tourists to hold a baby tiger.  We were so disgusted, we just walked away.  This was on 10/30/08.  I looked back and could see the baby tiger in the cage sleeping.  It was hot and humid!!

  • Blog post
  • 1 year ago
  • Views: 164
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• Lolli Bros Selling Big Cats in Lolli Bros Selling Big Cats in MO

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:
    Danger of big cats in wrong hands 10:52 PM CST on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 ST. LOUIS (KMOV) -- Twice this year at two separate locations in Missouri, workers almost lost their lives in tiger attacks. The terrifying incidents prompted News 4 to examine the exotic animal trade business and the potential danger of having big cats in the wrong hands. Watch News 4 coverage > Larger player Camels, zebras, spider monkeys, ostriches, sloths, even a baboon are all for sale at Lolli Bros. livestock auction in central Missouri. (KMOV.com Extra: News 4 Investigates: Exotic Animal Trade) An undercover News 4 camera also recorded a rare white lion cub, born in a small family-owned West Virginia zoo. She'll be sold at auction to the highest bidder. The auction, which is legal, will sell hundreds of exotic species, but there is growing concern that because of auctions and backyard breeders, the big cats are winding up with people who may not appreciate the danger. Dick Stephens bought his tigers from a backyard breeder when they were cubs. Now he keeps the full-grown tigers in an outdoor cage at his home just north of Springfield. Stephens downplays the danger, but a tiger lunged at News 4’s Craig Cheatham when he got too close to the cage. Three years ago, Ronda Good's 17-year old daughter Haley was supposed to be posing for a picture with a tiger cub at a Kansas sanctuary, but the cub wasn't available, so Haley stood next to a full grown tiger hooked to a chain. Haley turned to run, and the tiger attacked. Despite the obvious danger connected with owning big cats and other exotic animals, the Lolli Bros. auction has attracted a remarkable following. During News 4’s visit, vehicles with license plates from thirty states and Mexico were seen in the parking lot. Julie Leicht is the executive director of the Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation, a group trying to strengthen the state's exotic animal laws, which she believes are among the weakest in the country. Leicht says dangerous exotic animals like tigers, lions and bears should be microchipped and registered so the state can easily track them. She said the owners should have to pay registration fees, should not be allowed to let anyone touch the animals and should be required to get insurance. Leicht said neighboring states of Illinois, Iowa and Kansas all have stronger laws than Missouri. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration admits it has no idea how many lions and tigers are in America, but several animal welfare groups believe there could be thousands of them. For now the fate of some potentially deadly, sometimes unregulated animals are in the hands of people who may not recognize the danger. http://www.kmov.com/localnews/4investigates/stories/kmov-stlouis-081105-tigers-investigate.184d54e2f.html
  • 2 years ago
  • Views: 580

• Strictly Reptiles Cold Blooded Strictly Reptiles Cold Blooded Smuggling

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    In one cage a quintuplet of blue-green rhinoceros iguanas crowd driftwood perches. In another, cougar cubs wrestle like rambunctious children. Seized at Miami International Airport two years ago, the cats arrived here when they still fit in the palm of a hand. South American marmosets, banned as imports, clutch the mesh of their cages like grimacing puppets. Agoutis, stout brown rodents smuggled in for Santeria sacrifice, scurry among dead leaves and ashen sand, the aluminum slats shading their cage weighed down by dead wood and rotting grapefruits.

    In one shadowy corner of the overgrown compound hides a long, brown trailer bearing a treasure trove of snakes, lizards, and turtles. It's here that were housed the pancake tortoises and American alligators that started a chain reaction of Florida arrests among the country's busiest reptile-smuggling operations.

    Two years ago when Hollywood reptile importer Mike Van Nostrand's slippery creatures were seized, they wound up in the trailer. Some still remain, scattered among the young crocodiles, scaly-skinned caimans, baby tortoises, and Central American boas that crowd containers inside. Others have already been doled out to zoos or universities. Van Nostrand, a self-confessed bigtime smuggler and the biggest legitimate reptile importer on the East Coast before his import license was revoked last year, has lost hundreds of cold-blooded creatures to this place over the years, as have more than a few other Florida importers.

    "We've been getting a lot more reptiles," says the big, bearded animal expert and reptile breeder who runs the evidence compound for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service at a secret location about 100 miles north of Miami. Hidden in a rural, middle-class neighborhood, among knobby oaks and lush tangelo trees, the place is a boisterous way station for contraband critters, where living evidence seized in Miami awaits judicial disposition.

    Reptiles and amphibians -- "herps" in the lingo of collectors and breeders -- form the backbone of what Interpol estimates is the $6 billion worldwide trade in illegal animals, contraband second only to drugs in estimated value. And among live-animal entry points, Miami ranks number one in the nation -- beating out New York and Los Angeles -- for the volume and variety of live creatures clearing customs (and those sneaking past). Tens of thousands of frogs, snakes, lizards, turtles, and tortoises enter South Florida every year, among them some of the rarest -- and deadliest -- creatures on Earth. Most wind up in the hands of a few big importers and wholesalers, like Van Nostrand's Strictly Reptiles, companies that thrive by feeding the vast hunger for the rare and obscure among the country's herp fanatics (the largest such group in the world).

    The lure of fast, easy money inspires many American importers to smuggle in species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a global treaty designed to protect wildlife from overexploitation that is enforced in this country by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

    Importers know there are plenty of wealthy collectors who will shell out big bucks to be the first kid on the block to have an endangered species, people willing to pay more than $10,000 for a plowshare tortoise from Madagascar or an Angolan python. Many of these species, available cheap to smugglers in their native habitats, now teeter on the brink of extinction, and conservationists worry their disappearance might alter the balance in fragile Third World ecosystems. Rarity only makes the creatures more desirable to the handful of wealthy collectors who can afford to own them, and who tend to view reptiles more like rare coins than household pets. No one knows for sure how much damage smuggling has done to native habitats since CITES went into effect in 1973, but importers have generally proven more than willing to ignore such conservation concerns.

    "Smugglers are driven by pure greed," says Chip Bepler, a Fish and Wildlife agent who has spent the last five years building cases against Strictly Reptiles and other South Florida reptile importers. "They think there's no real risk involved, that they'll get away with a slap on the wrist if they're caught."

    Van Nostrand's company, with annual sales estimated by government sources to exceed $5 million, is still one of the country's largest wholesalers. (He lost only his import license and continues to sell creatures brought in by third-party importers.) Prosecutors contend that, before he was arrested in 1997 and sentenced to half a year in prison and ordered to pay a hefty fine, Van Nostrand dealt in more than 1500 smuggled animals. Many were brought in by freelance smugglers, men like Robert Lawracy and Dwayne Cunningham, a pair of South Florida cruise-ship workers who sold dozens of reptiles to Strictly and face trial later this month in Fort Lauderdale.

    Strictly Reptiles, known to breeders, collectors, and retailers to have the largest variety of creatures with as many as 200 different species -- both legal and illegal -- was once a veritable reptile pawnshop. Travelers returning from Brazil, Peru, or Argentina knew they could make a few hundred quick bucks by stuffing some baby snakes in their pockets and a few tiny tortoises in their luggage and unloading the lot at Strictly. (Along with trade restrictions, federal regulations outlaw the importing of tortoises less than four inches long on the grounds that they may carry salmonella). "They didn't pay the most," says Bepler. "But they'd buy whatever you could bring them."

    Van Nostrand -- who got out of prison last year, his sentence curtailed by agreeing to sell out associates (including Lawracy and Cunningham) -- refused to speak at length with New Times, though he met briefly with a reporter and shared a few observations before heeding a secretary's advice and deciding to clam up. "I was an arrogant son of a bitch," he said, leaning against a holding pen overflowing with snakes in his sprawling Stirling Road warehouse. "The feds were after me for five years," he continued. "I really thought I was untouchable. And then I got stupid and careless."

    South Florida herpers (devoted reptile fanatics like to use the scientific term herpetology to describe both reptiles and amphibians) say Strictly's carelessness, and that of other Florida importers, gives a black eye to the entire reptile community. "The allure is too much for some people," says Mike Brennan, educational chair of the Sawgrass Herpetological Society, a nine-year-old group of Broward herpers that is one of 13 such groups in Florida. "There are two types of people," adds Mike's 19-year-old son, Chris, "those in it for the science and those in it for the money."

    Strictly Reptiles is clearly motivated by the bottom line. Mike Van Nostrand says he doesn't even like reptiles, though at any given time his warehouse is crawling with hundreds of them. The company, which built its reputation in the late '80s by muscling in on the trade in live iguanas -- it is known as the "Iguana King" -- has long offered more of the popular lizards than anyone else in the business. The exterior of the company's headquarters is emblazoned with the head of a green iguana, and inside are stored hundreds of iguana babies, shipped in legally by third-party importers from farms in Latin America. "In the '80s if you weren't in iguanas, you weren't anybody," says Rian Gittman, a Deerfield Beach reptile retailer who got his start in importing by learning the trade from the Van Nostrands -- Mike and his father, Ray. Iguanas -- inexpensive, low-maintenance lizards -- have been the most popular reptile pet for more than 15 years. "Ray always told me iguanas are the business, period," says Gittman, who lost his import license in 1995 and wound up serving a year in prison on smuggling charges.

    In light of the variety and volume available at Strictly, most everyone in the United States involved in the selling and collecting of reptiles and amphibians has at one time or another done business with the company. Even Strictly's biggest competitors -- importers like Bronx Reptile in New York, L.A. Reptile in California, and, until they shut down in 1997, Tom Crutchfield's Reptile Enterprises near Orlando -- bought from Strictly in order to add rare species to their price lists. "Strictly was always a cut above the rest," says Special Agent Bepler. "A lot of companies offered all of the bread-and-butter animals. Strictly had all that plus a lot of specialty items, like little expensive jewels that might make a pet shop stand out."

    The cohesiveness of the reptile trade -- the business is tightly knit on local, national, and even international levels -- masks an inherent, often unspoken, rift. Breeders and hobbyists rarely see eye to eye with the big-money contingent, the importers and wholesalers upon whom they are dependent for new breeding stock. The two groups tolerate each other more out of economic necessity than anything else.

    At the monthly reptile show held at the Red Carpet Inn, a low-rise motel on State Road 84 in Fort Lauderdale, breeders bring their vibrantly hued reptile creations directly to consumers. The best of the bunch spend years perfecting color varieties that might never occur in nature, creating albino strains and bright red varieties of snakes and lizards, as well as the full spectrum of blues, greens, and yellows. "We make designer pets," says Doug Beard, a ponytailed South Miami-Dade breeder who specializes in snakes. "It's like art by God. We perfect mutations that are biologically worthless to meet the public desire to own a piece of nature."

    At Red Carpet, Beard occupies one of a dozen tables laid out with reptiles and amphibians proudly advertised as "captive bred." Blue-uniformed Cub Scouts dart among the tables with boyish glee, eyeing $35 bearded geckos, $250 rhino iguanas, and $100 albino pythons. Breeders exchange gossip along with snakes and lizards -- mostly tiny snakes displayed in plastic petri dishes, which may one day grow to six, eight, or twelve feet and become the moms and pops to long lines of serpent babies. Most of the breeders have done business with Mike Van Nostrand -- he buys their surplus offspring and sells them new breeding pairs -- but few have much good to say about the man.

    "Van Nostrand's a scumbag," offers one barrel-chested breeder. "If he goes back to jail, that would be an accomplishment."

    "We think of them as 'Sickly Reptiles,'" adds a collector, referring to the way the company crams dozens of reptiles one on top of the other in storage bins at its warehouse.

    Beard, who has bought and sold from Strictly over the years, offers a less venomous assessment. "They've been responsible for bringing in a tremendous amount of new things that breeders wouldn't otherwise have," he says. "There are a lot of great animals in collections and zoos because of these people."

    However breeders view importers like Strictly, the two groups are intrinsically at odds on a purely economic level. Breeders depend on the rarity of a foreign country's native stock to drive up the prices of their captive-born offspring, while importers depend on the availability (legal or otherwise) of foreign-born animals. Under CITES, Australia, for instance, has long been closed to all wildlife exports, rare and common alike, which benefits breeders by driving prices through the roof for captive-bred species tracing their lineage to an Australian born great-grandparent. Smuggling, or a change in import-export regulations (which are constantly evolving), can alter price structures dramatically, enriching smugglers -- they buy cheap from impoverished natives -- while driving breeders out of business.

    "Importers screw with breeders," says Ron St. Pierre, a well-known Loxahatchee breeder of snakes and lizards, who has perfected a bright red boa mutation he calls a blood boa. "I was breeding rhino iguanas, which are endangered and really rare, and people started smuggling them in. And all of a sudden they are all over the place and they are selling them for a third of what I'm producing them for."

    It was one such attempt to dominate the market in a single species in 1997 that led to Strictly's downfall. Special Agent Bepler began investigating the company more than five years ago, after its name kept coming up when reptile-toting travelers were arrested at Miami International Airport. Though the amateur smugglers told investigators they intended to unload their animals at Strictly, there was never any evidence tying them directly to the company.

    Among those arrested as Strictly suppliers was Thomas Hough, a missionary from Peru caught at the airport in February 1995 with a suitcase full of live snakes -- 13 red-tailed boas and a green anaconda he had collected in the Amazon rain forest where he worked with the Shipibo Indians. Hough told investigators he had sold reptiles to Strictly in the past and knew of other missionaries who had smuggled snakes out of Peru. Other smugglers with suspected connections to Strictly included Mauricio Coronel, an Argentine spider-expert caught in 1993 toting $25,000 worth of snakes, spiders, frogs, and tortoises; and Manuel Frade, arrested coming off a flight from Venezuela in 1994 when inspectors noticed the jeans in his suitcase were squirming -- he had stuffed 14 young boas inside his pant legs. "Mike would take everything," says Bepler. "He was known as a guy who would pay clean, take big loads, and not ask any questions. He would take everything so you wouldn't give it to somebody else. He dominated the field by having what no one else had."

    Bepler says a lot of obviously smuggled species wound up on Strictly's price list. "I'd get competitors calling me up and saying, 'How the hell did he get hold of that,'" he says. "When I'd ask Mike about the animals, he would just look me in the eye, and I would kind of feel like he was laughing at me. He'd been getting away with smuggling for so long that he believed nothing could ever happen to him. Unfortunately once the animal's in the country, it's nearly impossible to prove where it came from."

    The break Bepler had been waiting for came in late 1995, when Dutch police investigating reptile smuggling through the Netherlands notified the U.S. Department of Justice that they had wiretapped conversations involving an American reptile importer named Michael Van Nostrand. The intercepted phone calls revealed a complex multinational plot to launder through Europe frilled dragons from Indonesia, lizards that, when threatened, flare the enormous frilled flap around their heads Jurassic Park-style. (The lizard was in fact used as the model for the spitting dinosaur featured in Steven Spielberg's movie). At the time the creatures, captive-bred in limited numbers, were selling for as much as $800 apiece. (They now sell for less than half that price.) The plot involved a company named Hasco, a Strictly supplier that is one of the largest exporters in Southeast Asia. Hasco would ship the lizards to middlemen in the Netherlands who would relabel the shipments as captive-bred in Europe and then forward them to Van Nostrand in Florida. Court documents accuse him of designing the plot in order to corner the market in frilled dragons.

    After a two-year investigation spurred by the Dutch tip, Van Nostrand pleaded guilty in October 1997 to reptile-smuggling charges and was ordered to spend eight months in prison and to pay nearly $250,000 to the World Wildlife Fund for preservation efforts in the Lorentz Nature Reserve on Irian Jaya, home to the Indonesian frilled dragon. He avoided harsher penalties by following the example of his father, an ex-con and former federal witness who helped put one of Miami's biggest drug traffickers away in the late '80s. The junior Van Nostrand, in this case the big fish, saved himself by helping federal prosecutors build cases against a string of low-level smuggling associates -- men like Dwayne Cunningham of Pembroke Pines and Robert Lawracy of West Palm Beach. The pair of cruise-ship workers -- Lawracy was a dive master, Cunningham an onboard entertainer -- face trial later this month on charges they smuggled Caribbean reptiles, including red-footed tortoises stolen from a zoo on the island of Curaçao and prized Exuma Island rock iguanas snatched from their Bahamas habitat with noose poles, for sale to Van Nostrand and Central Florida importer Tom Crutchfield.

    A full decade before Mike Van Nostrand went to jail, his father, Ray, had been in the less enviable position of being the little fish ratting out the big fish, in this case a brutal drug trafficker named Mario Tabraue, who was believed to have dismembered both his ex-wife and a federal informant. Ray, far more of a reptile aficionado than his oldest son -- he got his start in the reptile business working at a pet shop near the Bronx Zoo in the '60s -- spent much of the '80s managing the reptile portion of Zoological Imports in Miami, Tabraue's exotic-animal import business. The company, largely a front for marijuana and cocaine trafficking, brought in enormous quantities of drugs, along with a zoo's worth of wild creatures, including monkeys, tigers, and giraffes. When FBI agents shut down Tabraue's operation in 1987, concluding an investigation dubbed "Operation Cobra," Van Nostrand helped the government build the case against his boss. Tabraue got 100 years. Van Nostrand got one.

    This was neither the first nor the last time the drug trade and the wildlife business have crossed paths. A study conducted five years ago by the Endangered Species Project, a San Francisco nonprofit, found that more than two-thirds of the cocaine seized in 1993 involved wildlife imports. That same year Miami customs inspectors, concluding "Operation Cocaine Constrictor," nabbed a shipment of 305 boa constrictors with unusually large bulges in their bellies. The snakes, it was discovered, had had cocaine-filled condoms stuffed up their rectums. Only 63 survived.

    "The source countries for a lot of endangered species are often the same as for drugs," explains Sam LaBudde, one of the authors of the 1994 Endangered Species Project report. "There is a logistical reason why drugs and animals are lumped together. It's very easy to get wildlife products into the country. If you're shipping something that says it's full of snakes it's easy to put in a false bottom filled with cocaine. We found there was a 5 percent chance of wildlife being inspected by customs, and if you are shipping drugs and rare animals together, you're making money on both ends."

    While Ray was in prison, 21-year-old Mike Van Nostrand, intent on putting his father's import connections to good use, started Strictly Reptiles in a small storefront in Davie. The ambitious young heir to his father's reptile business turned out to be a shrewd entrepreneur with a good head for business, and the company quickly flourished. What part smuggling paid in Van Nostrand's success is unclear, but prosecutors say it was substantial. "The illegal trade tends to be the most lucrative," says Tom Watts-Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor who worked the younger Van Nostrand's case. "The profit margins are far greater."

    In the decade Van Nostrand spent building Strictly Reptiles into one of the largest import and wholesale operations in the country, he bought reptiles from more than a dozen people later charged with smuggling, among them a number of individuals also connected to the second largest importer in Florida, Tom Crutchfield of Bushnell. Prosecutors say Crutchfield, who pled guilty to a long list of smuggling charges early last month, after being expelled from the Central American country of Belize, isn't likely to get off as easily as Van Nostrand. The importer was convicted of reptile smuggling in 1992 for bringing in endangered Fiji banded iguanas and added evasion to the latest round of charges when he fled the country in the spring of 1997. Prior to going to work for Norwegian Cruise Lines, accused smuggler Dwayne Cunningham was a manager at Crutchfield's reptile business. According to court documents between 1992 and 1996, Cunningham, working with former San Diego pet shop owner Robert Lawracy and a pair of German reptile-smugglers from Frankfurt, sold contraband animals -- more than 200 tortoises, three dozen iguanas, and 75 boa constrictors -- to both Crutchfield and Van Nostrand. Many of those animals wound up for sale at Van Nostrand's booth at the 1995 International Reptile Expo, the largest reptile show in the world, held every August in Orlando.

    Also implicated in the Crutchfield case is a man Fish and Wildlife claims is the world's biggest dealer in endangered animals, a Malaysian businessman named Anson Wong, who had evaded U.S. law enforcement for years by, government sources say, operating with the tacit approval of the Malaysian government and avoiding countries with extradition treaties with the United States. Wong, one of the principal targets in a four-year government sting dubbed "Operation Chameleon," was picked up last September in Mexico City and transported to San Francisco to stand trial, charged with smuggling -- in large legal shipments and by using Federal Express -- more than 300 illegal animals valued at nearly half a million dollars.

    Fish and Wildlife agents nailed the wily smuggler -- he had eluded them for almost six years -- by setting up a phony wildlife business near San Francisco called PacRim Enterprises, which was purportedly interested in purchasing three of the world's most endangered creatures: Komodo dragons from Indonesia, plowshare tortoises from Madagascar (allegedly stolen from a breeding project on the island), and tuataras (lizardlike animals) from New Zealand. These rare animals have an estimated black-market value as high as $30,000 apiece. Wong was arrested after he flew to Mexico City for a meeting with agents posing as PacRim representatives. Although Van Nostrand was never charged in connection with Wong's illegal activities, government sources say the two had done business together over the years.

    Mike Van Nostrand has thus far been the biggest South Florida target to fall prey to what those in the reptile trade say has been a marked increase in government scrutiny, but he was not the first local importer to topple. Retired Deerfield Beach importer Rian Gittman was arrested two years before federal agents came knocking on the doors of his mentor's warehouse.

    Gittman, an adrenaline junkie and former loan collector from Queens who used his fists to extract money from deadbeats, is now a self-proclaimed "Jesus freak." At a Denny's down the street from Underground Reptiles, his Deerfield shop, he polishes off a slice of chocolate pie while recalling his rapid rise as a reptile importer. He wears a big smile and a maroon T-shirt bearing a silhouette of Jesus Christ with the words CEO JC Sportswear. "It was the early '90s," he recalls. "I sat in Mike and Ray's office and I said, 'Man, Fish and Wildlife will have to smack me right out of the sky, because right now I'm a meteorite.' I wanted to smuggle as many animals as I could, as much as I could. As far as I was concerned, whatever it was I wanted to get it in, I didn't care. I didn't know anybody who had real trouble. I figured if I get caught, what are you going to do -- slap me on the wrist, make me pay a fine? I had no idea what federal court was about."

    Gittman, already an amateur snake collector, had moved to South Florida from New York when he was in his early twenties, his departure hastened by a brush with death in which a hired killer stuck a revolver in his mouth and then opted to spare his life. After working a series of odd jobs, he met Mike and Ray Van Nostrand in 1990. Someone had recommended Strictly Reptiles as a good place to unload the snakes he had started collecting from the tall grasses of the Everglades. "The first time I went down there, I sold them some stuff, and they helped me package my first shipment that I sent to another guy," recalls Gittman. Around that same time, Gittman met a wild Australian reptile smuggler named Euan Edwards, a scruffy adventurer with a backpack on his back and no shoes on his feet. Edwards became Gittman's first employee.

    Under the tutelage of Mike and Ray Van Nostrand -- for a while Gittman says he rented a bathroom as an office at the Strictly warehouse -- Gittman acquired enough knowledge, of both the legal and illegal trades, to strike out on his own. In 1994 he opened the Reptile Service, his own reptile import business in Deerfield Beach and with Edwards' help began bringing in thousands of snakes, lizards, turtles, and tortoises. Edwards became Gittman's globetrotter, braving malaria, dysentery, and Third World wars in order to track down suppliers and teach them how to properly pack shipments, both legal and illegal. His duties also included making sure payoffs -- for securing legitimate export permits -- made their way into the hands of the right foreign government officials. "In this country we think of payoffs as illegal," says Gittman. "But in other countries it's just the way they do business. Now you can't have an American guy go pay off a guy, but you give money to an Egyptian and he gives the money to another Egyptian and all of a sudden you've got your permits. That's the live-animal business; that's the way it goes."

    Mike Ellard, owner of Burgundy Reptiles in Fort Myers, takes government payoffs one step further. Traveling on his own, he visits countries that are closed to exports under CITES and "lobbies" government officials to allow him to start sending out the first legal shipments of a given species. "You tell them how much you want to take out and that you are not going to be detrimental to the population," says Ellard, adding that many countries are arbitrarily closed to live-animal exports, even when a given species may not be endangered. "Paraguay was closed, and I got the first shipments out last year. The only problem is that, once you open a place up, within six or eight months, everybody's jumped in."

    Gittman and Edwards rarely bothered waiting for a country to open up before sending out protected animals. Instead they devised ingenious new ways to get contraband reptiles past customs, including constructing false bottoms in crates of legitimate shipments and, over the course of a year's worth of mislabeled shipments, bringing in many times their quota of legal animals. (Many legal species, including iguanas, have annual import caps.) One year, for instance, Gittman brought in almost 200,000 baby iguanas -- they come in bags of 100 -- exceeding his 40,000 cap almost five times and in the process undercutting competitors who comply with shipping restrictions.

    Along with smuggling, Gittman, who had invested in an iguana farm in El Salvador, discovered another, less dangerous means of increasing his profit margins: naming his own species. "I was getting in these blue iguanas," he recalls. "I changed the name. Instead of iguanas, I called them Blue Jewels, and I charged $2 more for each iguana. It worked. Every once in a while, we'd get a batch of iguanas that were electric blue because maybe the breeder fed them different food or something, and so we'd call them Electric Blue and sell them for $20 each."

    In the end none of those schemes really mattered. "Rule number one on the street is you can't beat the government," says Gittman of the federal investigation that led to his downfall. "You can't win. They have too much money; they print it."

    In 1995 Gittman was charged with smuggling American alligators across state lines and bringing in East African pancake tortoises hidden in false bottoms in legal shipments. "Prosecutors were out for blood," says Gittman of the ten-year sentence they tried to stick him with. "I mean it was just animals." He got a year in jail and, not faring as well as his old friend Mike Van Nostrand, lost his import business altogether.

    Today Gittman is strictly legal, doing brisk business handing out Bibles while hawking all sorts of herps in clean, well-lit cages at his retail stores in Deerfield and Coral Springs. "I'm a sold-out Jesus Freak now," he says. "I'm not interested in anything else, I don't have anything else I live for. I wake up in the morning and ask God what he has planned for me."

    Mike Van Nostrand, on the other hand -- out of prison and working long hours to recoup his losses -- is still dealing in enormous quantities of live reptiles and amphibians, both imported and captive-bred. As a show of good faith, he helped the government put together a sting not long ago that nabbed a 22-year-old Slovenian trying to get his start as a tortoise smuggler by bringing in, stuffed in socks, 49 baby Hermann's tortoises from Eastern Europe and offering them to Strictly. The smuggler went to jail, Van Nostrand got his home confinement reduced, and the tortoises were banished north, to the Fish and Wildlife evidence compound.

    Contact Jay Cheshes at his e-mail address: Jay_Cheshes@newtimesbpb.com

    http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVe rsion/129250

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  • 2 years ago
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• Great Cat Adventures Scam Great Cat Adventures Scam

  • From: PatCuvie
  • Description:

    Oct. 17, 2007 This will be my first post for this site I guess you can say. My life has been very interesting. About 4 months ago there was a traveling exhibit that came through Quincy and was at the Quincy Mall. They travel with their exotic cats offering the chance to have your picture taken with a baby tiger, and supposedly trying to raise as much money as they can for their new wildlife center in Atoka, Oklahoma. They were looking for travelling help and I inquired and got hired. They travelled all over the country to malls and fairs and such. I was telling the public that they have 110 acres and they are trying to finalize the deal on this land and that they are going to build the largest tiger habitats in the country. I was told to say that the San Diego and Disney Wildlife centers have about 1 to 2 acres for their exotic cats. But that is all lies. I looked it up when I got home and talked to several different people. They have about 10 acres per enclosure, depending on the size of the pride or group of cats, and also on the breed of animal. I didn’t find out until later that everything that they were saying and what I was telling the public were all lies. They lie for the sake of entertainment. Everything is a lie and they don’t think that the will catch up with them in the end but it will. For instance, the bossman Jay Riggs, tells us that about 25% of all of the white tigers in the world were born at his facilities. He says that all of the white tigers at Tiger Island are his. He says that all of the white tigers at the Disney Wildlife center are his. LIES!! ALL LIES!!

    
    
    One of the lies that he tells the public during his educational show is that the white tigers were extinct for about 200 some odd years and the first one was spotted in 1951 and captured and became the grandfather to all white tigers today. I do not dispute that, but there were white tigers spotted and captured before 1951.

    
    
    There were 8 cases of white tigers in Rewa State between 1909 and 1959. These were recorded in palace diaries and included a 2 year-old male captured near Sohagpur in December 1915 and kept for some years in captivity. The Maharajah Gulab Singh of Rewa captured this young male white tiger in December 1915 and it lived in captivity at his summer palace in Govindgarh until 1920 after which it was stuffed and presented to George V as a token of loyalty (it may still be in the British Museum today). HE Scott of the Indian Police described that animal in December 1920 in a Miscellaneous Note in the ay Natural History Society’s Journal. There was also a fine specimen of a white tigress in the Calcutta Zoo in 1920. The Maharaja of Rewa shot a white tigress in 1937. In 1946 a pregnant white tigress was shot by the Administrator and the six unborn cubs were described as white though this was not substantiated. The Maharaja shot a white tiger in 1947, the last white tiger to be shot in the Rewa area.

    
    
    The earliest known photograph of a live white tiger comes from the Journal of the ay Natural History Society (JBNHS), from pg. 932 from No. 4, Vol. XXVII (1921) about the white tiger captured by the Maharaja of Rewa in 1915. The article was published in 1921 although the tiger died in 1920. An earlier photo of a white tiger in the JBNHS is of one shot around 1910 as part of the article “An Albino Tiger From The Central Provinces” and is briefly referred to in this later article.If the white tigers were extinct for about 200 some odd years, and the first one was captured in 1951, how is all of this possible?He also beats his wife Jamie Palazzo. She is so scared that she wont say anything. She has battered wife syndrome. He doesn’t leave marks that I can see, but he beats her because I saw him do it. He told me that he did it, but then told me that he was joking. They neglect their children. They don’t watch them, and then when they can’t find their children, the bitch at the employees for not watching the children. He threatens his employees all of the time. Everything that he says and does is a lie. And it is hard to determine what is truth and what is lies that comes out of his hole excuse for a mouth.

    
    
    Jay Riggs thinks that he can scare me into doing whatever he wants me to. He threatens his employees into making them do what he wants them to, but not me. No! No! I wrote a blog telling the truth, and he told me to remove it or take out their names and expects me to do it. HA!! I no longer work for him, and he doesn’t scare me. I didn’t change anything or remove it. He can threaten all he wants to. He says that if I don’t keep my mouth shut about what went on, he will tell the police that I was fired for use, and that I stole all kinds of merchandise from his exhibit and was selling it on the Midway of the Oklahoma State Fair Grounds. I didn’t do it cause he doesn’t scare me anymore. When I quit, I was in Oklahoma City and I was stranded. I was staying in a hotel with 2 of the other employees, and he wouldn’t let them take me to the hotel. He told me that I can find my own way there. The hotel was 4 miles from the State Fair Grounds. That was bull. Any ways, this is my first blog post for Politics and Youtube in Review. My next post will be here pretty soon.

    
    
    Stacy Nov. 15, 2007 I use to work for this FRAUD, he travels around the country with up to 14 tigers in a horse trailer, He does not even own land with a cage on it. When he is done using the cats to make money with them he pawns them off on other parks and sancturaries. I know for a fact he buys all the baby tigers and most of the white ones come from Amarillo Wildlife Refuge in Amarillo TX. He gives $5,000.00 for a single cub but turns around and makes 60,000.00 on it taking photos and lieing to people that he rescues them. he makes his employees who are not trained to walk into a horse trailer to feed 14 cats at one time babysite all of his kids. Someone is going to die on his crew as he cant keep help and it is so dangerous to have untraided people feeding big cats in a horse trailer. Also when we trvel from place to place the animals go hours without food and water. Some times we drive all day and night without stopping to check on them one time. Never do they call a vet to help a sick one. IF you ever see Great Cat Adventures out in the public, do not support them as it is all LIES

    
    
    Animal_Voices Dec. 12, 2007 I think I spoke to you at The Shoppes at Grand Prairie, Peoria, IL.Thank you for posting this blogg. I know you tell the truth.

    
    
    
    Melissa_Medina May 2, 2008 It’s interesting to read this… I am in the process of finding a facility where I can take my wife — she always wanted to pet a tiger. The place you used to worked seemed like the ideal place to go. This doesn’t seem the case anymore. Do you have any suggestions as to where else I can go? Thanks

    
    
    Billy January 13, 2008 I have had experiences with Jay also. I have seen him lie about the ages of cats to prolong public contact. I have seen him offer more hands on work with the tigers to the young females willing to join him in the evening.

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
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• Lion Re-Union Debunked Lion Re-Union Debunked

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:
    From: Big Cat Rescue's website: We never ceased to be amazed at how quickly a stupid idea is spread around. If you have had Internet access for more than a week, you have probably had someone send you a link to a 1971 video clip of two guys hugging a lion that they raised as a pet and then sent to Africa when they couldn't play with him anymore. The people passing this around obviously know nothing about big cats, or they could see that in the re-union featured below, the male is still a kitten (hardly any mane) so despite his large size, his brain is still that of a dependent cub. Most of the big cats you see in circus acts, road side petting booths and night club acts are under the age of five because they look big to the public, but have not fully developed mentally. Passing this video around is a bad idea for a number of reasons. It perpetuates the nonsense that people can have a bond with the king of beasts, just like with their dog. It encourages people to buy these magnificent animals or buy the right to touch one, which only fuels the trade. As long as people will pay, there will be people who will breed more big cats to live miserable lives of confinement and deprivation. If someone sends the video clip to you, please send them to this page so that we can stop the viral marketing of a campaign that is designed only to cause suffering and pain. The following is what is known of the story behind the clip. The British documentary ?Christian the Lion? is a fascinating example of life imitating art. In this case, the art was the 1966 film classic ?Born Free? starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. That film was based on the real-life story of George and Joy Adamson and their successful efforts to re-introduce an orphaned lion into the wilderness. (What most people do not know is that Elsa didn't live long on her own due to the fact that is impossible for a person to teach a big cat everything they need to know to survive without the cat coming to not have a healthy fear of going near people.) ?Christian the Lion? found Travers and McKenna in an advanced case of déjà vu. In 1970, they were shopping for a desk and ventured into the World?s End furniture store on the King?s Road in London. The store managers, the Australian duo John Rendall and Ace Berg, recognized Travers and decided to show him the store?s mascot: a young lion. Rendall and Berg had purchased the lion from the Harrod?s department store a year earlier and were raising him on their own. But, of course, a furniture store is no place to keep a lion ? and the combined salaries of two furniture store managers were barely keeping the animal fed. Travers and McKenna, who had become highly visible as animal rights activists following the success of ?Born Free,? realized that the lion could not be kept as a domestic pet. And selling him to a zoo seemed like a cruel idea ? zoo design was still fairly primitive in the early 1970s and imprisoning a majestic lion in a stark cage was a ghastly notion. Thus, Travers and McKenna decided to reprise their ?Born Free? odyssey and called on George Adamson for an unlikely plan: to bring the London lion to Africa and teach him how to be a wild animal at home with nature. (Joy Adamson had separated from her husband in 1970 and, thus, was not a part of this venture.) Travers and McKenna also decided to record this story as a documentary. The resulting ?Christian the Lion? actually gets off on a bit of a strange opening, with a clumsy recreation of the actors? initial discovery of Christian. For starters, the sound is badly out-of-sync ? watching the opening sequence is disconcerting, as it is easy to assume the production is an amateur outing. Even worse, the facts have been trimmed to the bone. Contrary to the film?s assertion, Christian?s presence was not a surprise to everyone ? the lion was actually something of a minor celebrity in London before Travers and McKenna showed up, and it was even featured in a fashion advertising campaign. Furthermore, the film ignores Rendall and Berg?s respective girlfriends, who helped in the care and maintenance of Christian. Rendall also wrote a book called ?A Lion Called Christian,? but that?s not cited here. After that initial clumsy segment is over, ?Christian the Lion? finds its traction and is presented as a real-time, real-life adventure. Travers and McKenna invited Christian and his owners to live with them while arrangements are made to transport him to Africa. They took the lion on outings for a spot of exercise ? a romp in a closed-off church courtyard (with the vicar watching nervously from behind a curtained window) and a visit to the beach. The latter trip might have prompted the inclusion of the old British music hall ditty ?Oh, We Do Like to be Beside the Seaside,? but instead the film?s score is provided in hippy-dippy melodies by the English folk-rockers Pentangle. Getting Christian to Kenya required a great deal of negotiations with the Kenyan government (obviously they had enough lions and weren?t eager to import one from England). Travers and McKenna, who alternate as narrators of the film, mention in passing that dealing with the Kenyan authorities took more time and energy than they expected. Nonetheless, they are able to get Christian transported to Kenya and into the care of George Adamson?s game reserve. The remainder of the film follows Adamson?s efforts to integrate Christian into his new surroundings. That first involved introducing him to other lions ? up until this point, Christian lived exclusively with human company. Adamson tried to create a new pride of lions consisting of Christian and three other orphaned animals: the female Katania, the frisky tyke Super Cub, and a male lion named Boy who took an immediate dislike to Christian. However, once Boy and Christian determined the pecking order among them (Boy won the Alpha Male spot), the two became happy blokes. Adamson?s next challenge was getting this new pride to take care of itself in the wild. The lions had to learn to hunt and to defend themselves from other lions that roamed Adamson?s preserve. Did Christian and his new family make it in the wild (if you can call the preserve, the wild)? If so, how long? Does anyone know? There is a sequence late in the film that will soften even the most cynical of hard-hearts. The finds McKenna at a zoo in Amsterdam, where she has located Christian?s parents. The two lions are locked in a small, bare cage with a concrete floor. They pace endlessly and monotonously back and forth. It is tragic to behold these beautiful animals in such cruel captivity, and the viewer knows the beasts will never experience the chance for freedom that their offspring experienced. Details on the production history for ?Christian the Lion? are somewhat difficult to track down. Some sources list the film as a 1971 production, others claim it was from 1976. One online source states the film was produced in conjunction with Rendall?s book, which came out in 1972, so that would probably put the film?s production closer to the earlier date. Also, a recent article in the Daily Mail outlines a 1974 reunion between Christian and his London buddies, but that meeting also included Christian?s lioness and cubs. There is no mention of this in the film, so I would assume the production wrapped in 1971 (it would seem peculiar to leave this post-script from the film). 1976 most likely reflects the year the film played in the U.S. The film also has something of a problem with its name. The original British title was ?The Lion at World?s End,? a reference to the London neighborhood where Christian was raised. However, that reference had no meaning outside of the U.K., so the film was given a new title for its American release: ?The Lion Who Thought He Was People.? The film?s U.S. distributor, Scotia American, created a poster with Christian wearing big round eyeglasses ? making him look like the leonine equivalent of the cartoon canine Mr. Peabody. Of course, that title was even worse than the original, and the film was renamed ?Christian the Lion? for its U.S. and global distribution. In the U.K., it is now called ?Christian ? The Lion at World?s End.? There are also a few sources that insist ?The Lion at World?s End? and ?Christian the Lion? are two different movies. That is not the case. Scotia American went out of business in the mid-1970s and nobody seems to be claiming the film?s U.S. rights. Several distributors who specialize in public domain titles have been offering faded, muddy prints of ?Christian the Lion? on home video and DVD.
  • 2 years ago
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• Tiger Cubs Selling in Wal-Mart Tiger Cubs Selling in Wal-Mart Lot

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Video - http://www.yahoo.com/s/901244
    
    Below is an article I fond in the McAllen, TX, newspaper:
    
    http://monitortx.onset.freedom.com /common/printer/view.php?db=monitortx&id=13216
    
    ######
    
    Police investigate sale of tigers in Wal-Mart parking lot
    Ryan Holeywell
    June 15, 2008 - 3:51PM
    
    McALLEN - Police and federal authorities are investigating the sale of
    six Bengal tiger cubs in a Wal-Mart parking lot Sunday afternoon.
    
    The animals appear to have been bound for Mexico and neither the buyer
    nor seller had the permits needed to legally transport the endangered
    species across national borders, a federal agent said.
    
    A group from Spring Hill Wildlife Ranch in Bryan was selling the cubs
    - four white ones and two orange ones - in the parking lot of the
    Wal-Mart near Jackson Avenue and Expressway 83.
    
    Authorities believe the Spring Hill employees were selling the tigers
    to a pre-arranged buyer via an intermediary, and that the animals'
    final destination would be in Mexico.
    
    "The people who were picking up the tigers and taking possession of
    them... were Mexican nationals in a Mexico-licensed vehicle," said
    Special Agent Alejandro Rodriguez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
    Service. He said tigers have been smuggled into Mexico through the Rio
    Grande Valley before.
    
    Rodriguez said some people involved in the transaction said the tigers
    were to be taken to a Mexico City zoo, while others said they would be
    going to Roma.
    
    Under federal law, it's illegal to transport an endangered species
    across national borders unless both buyer and seller have what is
    known as a CITES permit.
    
    Those involved in the transaction could face federal conspiracy
    charges if authorities determine the animals were, in fact, Mexico-bound.
    
    Police said ranch employees were selling the white cubs for $5,500 per
    animal, and the orange ones for $900 per animal. The buyers' vehicle
    lacked air conditioning, police said, which also raised concern about
    the animals' safety.
    
    Rodriguez said the cubs are healthy and would be transported to the
    Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville as authorities continue their
    investigation.
    
    The orange tigers are about 10 weeks old, Rodriguez said, and the
    white ones are about two weeks old.
    
    Rodriguez said it appears Spring Hill has sold tigers in the Rio
    Grande Valley at least two other times in the last 18 months.
    
    Police arrested the co-owner of Spring Hill Wildlife Ranch for
    interfering with public duties, authorities said.
    
    The woman, whose name police have not released, attempted to barricade
    herself in the truck containing the tigers after Monitor staff began
    photographing the animals from the parking lot. She is expected to be
    arraigned Monday.
    
    Two people who had been questioned by the police about the transaction
    declined to comment on the case to The Monitor.
    
    Police learned of the transaction when a McAllen Police Department
    patrol officer became suspicious of the truck with Mexican license
    plates in the Wal-Mart parking lot, police said.
    
    When the officer approached, the group moved to the parking lot of the
    nearby Mervyn's department store, prompting him to follow and
    ultimately discover the tiger cubs.
    
    "The basic premise of this transaction in a parking lot - it doesn't
    seem right," said McAllen Police Sgt. Eddie De La Rosa.
    
    Bengal tigers can grow to 9 feet long and weight more than 550 pounds.
    There are about 2,000 Bengal tigers living in the wild. The cats can
    be found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal.
    
    Jerry Stones, facilities director at Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville,
    said Bengal tigers are an endangered species. There are thousands of
    large cats including tigers, leopards and lions owned privately - and
    legally -in Texas, Stones said.
    
    He said he thinks some tiger owners may not realize the effort that
    goes into caring for the cats. "They buy them as babies," Stones said.
    "They don't realize it's going to get to be hundreds of pounds, eat an
    awful lot of food and become dangerous."
    
    ___
    
    Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA, the Mid-Valley and general assignments for
    The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446

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  • 2 years ago
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• Mike the Tiger at LSU Mike the Tiger at LSU

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Big Cat Rescue Letter to LSU Vet

    Dear David,

    I am sorry to hear of the death of the LSU tiger. Even more disappointed to hear of your plans to replace the tiger with a cub. Living creatures should not be used as props for our entertainment. Tigers are creatures of amazing strength, their symbolism is magnificent. As part of an accredited university, I would think that you would be up to par on the attitudes of the new generation regarding the life of these magnificent animals in captivity.

    Tigers in the wild roam territories that expand hundreds of miles. Life in captivity is an unjust jail sentence. A one acre cage does not even compare to a 400 square mile territory. These animals are predators, existing only to do what their instincts tell them. They are hunters, always on the prowl, protecting their territory and keeping nature in balance.

    By filling your empty cage with a cub, you are just perpetuating animal abuse. A tiger in a cage serves no purpose for conservation of the species. A tiger in a cage is just a prop, for your own entertainment. Entertainment at the expense of many lives. There are hundreds of adult tigers in need of homes because people unwittingly acquired them as cubs and realized later that they did not have the means to care for such an animal. If you wanted to do something for the species, you would offer sanctuary to one of these soon to be euthanized animals. You might only purchase one cub, but what fate did the littermates suffer? Any buying, selling, or trading of animals creates a market for them, leading more and more animals who suffer injustices.

    Not only are there many unwanted adults, but the problem of discarded cubs is often even greater. Tigers are bred for entertainment, only a very small percentage of tigers that are born can actually be used for this purpose. Most are exploited as cubs, put on public display as cute and cuddly babies. As they grow, which happens very quickly, they become unmanageable and are no longer of use. Zoos sell them to brokers, who sell them to the public to be pets, breeders, targeted in canned hunts, or killed and harvested for their parts.

    An accredited zoo would not offer you one of their tiger cubs. Their animals are registered to participate in species survival plans. Their genes are necessary for their species preservation efforts. The only places that would offer you a tiger cub for sale are back yard breeders and pseudo-sanctuaries who breed to make a profit, not help the species.

    There are no tiger cubs born to real sanctuaries. Sanctuaries are here to clean up the mess created by irresponsible breeding. People acquire tigers as cubs, then realize within the first year that they can not take care of such a creature. The mission of a true sanctuary is education. Through education, we can stop the suffering and abuse of animals, as well as create conservation efforts.

    Please take a moment to research your decision. The attitudes of this generation are ever evolving, thus you will find that society no longer supports the use of tigers as props.

    www.BigCatRescue.org/lawsbigcatbans.htm
    
    For the cats,

    Tiffany Deavor 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 MakeADifference@BigCatRescue.org

  • Blog post
  • 2 years ago
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• Zoo Animals Sold to Public Zoo Animals Sold to Public

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    How some of America's best zoos get rid of their old, infirm, and unwanted animals
    By Michael Satchell

    Deep amid the weeds and trash alongside Interstate 35, rusty cages and flimsy wire enclosures hold what's left of a former roadside zoo: six primates, three or four New Guinea singing dogs, a few exotic birds, and several African meerkats. The saddest residents are two rare white-handed gibbons, small apes listed as an endangered species. But the male-female pair is imperiled for another reason. They are the neglected castoffs from one of the nation's top wildlife institutions, the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, N.Y.
    
    The two gibbons were discovered by a reporter one recent broiling day in a filthy cage with no water and a few scraps of rotten fruit. Their plight points to a little-known practice by some of the nation's premier zoos: dumping surplus, old, or infirm animals into a vast, poorly regulated-and often highly profitable-network of substandard, "roadside" zoos and wildlife dealers who supply hunting ranches and the exotic-pet trade.
    
    Though these small zoos, along with traveling circuses and other animal shows, are licensed and inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, their inhabitants often exist in cramped compounds and tiny cages with poor protection from the elements, marginal food, and spotty veterinary care. They typically get little psychological enrichment beyond a tire swing, a plastic ball, and a few dead tree branches. Half crazy from boredom and lack of exercise, the highly social primates and cooped-up predators often mutilate themselves and spend hours pacing to and fro and biting the bars of their cages. With summer in full swing and people staying closer to home, Americans are flocking to the nation's big zoos. There are 205 such facilities accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and they attract some 135 million people a year - 6 million more than attend major-league sporting events. Most of these zoos provide spacious natural habitats and expert care. But when animals begin to age and become less attractive, and curators have to make room for the spring crop of new babies, many big zoos give the old-timers the bum's rush. "Dumping animals," says Richard Farinato, head of captive wildlife protection for the Humane Society of the United States, "is the big, respectable zoos' dirty little secret."
    
    Zoos accredited by the AZA must abide by a code of ethics restricting animal transfers to other AZA members or to unaccredited zoos with the "expertise, records management capabilities, financial stability, and facilities required to properly care" for the animals. But a U.S. News investigation found that even some of the nation's most highly regarded zoos violate those mandates through transfers, sales, and loans of exotic animals to substandard zoos and to private animal breeders and dealers.
    
    The magazine's inquiry is based on an examination of the tightly restricted, interzoo International Species Information System database, which tracks transfers of 129 species of mammals, as well as interviews with dozens of state and federal regulators, zoo employees, and animal welfare activists. Records show that some leading AZA members-including zoos in Washington, D.C.; the Bronx; San Diego; Honolulu; Memphis; Atlanta; Denver; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Buffalo; Phoenix; Montgomery, Ala.; and Kansas City, Mo.-have shipped mammals and exotic birds to roadside zoos that were below AZA standards. Some have also provided animals to dealers who reportedly sell to private hunting ranches, animal auctions, and exotic-pet owners.
    
    Besides the AZA rules, a 1966 law passed by Congress specifies care, feeding, and other requirements for the treatment of exotic animals and mandates that the Department of Agriculture enforce the statute. But a reporter and photographer who visited more than two dozen small zoos around the nation found a pattern of callous treatment and government neglect. Some examples: Four big cats died after the USDA recommended their owner place his two cougars, four tigers, two adult lions, and a young lion in Don and Dee's Exotic Zoo, a roadside facility in Manson, Iowa. The cougars died, apparently from malnutrition, and Steven Bellin, a USDA veterinarian, then inspected the zoo in November 2000. U.S. News obtained copies of Bellin's inspection reports and correspondence. "All but the young lion are on concrete flooring without bedding materials of any sort," Bellin wrote. "Ambient temperature was approximately 35 degrees. . . . There was no food on the premises for the large cats. . . . [Water bowls] were filled with either frozen or brackish water, carcass materials, and/or debris. Housing arrangements, lighting, and sanitation fail to meet the minimal federal standards. All seven of the large cats . . . appear thin/gaunt and somewhat emaciated. The female African lion recently failed to eat for three days. This animal might die if not treated."
    
    Bellin gave the zoo owners six weeks to improve conditions. He apparently did not seek emergency removal of the animals or try to have the zoo closed down. A few days after his inspection, the female lion killed and ate the male. A male Bengal tiger also died after splintered turkey bones punctured its intestinal tract because it had no drinking water to flush them through its system. Before it expired, the tiger chewed its metal water bowl to pieces. "I believe [the bowl] that was torn apart . . . was a response by the animal to the deep, agonal pain [caused] by the tissue-penetrating bones," Bellin wrote. "I believe that the tiger was starving . . . and died in severe pain in the cold without a shelter or bedding." The USDA fined Don and Dee's $500 and revoked its license. The local county attorney, Ann Beneke, sought to prosecute the owners on cruelty charges but was forced to drop the case when the USDA refused to allow Bellin to testify. He failed to respond to a U.S. News interview request.
    
    Before it failed financially, the New Braunfels Zoo obtained exotic mammals and birds from several AZA zoos, including the Bronx, Washington National, San Diego, Honolulu, Buffalo, and Santa Barbara. In November 2000, eight months after one of the zoo's two owners says he quit in disgust at the animal neglect and other deteriorating conditions, it received the two white-handed gibbons from Syracuse's Rosamond Gifford Zoo. "They would have a good home and be well taken care of in a warmer climate," Anne Baker, the zoo's executive director, said in explaining the transfer. "We got two AZA references, and New Braunfels described their animal collection, their staff, and veterinary resources. We would assume there is a level of honesty."
    
    There wasn't. And Baker could have easily discovered the fact. A local U.S. Agriculture Department inspector, Elizabeth Pannill, had begun documenting many of the problems at New Braunfels and eventually filed seven detailed inspection reports. When a reporter told Baker about the declining conditions at the zoo, including the principal owner's selling loaned birds and mammals without permission, Baker replied that she had checked with Pannill and was assured that the gibbons were in good condition.

    The reporter told Baker he would visit the long-closed zoo and report back to her. "I'll be anxious to hear what you find," she said. "I'm concerned." After finding the gibbons in their filthy cage, the reporter left two telephone messages for Baker. She failed to return the calls. Pannill, the USDA inspector, was forbidden by superiors to discuss the matter, but U.S. News obtained copies of several of her E-mails. "The curator [Baker] that sent the gibbons to NBZ knows the situation out there," Pannill wrote. ". . . I have even suggested she might want to relocate them . . . [and] also told the curator of my concerns and problems. She told me they had been given to NBZ . . . so they would NOT take back. I really wonder why zoos don't ask for a copy of the last USDA report before they send animals out."
    
    Baker is the current chairman of the AZA's animal welfare committee and is scheduled to become the organization's vice president next year and to lead the organization in 2004. When she was finally reached on the New Braunfels matter, she said: "This was a bad call on my part; I will readily admit that." At the AZA-accredited Phoenix Zoo, director Jeff Williamson required non-AZA zoos and dealers to sign an agreement that his animals and their offspring would not end up "in animal auctions, canned hunts, the pet trade, invasive biomedical research, or any other situation contrary to the AZA code of ethics." In November 2000, Williamson sold 17 male ibexes-an exotic goat popular with trophy hunters-to a Texas wildlife dealer and breeder who reportedly supplies animals to hunting ranches. After U.S. News asked Williamson if he had ever checked on his ibexes, he made several attempts to reach the dealer and says his calls were ignored.
    
    After several weeks, Williamson finally received a telephone message saying the ibexes were alive, but he has been unable to verify that. The experience has moved him to change the Phoenix Zoo policy. In future, no animals will be shipped to nonaccredited zoos or any dealers, and all old or surplus animals will be retired under the zoo's jurisdiction. Says Williamson: "We are not going to get ourselves into this situation again."AZA Executive Director Sydney Butler acknowledges that member zoos have violated the ethics code in the past. "I don't think it happens anymore," he says. "People will know about these things. If it does happen, it's an innocent transaction."
    
    U.S. News showed Butler a series of American Association of Zoo Veterinarians inspection certificates that document AZA zoos' shipping of mammals and exotic birds to roadside zoos that fall below AZA standards and to dealers who reportedly supply animals to the exotic animal underground. Butler replied: "We always try to improve." Even leading AZA members acknowledge the organization has done a poor job of enforcing its animal-transfer code. "Reputable zoos have written policies saying animals won't go to anything other than an AZA institution," says Ron Kagan, director of the Detroit Zoological Institute. "Numerous animals born in our institutions have . . . ended up in circuses, breeders, or private hands. We can't undo the past, but we can be a part of the solution."
    
    The inherent weakness of allowing non-AZA disposal of surplus animals, as the Syracuse zoo's Anne Baker learned, is that a great deal must be taken on faith. Some 2,500 roadside menageries, safari parks, circuses, breeders, dealers, and other exhibitors are licensed and inspected by the USDA. But weak federal regulations and a crazy-quilt pattern of local and state wildlife laws leave only a thin skein of protection for the animals. Virtually anyone can obtain a permit to exhibit, breed, and sell exotics; no qualifications are required.
    
    Slap on the wrist: Commercial animal exhibitors, dealers, breeders, and biomedical testing labs are governed by the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. The law sets minimal standards for food storage, housing, and veterinary care. It has no cruelty statute, has weak enforcement provisions, and provides for only token fines. On the critical issue of cage size, the law stipulates only that animals must have enough room to stand, turn around, and maintain a normal posture, making it perfectly legal to keep a chimp in a broom closet or a lion in a cage the size of a powder room. For years, leading animal welfare organizations have lobbied Congress for more humane standards and tougher enforcement. "There's no aggressive investigation and no consistent follow-up," complains Cindy Carroccio, director of the Austin Zoo, an accredited sanctuary that houses unwanted or confiscated exotics. "They're scared of litigation, they don't allow their inspectors to testify even in the worst cruelty cases, and they refuse to close the bad places down."Often, it's not just a matter of will but of bodies. Last year, the USDA had fewer than 100 inspectors to keep tabs on about 9,000 licensed facilities from zoos to animal testing labs. In some years, the number of USDA inspectors has fallen as low as 64.
    
    However much the numbers fluctuate from year to year, the agency's inspectors have not exactly established a reputation for rigorous enforcement. The department does not record the number of animals it has seized or zoos it has shut down. A USDA spokesman recalled five confiscations since 1997 in the western United States involving exotic animals in roadside zoos, and just one since 1995 in the eastern region. That's about one a year, nationwide. "We are not in the business of putting people out of business," says Daniel Jones, who supervises USDA animal inspections in three states. "The courts look at it as putting a man out of his livelihood." Evidently, higher-ups at the Agriculture Department see little problem with any of this. Chester Gipson, the USDA's deputy administrator of animal-care services, declined a request by U.S. News to discuss the inspections process. His predecessor, Ron DeHaven, blamed "radical animal-rights groups" for exaggerating concerns about inadequate or abusive care of exotic animals. "We have taken very stringent enforcement actions against roadside zoos, [but] we can't be at every facility every day," he says. "It was never the intent of Congress to establish conditions [for appropriate animal care]; and for me to comment on the law is inappropriate and counterproductive to the way our system works."
    
    Auction block: The way the system works would make many of the moms and dads and their bright-eyed charges who so enjoy a trip to the local zoo blanch. In some cases, animals from big zoos pass through places like the Lolli Brothers exotic animal auction in Macon, Mo., reputedly the biggest of its kind in the United States. At the recent May sale, the action was fast and furious with a veritable Noah's ark collection-monkeys, zebras, camels, wildebeest, ostriches, kangaroos, Russian boars, giant tortoises, parrots, peacocks, even boa constrictors-hustled through the auction ring. A 12-year-old female chimp drew a bid of $10,500, a cuddly 3-month-old lion cub raised just $800, and a baby wallaby went for $1,200. For three days, the auctioneer's gavel rose and fell. At the final hammer, the sale grossed more than $1.5 million. Altogether, 3,225 animals were hauled away by new owners from as far away as Canada, Florida, California, and Mexico to a new and likely grim existence in the exotic underground. Sometimes, as the New Braunfels case shows, AZA zoos dispense with the fig leaf of a middleman and dump surplus animals directly into unaccredited zoos through breeding "loans" or donations. There are hundreds of these substandard roadside menageries nationwide, mostly run by owners with scant knowledge of the animals' natural behavior or needs. Rescued animals housed by accredited wildlife sanctuaries in Austin and San Antonio provide stark examples of abusive conditions in the exotic-animal underground. Molly, a guard lion chained up for years in a Dallas drug dealer's house, has put on over 100 pounds in her new home. When another lion named Nayla wasn't lying down with a lamb at a biblically themed traveling circus, it spent its life squeezed into a 4-by-8-foot cage. Carnivores of every kind hobble painfully around their spacious compounds, victims of leg-breaking metabolic bone disease caused by the cheap, all-poultry diets fed to them by exotic-pet owners and roadside zoos. Monkeys and apes are missing tails and limbs. Some have torn out hunks of fur in fits of self-mutilation brought on by years of close or solitary confinement. Roadside zoos often operate on thin profit margins. But some raise money-and gain the imprimatur of legitimacy-by declaring themselves "sanctuaries" or "preserves," obtaining 501c (3) nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service and soliciting public donations to "save an endangered species." The nation's 60 or more legitimate, accredited sanctuaries don't breed or sell animals, but these other so-called pseudosanctuaries allow their wildlife to mate and then sell the offspring or add to their collections-often exacerbating the substandard care.
    
    Tax-exempt "preserves": Noah's Land Wildlife Park in Harwood, Texas, currently under USDA investigation, calls itself a sanctuary, enjoys tax-exempt status, and solicits donations. When Cheri Watson took over in 1998, Noah's Land was in bad shape. Watson lacked the money-and enough paying customers-to improve things. She gained nonprofit designation in May 2000, but conditions aren't much better. "We took in way too many animals," she says, "including four tigers that had been kept in a two-horse trailer for six months [that was] never cleaned out." Watson allowed her cats to breed. Within two years, Noah's Land produced 26 new tiger cubs, infuriating regional accredited sanctuaries already swamped with unwanted Bengals. America now has an estimated 10,000 or more generic tigers in roadside zoos and backyard cages, virtually all of them mutts with no conservation value and often suffering painful physical defects from inbreeding.The 275-acre Noah's Land has 48 big cats, six bears, several primates, between 200 and 300 exotic deer and antelopes, and scores of feral pigs that are fed to the predators. Some of the caged animals exist in grim squalor, including cell-like cinderblock cages, but Watson rejects offers by legitimate sanctuaries to take them. "We're still having growing pains," she says. "We haven't got a foothold on the fundraising yet, but we will improve."
    
    Another pseudosanctuary was run by Joan Byron-Marasek. For more than 20 years, she kept up to two dozen tigers in a private, tax-exempt "preserve" behind her home in central New Jersey. "I feel it's my mission to save these animals from extinction," she says. "I know I'm doing it better than any other place." Hardly. In 1999, after one of her cats escaped and terrified the neighborhood, authorities brought in a Bronx Zoo curator to evaluate her Tigers Only Preserve. He declared it the "worst facility that I have ever seen," with malnourished tigers, rotting deer carcasses, and rats everywhere. The state quickly moved to shut her down, and Byron-Marasek finally lost her three-year legal battle in May. Her 24 tigers are now headed to the Wild Animal Orphanage, an accredited sanctuary in San Antonio.
    
    Those are the lucky ones. In May, seven men were indicted in Chicago for killing 17 tigers and one leopard to sell their skulls, hides, meat, and other body parts, which can bring $10,000 or more per animal. Six tigers and one leopard were rescued. Big cats are now so common in the United States-there may be more pet tigers in Texas alone than survive in the wild worldwide-that cubs can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, and adult tigers are virtually worthless. Alive, that is. There's no ready solution to the problems, but some zoo officials say that for starters, AZA-accredited zoos should take greater responsibility for assuring the lifelong welfare of their charges. "Any animal that devotes its life to being an ambassador for its own kind-even against its will-is owed a decent retirement," says Terry Maple, director of Zoo Atlanta and a former AZA president. "Zoo animals are held in trust to the service of humanity, and we shouldn't banish them to a terrible fate just because they have outlived their usefulness."
    
    Wash your hands: Petting zoos -- A random survey of a Pennsylvania petting zoo by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found 51 visitors, mostly children, contracted potentially fatal E. coli 0157:H7 over a three-month period in 2000. Symptoms included bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. One 3-year-old nearly died after losing both kidneys and 80 percent of her colon and large intestine. Other zoo-related outbreaks caused by petting feces-covered animals have been tracked in Ohio, Washington State, Wisconsin, Ontario, and the United Kingdom.
    
    Source: staff myREBAdog@att.net (Lisa Marie)

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  • 2 years ago
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• Ex-Tarzan Steve Sipek 2 Ex-Tarzan Steve Sipek 2

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Maze of ownership rules

    A dizzying array of federal, state and local laws regulate who can and cannot possess exotic animals like tigers. The Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to possess, sell or buy an endangered animal like a Bengal tiger. Except many of the tigers in the United States are "generic," or mixed breeds like Bobo, and can be legally bred and possessed. The Lacey Act provides for prosecution of those who possess animals illegally obtained in a foreign country or another state.

    But with thousands of breeders in America , no one needs to cross a U.S. or state border to own a tiger. State laws vary, with 13 states banning private ownership altogether; seven, including Florida, having a partial ban; 14 requiring a license or permit and 16 having no permit requirements at all.

    Thus, in most states, "You only need a license if you're dealing, breeding, exhibiting or conducting medical research," says Howard, the captive wildlife specialist. "Unless there's a municipal or state law prohibiting that, you're home free."

    The USDA issues licenses to people who buy exotic animals with the intent to sell, or for exhibitors such as zoos and circuses. "You have to fill out an application, pay a fee and pass a prelicense inspection," says USDA spokesman Jim Rogers. "We come out, look at your facility to see if you're in compliance.... With Bobo or that guy in N ew York with a tiger in his apartment, we have no authority."

    Florida does have authority. It passed a law in 1980 that outlaws the possession of tigers and 21 other exotic animals as pets. Yet, wildlife activists say the state and federal requirements are easily dodged.

    "All you need is 40 bucks in your pocket to get a USDA license," says Lewis, of Tampa 's Big Cat Rescue. She says getting around the state law is equally simple. " Florida is known nationwide for having the toughest laws," Lewis says. "It went from $5 to $150 for a permit to have a tiger. All you have to do is say you're an educator, a breeder, or you're open to the public like a zoo. Anything except, 'I want the tiger as a pet.' "

    You also must have 5 acres of land, a perimeter fence and 1,000 hours of experience handling the species you want to be licensed for, says Willie Puz, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is charged with enforcing the law.

    "You can have your mother or brother write the letter," Lewis says. "It's a giant loophole."

    Three years ago, Carol Asvestas , operator of the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio , had 25 big cats in her compound. N ow she has 200, including the cats from the N ew Jersey woman who kept them in her back yard. "I have animals that have bitten children, bitten models in photo shoots, that have gotten loose," she says. "Most of the states and counties are faced with such a huge crisis with displaced exotics, that they have nowhere to put the animals. So they're not enforcing the laws."

    What's needed, animal experts say, is a federal law that prohibits the possession of exotic animals like tigers and the money and manpower to enforce it.

    "We've been screaming at the top of our lungs that we need a federal law," says Asvestas. "You can't allow people to have these animals, whether they're operating a sanctuary or not. This problem is absolutely going to be devastating in the next five years unless a government entity has got the guts to stand up, put their foot down and say this is not going to continue to happen."

    mark_schwed@pbpost.com

    ht tp://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/auto/

    epaper/editions/sunday/local_news_049f8ea 0417d2190000b.html

    Dear Mark

    I just wanted to thank you for writing such a well informed article. So much of the drivel that has been posted about "Tarzan's Tiger" missed the point. The bigger issue of how little this industry is regulated, despite the illusion of being governed, is the important story and you covered it well. It was obvious that you really dug beneath the surface and found the discrepancies in the way things really are, vs the way the public thinks they are. It is this sort of wake up call that educates people and I appreciate you doing your part to inform the public about these issues that are important from a safety standpoint as much as from a compassionate perspective. If you are ever in Tampa , feel free to give me a call on the cell and I will give you a behind the scenes tour of the result of so many people making ill informed decisions.

    Posted on Tue, Oct. 26, 2004

    No charges filed against Tarzan actor in escaped tiger case

    Associated Press

    WEST PALM BEACH , Fla. - Prosecutors have decided not to charge a former Tarzan actor in the escape of a 600-pound tiger last July.

    A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer shot and killed the tiger July 13 after the big cat allegedly lunged at him following a 26-hour hunt for his capture.

    Commission investigators had filed a probable cause affidavit charging Steve Sipek with allowing captive wildlife to escape and causing a threat to the public.

    But prosecutors filed a court document Monday saying it was unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sipek negligently left his tiger in an unsafe situation which allowed it to escape, The Miami Herald reported.

    The state also couldn't disprove Sipek's allegation that a third party let the tiger out of the compound, Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks wrote in the document.

    Sipek, who played Tarzan in B-movies decades ago, lives with five other big cats in a compound about 10 miles west of West Palm Beach .

    Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com

    http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/10021505.htm?1c

    Shooting of escaped tiger justified agency says in report

    Posted on Mon, Jul. 26, 2004 Herald Staff Report

    A state wildlife officers issued a report today that concluded an officer used sound judgment and complied with the agency's procedures when he fatally wounded an escaped Bengal tiger named Bobo on July 13 in Loxahatchee.

    After the death of the escaped, 600-pound tiger, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission received so many death threats that employees who were not sworn officers were urged not to wear their uniforms.

    The incident set off public outcry from people who are calling the shooting ''murder,'' including the tiger's owner, former Tarzan actor Steve Sipek.

    The critical incident review issued today was described by the agency as a routine measure to determine if an officer followed agency protocol during a high-profile event and whether the FWC should change current policies.

    According to the news release from agency spokesman Willie Puz, ``The tiger escaped from its compound at Loxahatchee July 12, and remained at large for 26 hours before FWC officers moved into position to tranquilize the highly agitated and disoriented cat. Three previous encounters with the escaped animal failed to return it safely to its owner, despite the owner's attempts to calm the tiger.

    'On the fourth attempt, the tiger lunged toward an FWC officer while the tranquilizer team sped to the scene, and the officer fired five rounds to end the threat to himself and other officers at the scene. `` `People have second-guessed the officer from an emotional vantage point,' said FWC Capt. John West. `But place yourself in the officer's position. You're face to face with a 600-pound tiger. The cat is hungry, disoriented and agitated. The tiger turns to you, pins its ears back, bares its teeth and moves toward you. You have a fraction of a second to decide what action to take. What would you do?'

    ``In a similar situation at the Knoxville Zoo in 1974, an escaped tiger killed a veterinarian, even after the veterinarian had hit the cat with a tranquilizer dart. Tranquilizer darts, even with the appropriate dosage and a direct hit, take a minute or more to take effect on an animal that can break a human's neck with one swipe of its paws.

    ' `There should be no mistake about these large, carnivorous predators,' said Lt. Col. Don Holway, deputy director of the FWC Division of Law Enforcement. 'These are not pets that can be treated like a house cat. These are dangerous animals, capable of killing a human. They do not have control over their innate, basic instincts. This should be clearly obvious in light of the documented attacks that have occurred.' ''

    The incidents listed by the agency in its report include:

    . Orlando -- In 1977, a female lion cub was seized from an unlicensed individual and turned over to a permitted handler in the Orlando area. Three years later the same lion attacked and killed the handler, while the handler fed the animal.

    . Miami -- In 1993, a zookeeper entered the paddock area of an exhibit thinking he had secured all the animals. A tiger appeared from the moat area, about 50-60 feet away. The keeper attempted to retreat to safety, however, the tiger quickly closed distance and attacked the man, resulting in his instant death.

    . Webster -- In 1996, an FWC officer saved a man from an attack by a tiger. The tiger had pounced on the man, in a paddock area, knocking him to the ground and critically injuring him. The man remained still and the tiger left him on the ground while it paced 20 feet away. The tiger occasionally moved to the man and pawed at him. The officer, armed with only his service pistol, maneuvered a vehicle between the two and successfully rescued the handler.

    . Alachua -- In 1998, while attempting to maintain control of a tiger, an assistant slipped and fell. The tiger attacked and killed the man.

    . Alachua -- One month later, the same tiger attacked and killed the owner. She had raised the tiger since birth.

    . Bushnell -- In 2001, a tiger attacked and killed a maintenance worker who was completing repairs on an adjoining cage. The animal lunged at a small hole in the chain link separating the two areas. This tore the fencing open and allowed the tiger to gain access to the area where the man was working.

    The agency's statement continued:

    ``Meanwhile, a criminal investigation into conditions that led to the tiger's escape from its compound still is in progress to determine whether the cat's owner was negligent in keeping the animal in unsafe conditions. Investigators will turn their findings over to the State Attorney's Office for review.

    ``This was the third time dangerous large cats have escaped from the compound owned by Steve Sipek. On the two previous occasions, the state wildlife agency managed to return the escaped animals safely. ``In another incident the same tiger attacked a woman and crushed her skull inside Sipek's compound. The victim survived. Sipek is one of three people in Florida who have permits to possess extremely dangerous cats as personal pets. The FWC no longer issues such permits but allows current permit holders to retain their pets.''

    http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/ 9247745.htm?1c

    Rules followed in tiger's death, inquiry finds

    By Akilah Johnson

    Staff Writer

    Posted July 27 2004

    The officer who shot and killed Bobo waited more than 20 minutes for backup officers equipped with tranquilizer guns before he opened fire on the nearly 600-pound tiger that escaped from a former Tarzan actor's home, a preliminary state investigation concluded Monday.

    During that time, Officer Jesse C. Lee told investigators that he worried that surrounding noises -- his radio, a hovering helicopter and loud passers-by -- were upsetting the tiger, which began to roar, pinned his ears back and show his teeth.

    He asked the team to hurry but was forced to shoot the cat twice in the head before backup arrived.

    State investigators determined that Lee, whose name had been previously withheld because of death threats, acted "in good faith" and complied with agency use of force standards in the July 13 shooting.

    Still, the investigation revealed there were several factors that contributed to the outcome. One was the delay in getting the tranquilizer team on the scene. The second was Lee's lack of training in dealing with what the state classifies as "dangerous species." And the third was Lee's proximity to the animal, which the report determined was too close.

    Bobo's owner, Steve Sipek, doesn't believe the report.

    "The lying continues. It just never stops," Sipek said. "Jesse Lee was trigger happy, had no common sense and had no reason to go near that tiger. He just freaked out and started shooting."

    Lee, 24, has been a Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission officer since April 2002. He is a member of the special operations group, skilled in such things as close quarters combat, man tracking and land navigation, according to wildlife officials. The group is a quasi-military, reconnaissance team trained to deal with anti-terrorism efforts in Florida 's swamps and marshes, not to capture escaped tigers, officials said.

    "Only certain officers in the division of law are certified in handling exotic animals. N one of our [special operations group] team are," Capt. Lee Beach, southeast commander of the team said Monday.

    Lee was given the location of a paw print, which was to be his assigned post. He spotted another paw print and got in his truck and headed north toward Kimberly McLain's property. As he looked for additional tracks, McLain showed up.

    Lee asked whether there was water on the property, and the two began to walk north along a fence toward a pond. They approached a clearing and saw Bobo's hindquarters sticking out from some undergrowth. They backed out of the area.

    "Because of his contact with this person, he ended up in a little bit closer position," wildlife spokesman Officer Jorge Pino said. "Should he have? Yes. That's his job. He needs to intervene whenever he feels there is something there."

    Back at their trucks, he told McLain to get back in her vehicle while he radioed for assistance. As he waited for other wildlife officers to arrive, Lee grabbed his M-4 rifle. Lee was to keep an eye on the tiger, and Officer Scott Van Buren arrived to back him up. Both were to wait for the tranquilizer team.

    The request for the tranquilizer went out at 5:02 p.m.

    About 15 to 20 minutes passed "when Lee gave him a gesture indicating, `Where are they?'" the report says. As Van Buren tried to find out, Lee told him Bobo was moving. Van Buren called it in and moved forward, shouldering his shotgun. As he did that, the report said Lee began moving back, "repeatedly saying, `Scott, Scott, Scott.'"

    Lee told investigators that he took three steps back, the tiger lunged, and he opened fire.

    "It all happened so fast. I remember backing up, and after everything was said and done, I shot until the cat was down," Lee told investigators. Lee fired five times; Bobo was struck twice.

    The "shots fired" call came in about 5:20 p.m. , and officers armed with tranquilizer guns still had not arrived.

    "The area where this whole thing happened is not like running 300 or 400 yards in the middle of the street," Pino said Monday. Besides struggling through heavy terrain, the officers were trying to position themselves around Bobo in case he did not respond to the sedative, he said.

    According to necropsy reports, the cat died from "massive hard and soft tissue damage in the head and neck region." Upon impact, the bullets "mushroomed and fragmented," the report says. There were extensive skull fractures, and hundreds of metal fragments were removed from Bobo's head area, the report said.

    Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6645.

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ news/local/broward/sfl-cpbobo27jul27,0,270496.stor y?coll=sfla-news-broward

    Shouldnt house pets actually fit in the house?

    Posted on Mon, Jul. 26, 2004

    By KEVI N COWHERD

    The Baltimore Sun

    Let's begin with this hypothetical situation: you've just moved into a new house and now it's time to meet the neighbors.

    Which is when you discover the neighbors have a pet.

    But this pet isn't a golden retriever or a Siamese cat or a cockatiel, or something like that.

    No, this pet is a tiger.

    And not some cute little tiger cub that weighs 20 pounds and gets fed with a baby bottle and makes everyone laugh when he claws the drapes.

    No, this is a 600-pound tiger.

    With a head the size of a microwave oven and big teeth that look like they could rip through bank vaults.

    Would you have a problem with this?

    If your answer is something like: '' N o, that would be fine, I love animals and would have no problem living next door to a large jungle cat that could kill and strip the carcass of a water buffalo in 20 minutes,'' there is no point in you reading any further.

    Because there's obviously something wrong with you.

    And you probably subscribe to the philosophy espoused by the lunatic fringe of pet owners, a philosophy that seems to be: N o matter how big or how dangerous an animal is, if I want it in my home, I should be able to have it.

    In fact, our hypothetical example above closely mirrors the case of Steve Sipek, the Florida man who, until last week, owned a tiger named Bobo.

    Bobo, you may have heard, is now deceased.

    The reason Bobo is no longer with us is that he escaped from Sipek's home in a rural area 10 miles from West Palm Beach and was shot after he lunged at wildlife officers who cornered him after a 26-hour search.

    The officers were hoping to get close enough to fire a tranquilizer dart and capture him alive, but things didn't go according to plan.

    They often don't when you're dealing with wild animals.

    Generally, when a tiger sees a bunch of guys with rifles and badges creeping up on him, he's not thinking: Well, the jig's up. Might as well go quietly.

    Instead, if he's hungry, he's thinking: Yo, my take-out order just arrived!

    I'm not going to get into whether the shooting of Bobo could have been prevented -- although if I were an armed wildlife officer and a 600-pound tiger lunged at me, I don't think yelling ''Bad Bobo!'' would be enough to save me.

    And there's no doubt that Sipek, a former actor who played Tarzan in two movies in the late '60s and '70s, genuinely loved Bobo and was grief-stricken over his death.

    But the question is: what in God's name is a homeowner doing with a pet tiger?

    Rural Sumatra -- now that's a good place for tigers.

    Not rural Florida .

    According to the Florida newspapers, though, Sipek is one of only two people in the state to have a permit to keep large cats as pets.

    And I'm sure his neighbors will be comforted to know that Sipek has another tiger at home, along with a panther, a cougar and a pair of lions.

    But just because you have a permit for these animals, that doesn't make the whole situation right.

    Sipek told The Palm Beach Post that Bobo probably escaped when a woman Sipek had a ''bad relationship'' with broke into his compound and left the gate open.

    At my house, if someone leaves the gate open, you got an 11-pound Shih-Tzu running around the streets, ready to lick someone to death.

    A gate gets left open at Sipek's place and half of South Florida 's law enforcement agencies get called out for a safari.

    Of course, it's not just Florida where idiot pet owners are keeping animals that are too big and dangerous for the environment.

    It's everywhere.

    In Carroll County , Md. , animal control officers were called to remove a pet African lion from a home in Finksburg four years ago.

    I know, I know hasn't everyone had a pet lion at one time or another?

    Sure they have.

    You start with the box turtle and goldfish, move up to the gerbils and hamsters, go through rabbits and parrots and into the puppy and kitten phase.

    Then next thing you know, you're leafing through Exotic Animals Today and thinking: ''Boy, wouldn't it be cool to have a lion around here? The back yard's big enough, don't you think?''

    By the way, Carroll County Animal Control has also received calls to remove pet jaguars, orangutans, boa constrictors and giant lizards from homes.

    And I used to think people were nuts to own ferrets.

    http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/living/9245242.htm

    mheditor@montereyherald.com

    Shoul dn't house pets fit in the house?

    I thought the article was right on target, but there was a quote from the Florida Department of Game and Fish that was misleading to the press; ie that Steve Sipek is one of two people in Florida licensed to have a pet tiger. The key word there is "pet" but the fact is that there are over 400 places in Florida that are licensed to have tigers and other big cats in their back yard. Three are accredited sanctuaries and five or six are accredited zoos. The rest are people who claim to be sanctuaries, but who breed and sell big cats as pets, places who admittedly are breeding facilities who say all their tigers go to zoos, when in fact most are sold as pets and people who charge a fee for you to come see their private collections who are referred to as road side zoos. There are 4700 such exotic pet licenses floating about Florida that include animals up to the size of cougars.

    The scary thing is that all of these people qualified for a license by having someone (anyone) write a letter saying they had 1000 hours experience with a big cat, a $150.00 permit fee and a cage that was 12 x 15 for a tiger. The permit fee was only 5.00 until last year and you can have as many animals as you want for that one fee. No one counts your animals. N o one is notified when you buy and sell. You may see an inspector once in a year, or five. They are underpaid and understaffed and cannot handle the enormity of the problem.

    The biggest issue is that there is no need for all of this breeding. The Tiger Species Survival Plan calls for 2 cubs to be born in Florida this year and they are to be the pairing from two accredited zoos. Everyone else who is breeding is doing so to profit from the sale of the cubs to people who are ill prepared to care for nature's most powerful predator.

    Big Cat Rescue is an accredited rescue facility and had to turn away 312 big cats last year and over 100 already this year. Each year that number has been doubling. People love the cubs, but don't want what they become. Amazingly, there are a huge number that still don't know that cubs grow up to be big cats. That is where the media can play such an important role. Dry up the demand and the suppliers go away.

    The following is a partial listing of incidents involving captive big cats since 1990. These incidents have resulted in the killing or deaths of 178 big cats, 55 human deaths, and more than 185 human injuries.

    Since April 2003, big cat incidents include, 4 human fatalities, 18 human injuries, 124 animal fatalities, 28 animal escapes & 224 confiscations. http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news.htm

    150 attend slain tiger's elaborate public funeral

    By Shahien N asiripour

    Staff Writer

    Posted July 19 2004

    LOXAHATCHEE -- More than 150 people -- some mournful, others curious -- gathered at Steve Sipek's C Road compound Sunday evening for one final memorial to the former Tarzan's slain tiger, Bobo.

    Buried on the property during a private funeral the previous day, Sunday's public funeral was replete with flowers, songs, poems, prayer and a eulogy for the slain feline.

    Guests gathered near the many petitions and donation buckets around the compound.

    Before rain scattered the crowd and ended the memorial, Sipek, wearing a white T-shirt with Bobo's picture, passed out pictures the Bengal-Siberian tiger.

    Similar to Thursday's vigil, questions swirled about why the escaped tiger was shot Tuesday by a Florida Fish and Wildlife officer.

    But Sipek, exhausted from the Bobo blitz that has been his life since the feline escaped his compound Monday, addressed the crowd in a much more subdued tone, choosing to memorialize Bobo rather than rail against the state wildlife agency.

    Still, after a week of coping with the tiger's loss, Sipek said he and his supporters, many of whom he had not met until this week, will continue to fight for their justice.

    It's never going to stop. We want justice for Bobo," Sipek said. "Bobo had to die to bring all of us together and fight for our rights. He did not die in vain. The people have spoken."

    Sipek and his army of full-time supporters will focus on fund raising by holding a few concert benefits, a race at Moroso Motorsports Park and starting a national foundation in Bobo's name to raise money for exotic cat sanctuaries.

    There are also petitions to persuade the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to allow Sipek to keep his felines.

    The one-time actor, who portrayed Tarzan in Spanish-language films, still has several big cats on his compound.

    "The movement hasn't even started," said Jessica Laurain, a Sipek friend. "We've only just begun."

    The state wildlife commission investigation into the tiger's escape and subsequent shooting death will not be completed for several weeks, but Sipek has hired private investigators because he said he doesn't trust the agency.

    The memorial, though, did not focus on Bobo's death. It focused on Bobo and Sipek, who has become a tragic figure to many in the neighborhood.

    "He's been through so much. We're just here to support Steve," said Josie Otero, of West Palm Beach . "He's doing a wonderful thing with these cats, and Bobo never should have happened. He needs all the love and support he can get right now."

    While many of the guests were animal activists wearing tiger print clothing or recently made Bobo T-shirts, some neighbors were there just to support a fellow Loxahatchee resident.

    "The community bonded together because of [Bobo's death]. We're a family now," said Jeffrey Bohorquez, 20, of Loxahatchee.

    Bohorquez moved from West Palm Beach eight months ago.

    "We have to show our support for Loxahatchee," he said.

    Shahien Nasiripour can be reached at snasiripour@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6690.

    Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-

    pbobo19jul19,0,7956723.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

    Dear Shahien

    I too am outraged at this senseless loss of life, but it is obviously the fault of any person who would make a pet of a wild animal. I would go a step further and say that stupid people can't be held entirely responsible when our government allows them the right to own nature's top predator. I would also find fault with the general population who is so apathetic to the situation that legislation is driven more by those who breed and sell tigers than those who think there is no good reason to do that. If not for people like Sipek who portray these animals as pets there would be no market for the breeders.

    There are laws (finally) against selling big cats across state lines as pets and in the state of Florida you cannot get a permit to own a big cat as a pet, but the loopholes in both laws are so gaping that even someone with the IQ of Tarzan could leap through them. All you have to do is say that you are a tiger breeder to avoid both laws. Why is that OK?

    Ron Tilson , the head of the tiger species survival plan, that is carried out via accredited zoos, says that the state of Florida needs to produce 2 or 3 tigers this year for the plan to work and that those pairings are already planned in two major zoos. N o one else needs to be breeding tigers, or any other exotic cat, so why is that allowed?

    The following is a partial listing of incidents involving captive big cats since 1990. These incidents have resulted in the killing or deaths of 178 big cats, 55 human deaths, and more than 185 human injuries.

    According to the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition, since April 2003, big cat incidents include, 4 human fatalities, 18 human injuries, 124 animal fatalities, 28 animal escapes & 223 confiscations. http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news.htm

    I hope your article about Steve Sipek using this tragedy to line his own pockets and to encourage ownership of big cats as pets, despite the fact that he has proven himself unable to deal with them in a responsible manner, will outrage enough people with some intelligence that this sort of trade in exotic cats is finally stopped.

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    Former Tarzan insists he'll keep his tigers

    By Joel Hood - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
    July 14, 2007
    
    Loxahatchee Groves Bo was in a bad mood.
    
    The 400-pound Siberian Bengal tiger stalked angrily inside his shaded iron enclosure, finding little relief from the heat. Visitors watched him pace behind pencil-thin iron bars. Bo wanted nothing to do with them; he held them back with an irritated growl.
    
    "It's too hot for him," owner Steve Sipek said, entering the cage with a small bucket of severed turkey legs. "He's a little cranky."
    
    It's a mood that's spreading around the Sipek compound as the reclusive cat lover prepares for what has become a yearly battle with state and federal officials to keep his exotic felines: two Bengal tigers, an African lioness and a black leopard.
    
    A year ago, federal inspectors denied Sipek an exotic animal permit to legally keep his cats because his five-acre ranch did not meet standards in the Animal Welfare Act. But the former B-movie actor, known around the Groves simply as "Tarzan," was granted a state permit that allowed him to keep the cats if he used them for educational or commercial purposes.
    
    Sipek said he's reapplying for another state license, but remains defiant as ever toward federal officials and what he calls their"ridiculously high standards" for animal care. He said his cats are well cared for and challenges the authority of the federal officials to make any demands for better conditions. His last federal license inspection lasted less than an hour before Sipek ran the officials off his property.
    
    "I told them to get the hell out of here and don't come back," Sipek said. "They have no authority to police me in my own home. Government likes to be the boss over everything. They're only in it to harass you."
    
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health division last toured Sipek's ranch in January 2006. The inspection and licensing arm of the USDA had given Sipek failing grades on two previous inspections and found conditions had improved little this time. Inspection records note that Sipek did not have a veterinarian on site or on call and that no medical records existed for the cats.
    
    Inspectors found a section of fence was only seven-feet high, a foot lower than the minimum standards for these types of animals. They noted vertical gaps in the fencing large enough for outside animals to pass through to gain access to the enclosed tigers and lioness. They also pointed out other potential weak points in the fence.
    
    Records show inspectors told Sipek that he did not provide a proper diet and feeding program for the cats and that his grounds were littered with dangerous debris. As with past failed inspectors, this record concludes that Sipek is not allowed to participate in USDA"regulated activities," such as exhibiting the animals, until he obtains a federal license.
    
    Five months later, Sipek easily passed inspection by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and received a state license.
    
    "We're not in it for the animal's health," said John West, the commission's investigations captain. "We don't need to see shot records or veterinarian records or anything like that. If he wants to live in a trash pile, that's his issue."
    
    Sipek admits he's frustrated by this discrepancy in state and federal standards. While the state last year said he was a good guardian for the cats, the USDA launched an investigation into his care. USDA officials would not say whether the investigation is ongoing.
    
    "It's a lousy situation," Sipek said. "The USDA is not qualified to issue licenses."
    
    West agrees it's a confusing and complicated permit process and said the state has ongoing discussions with the USDA to simplify it.
    
    The Croatian-born Sipek, who starred as Tarzan in a foreign remake of the film in 1970, garnered international attention in 2004 when a 600-pound Bengal tiger he owned, Bobo, escaped from his compound and into the rural residential community of the Groves. The tiger was later shot by Fish and Wildlife officials, but soon after, Sipek received another commercial license from the state for two tiger cubs, Bo and Little Bo. Those cubs are now 2 years old and weigh 400 pounds.
    
    USDA spokesman Jim Rogers said federal licenses trump state permits, meaning that Sipek could face legal action if the agency wanted to
    prosecute him for illegally owning exotic cats. Rogers would not comment on Sipek's case specifically, but said "if he's operating in a
    way that we regulate without a license, we will pursue it."
    
    If they do, Sipek could face fines or a court appearance. But he said he's not worried.
    
    "Nobody could take better care of my cats than I can," Sipek said."The health of the cats is all that matters. That's all I care about and that's all they should care about, too."
    
    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpcat0714pnjul14,0,4576283.story

    See an interactive online map of exotic cat owners . See people being stupid with big cats, endangering themselves and others HERE . See the awful conditions that many captive cats endure HERE .

    Tarzan Buys New Tiger Cubs After State Shoots His Escaped Pet Tiger

    
    LOXAHATCHEE -- Steve Sipek still wears grief like a heavy overcoat a year after a wildlife officer shot and killed his escaped tiger, Bobo , igniting a torrent of outrage.
    
    His massive shoulders sag. His bright-blue eyes suddenly shed tears.
    
    But just as suddenly, the retired actor who played Tarzan in B movies brightens and sings a ditty he wrote about the two new loves in his life:
    
    Bo and Little Bo.
    
    The 3-month-old tiger cubs are asleep on the floor when Sipek cracks open the door of his jungle-motif bedroom and coos like the proudest of new papas.
    
    "Where are Daddy's kisses?" he asks, bending to nuzzle the fur balls. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"
    
    Bo and Little Bo -- Bengal-Siberian mixes like their beloved namesake -- are lifelines pulling Sipek back from the depths of despair. They are not unlike the lion that rescued him from a burning movie set 35 years ago, kindling his love affair with exotic cats.
    
    The 26-pound cubs also are ready for showtime as the star attractions of Tarzan's Big Cat Sanctuary, Sipek's latest plan to fill the gaping hole in his heart.
    
    Unable to obtain more big cats under an old personal pet license last issued by the state in 1980, Sipek applied for and recently received a state license to exhibit exotic wildlife. That allowed him to buy Bo and Little Bo for $3,200. He's still working on getting a federal license.
    
    But there's another hitch. He says he must open his 5-acre compound in the secluded Palm Beach County neighborhood of Loxahatchee Groves to the public, inviting in the very beings he has spent much of his life avoiding:
    
    People.
    
    "I have no choice," he said. "I have to, or else I lose my license."
    
    The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida, which objects to any private person keeping exotic cats in backyard cages, says Sipek is wrong. Noting there are no legal requirements for exhibitors to actually show their cats, the foundation says he is simply using a loophole in the law to obtain more personal pets.
    
    "Lots of people get the exhibition license, and they fulfill that by having a few people come in and look at the animals," said Heather Veleanu, managing direction of the foundation. "They do it by inviting their neighbors or their brothers and sisters over."
    
    Sipek, who also owns a lioness, a Bengal tiger and a black leopard, readily admits he's a reluctant exhibitor. But he says he'll do whatever he must to keep his new cubs. In the meantime, he's working on a Web site, jungleworld.org , where would-be visitors can learn more information.
    
    It's a classic Catch-22 for a self-described loner who has felt betrayed by those closest to him.
    
    After all, Sipek prefers the company of big-fanged felines that could kill with a single pounce to humans, who he says have caused him nothing but heartache during his 63 years.
    
    His mother, he says, orphaned him in his native Croatia as a baby and then reclaimed him when he was 8, only to beat him regularly. He says he hasn't talked to his son in a year.
    
    And he has had nothing but bad luck with his ex-wives and girlfriends who, he says, have left him, his cats and his granite and marble house behind.
    
    "Cats are the only creatures who love you forever, who are loyal forever," he said. "You never have to wonder if they betray you."
    
    'They murdered my Bobo'
    
    Sipek suspects an angry former girlfriend coaxed Bobo out of the house and left a series of cages and gates open the afternoon of July 12, 2004, when the 600-pound cat greeted a startled mail carrier on C Road with a swipe of his declawed paw.
    
    Within hours, C Road became a media roadshow, with live images from the fringes of the intensive hunt for Bobo beamed around the world. The next day, five shots rang out just beyond Sipek's compound, and Bobo fell dead.
    
    Prosecutors found no evidence that Sipek was responsible for the cat's getting loose.
    
    Officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called the shooting a necessary tragedy by an officer left with no other option. While the officer waited for a tranquilizer team, the big cat whirled around, bared his teeth and lunged, they said.
    
    But an inconsolable Sipek called the shooting "murder," insisting the brush above Bobo's body was undisturbed, an impossibility had the big cat really turned and leapt.
    
    "They murdered my Bobo ," he wailed in grief at the time. "They want the glory. They want to say, 'We killed the tiger. We saved the people.' "
    
    His pain and outrage struck a chord, generating songs, poems, paintings, bumper stickers and vigils in Bobo's memory. It also unleashed such a torrent of hate mail and threats against the wildlife commission that biologists were encouraged not to wear their uniforms in public.
    
    Consumed by grief, Sipek retreated behind his gates, only to face more misfortune. A week after Bobo's death, an electrical fire badly damaged his house. Then, in September, his cougar Missy died, and hurricanes Frances and Jeanne finished off what the fire started. The final kick came the next month, when his lion Elvis succumbed to old age.
    
    For the next eight months, Sipek ricocheted between rage and grief and the desire for revenge. He didn't recognize neighbors who dropped by with food or a helping hand. He quit his daily swims and exercises, adding 35 pounds to his once astonishingly fit physique.
    
    He relied on a retinue of women who, drawn by the former movie star's pain and the magnetism of his big cats, donated countless hours to help him get his place and his self back in shape. Four of them still come around regularly, happy to take Sipek's tall orders --"hot and sweaty guy-work with lots of tools" -- to be around him and his cats, especially the new cubs.
    
    "Seeing him on TV so distressed broke my heart," Kathi Carchia, a volunteer from Wellington, said while taking a break from fixing a pool filter. "Definitely, there's been a big change in him since the babies came."
    
    35-year love affair with cats
    
    Sipek's romance with big cats began in 1970, while filming Tarzan and the Rainbow, one of two movies in which he portrayed the ape man he had worshipped since watching Johnny Weissmuller in the role as a boy. But his life changed forever when he was captured and staked to the ground for one scene and fire broke out, engulfing Sipek in flames.
    
    Sipek, who went by the stage name Steve Hawkes, knew he would die, until Samson, a lion who also starred in the film, dragged him to safety. From then on, he devoted his life to caring for big cats, many of them maimed discards from breeders and zoos.
    
    To date, he said, he has spent more than $7 million of his movie-industry revenues on 102 cats who shared his home like children.
    
    But none, Sipek reluctantly allows, was quite as special as Bobo . The bond between man and beast was so strong, the 6-year-old tiger would suck Sipek's thumb like a pacifier before climbing in his bed to sleep.
    
    So, Sipek said, he agonized over whether Bobo would approve of his acquiring two new cubs: "Would he think I was abandoning him in death? Would he think I didn't love him anymore?" he asked
    
    Sipek, who visits Bobo's elaborate grave marked by a headstone and statues of lions, giraffes and elephants, twice a day, found his answer after a calico house cat crawled through a hole in the garage apartment where Sipek has lived while his house is repaired.
    
    Fearful the big cats would maul the little cat, he gave the stray away. Weeks later an identical -- but different -- calico crawled through the same hole and stayed. For Sipek, it was a sign.
    
    "It had to be," he said. "Two identical cats found the same hole. That was too much for me."
    
    Laissez-faire neighbors
    
    Some of Sipek's neighbors say his expanding menagerie is too much even for live-and-let-live Loxahatchee Groves, 12.5 square miles of large homesteads, nurseries, stables and a nudist colony where animals -- horses, dogs, cats, ostriches and emus -- still outnumber people.
    
    Backdoor neighbor Kim McLain, citing Bobo's escape and his 2002 mauling of a woman who let herself into Sipek's property, said Sipek hasn't shown himself responsible enough to keep wild animals.
    
    But the majority seem to enjoy having the king of iconoclasts in their iconoclastic neighborhood.
    
    "I actually like it," said Richard Harkleroad, a painter who lives nearby. "In the morning I can hear the animals roar."
    
    And now, on occasion, a rejuvenated Sipek will join them, letting loose an unmistakable Tarzan yell.
    
    Maya Bell can be reached at 305-810-5003 or mbell@orlandosentinel.com .
    
    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asec21tigers05aug21,0,

    3205327.story?page=2&coll=orl-home-headlines

    Dear Maya Bell

    Orlando Sentinel

    What a shame that so many people are being deceived into feeling sorry for Sipek, when he is the reason the tiger was shot. His desire to have a "chick magnet" to get stupid women to do his dirty work for him all these years and his desire to feel power over a chained, cage creature has caused 102 cats to die as his pets. Exotic cats live for 20 years; how could so many be dead?

    Shortly after the Bobo incident he had one of these women, who identified herself as Cindy, call Big Cat Rescue and ask us to take his adult cats because he wanted to buy more baby tigers. We don't provide a dumping ground to enable people to continue being irresponsible and low and behold, the ones he wanted to get rid of have died and he gets to be seen as the victim by you and your paper. It makes me so mad, I could spit.

    You also failed to mention that just two days ago a 17 year old girl, also drawn by a Tarzan type with big cats, was mauled to death posing with the cat for her photo. http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news_files/2005/17yroldkilledbytiger.htm

    Now THAT is sad.

    Tarzan the tiger collector adopts 2 cubs
    
    Steve Sipek, who owned a tiger that was fatally shot, plans a zoo at his home.
    
    By Shahien Nasiripour | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
    
    Posted June 23, 2005
    
    LOXAHATCHEE -- Tarzan's got two new tiger cubs.
    
    Bo and Little Bo, 6-week-old Bengal-Siberian tigers, arrived at former B-movie Tarzan Steve Sipek's compound Friday.
    
    Sipek is best known as the man who owned Bobo , the 600-pound declawed Bengal tiger that was fatally shot by a state wildlife officer in July after it escaped from his home.
    
    Sipek bought the cubs from an exotic-cats breeding center north of Orlando for $3,200.
    
    Despite losing his state license to own tigers as pets, Sipek said he found a loophole that allowed him to own more: a commercial license.
    
    He applied for the license, an annual permit that requires him to operate a business in which he exhibits the animals, and was approved last month.
    
    Sipek now has the two male cubs to go along with a 15-year-old Bengal Tiger named Princess, a leopard named Oko and Steffi the lioness.
    
    He may get more.
    
    Sipek plans to open his home as a zoo, he said. It was the only way the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission would let him own another tiger, he said.
    
    "Tarzan's Big Cat Sanctuary" is scheduled to open in six weeks, he said. Visitors will be able to schedule tours of the compound with Sipek by logging on to his soon-to-be-created Web site. Visitors will be led through Sipek's home and along the series of intricately designed cages. They also will be able to have their pictures taken with Bo and Little Bo.
    
    Neighbors seem to be happy for him.
    
    "If I had little kids, I might be a little nervous," said Gene Melchiori, who lives behind Sipek. "If I see them in my yard, I won't go out and poke them with a stick, but his cats are usually friendly."
    
    Despite Sipek's portrayal of the state wildlife commission as being in an adversarial role, the agency supports him too.
    
    "We look at him the same as we would any other applicant," state wildlife spokesman Willie Puz said. "There are certain criteria that need to be met, and so far he's met them."
    
    Shahien Nasiripour is a reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
    
    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-locbobo23

    062305jun23,0,1568056.story?coll=orl-news-headlines

    FL Bengal tiger escapes from cage

    Officers use tranquilizer darts to capture Tristan

    By Akilah Johnson

    Staff Writer

    Posted February 27 2005

    A 500-pound tiger escaped from its cage at Panther Ridge Sanctuary in Wellington and trotted around its compound sniffing at horses for more than two hours Saturday before wildlife officers captured it, officials said.

    About 9:40 a.m., a woman feeding Tristan didn't latch the cage completely, and the Bengal tiger pushed past her and escaped, officials said. Tristan's owner, called 911.

    More than 20 Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies and state wildlife officers arrived at 14755 Palm Beach Pointe Blvd. By noon, wildlife officers -- with the help of David Hitzig, executive director Jupiter's Busch Wildlife Sanctuary -- were able to tranquilize the tiger and return it to its cage, Willie Puz, a Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman, said.

    Two tranquilizer darts were be used because the first had little effect, Puz said. The second dart startled Tristan, making the cat take a couple of quick steps, Puz said. But the tiger didn't run, and its actions weren't much of a threat, he said.

    Then, 4-year-old Tristan became groggy, lay down and went to sleep, he said.

    Tristan's escape reminded many of an incident seven months ago, when a 600-pound Bengal tiger named Bobo escaped from his cage and his compound in Loxahatchee. Bobo was on the loose for 26 hours before he was shot dead by a Conservation Commission officer, who said the cat lunged at him while he was waiting for other officers to arrive with a tranquilizer gun.

    During Tristan's two-hour jaunt Saturday, the cat approached several horses on the 10-acare property, which is both a refuge for abused, neglected or abandoned cats and a horse farm.

    "The horse kind of kicked at it, and the tiger said, `I don't want any part of this' and just walked away," Puz, said.

    Judy Berens, Tristan's owner, was cited for escaped captive wildlife, a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by 60 days in jail or a $500 fine. This was her first infraction, Puz said.

    Berens could not be reached for comment despite attempts by phone.

    According to the sanctuary's Web site, Panther Ridge has 16 large cats, including Amos, a black leopard, and Eros and China , two spotted leopards. Some were left with her; others Berens bought because she felt they weren't being taken care of properly.

    A German film crew doing a documentary about how easy it is to buy exotic animals in the United States bought Tristan but was unable to find a qualified zoo to adopt the tiger when the film was completed, according to the Web site.

    Tristan never made it outside of the sanctuary's perimeter fence or came in contact with the public Saturday, but officials didn't take any chances.

    "If a wild animal gets out of its cage there's a potential for anything," Puz said. "Even for the people who were in the compound."

    The sanctuary provides tours, but it was unclear Saturday if one was taking place when Tristan escaped.

    There were sheriff's deputies and wildlife officers with rifles inside and outside the perimeter fence in case the tiger ran or got out of the fence, officials said.

    The incident with Bobo created a public furor. Bobo's owner, former B-movie Tarzan Steve Sipek, accused the officer of killing the declawed cat unnecessarily, claiming the officer panicked and disputing the officer's account of Bobo lunging at him.

    Commission officers around the state where threatened after the shooting, something Puz said has sense subsided. He got his last piece of hate mail about Christmas, he said.

    Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6645.

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ news/local/palmbeach/sfl-ptiger27feb27,0,6619459.s tory?coll=sfla-news-palm

    Exotic pets dwelling closer to home

    By Mark Schwed, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

    Sunday, July 18, 2004

    For two years, Antoine Yates kept a 400-pound tiger named Ming in his small N ew York City apartment -- until the tiger mauled him and sent him to the hospital with serious injuries.

    In Colton , Calif. , state officials raided a former animal trainer's ranch and found 39 tigers, including 11 cubs hidden in a crawl space in the attic, and 58 dead tiger and lion cubs stuffed in his freezer.

    New Jersey officials gunned down an escaped tiger, only to find he belonged to a woman who was keeping 29 of the beasts in her back yard.

    And today a public funeral is scheduled for Bobo, the 600-pound Siberian-Bengal mix who escaped from his owner's compound in rural Loxahatchee, only to be shot and killed by a wildlife officer who said he feared for his life. Bobo was buried Saturday in a private service.

    What in the world is going on with all these tigers?

    Quite simply, a population explosion of one of the most magnificent creatures on the planet, and one of the most endangered. But this mating marathon isn't happening in the wild, it's in America , especially Florida .

    According to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, there are now 15,000 captive tigers in the private sector, three times the number of wild tigers in Africa and Asia combined, more tigers than people know what to do with.

    "Virtually every day I get a call from someone who wants to get rid of a tiger or big cat," says Carole Lewis, 43, who has 150 of the beasts at her Big Cat Rescue in Tampa . "I turned away 312 last year. The problem is that number is doubling every year. It's getting worse and worse. It's insane. It's reached a crisis point."

    Even though Florida has an outright ban on possessing tigers as personal pets, the state now has 1,455 registered tigers, a 50 percent increase in 15 months and second only to Texas in the nation. Florida also has 262 U.S. Department of Agriculture-licensed exhibitors for big cats, more than any other state. And wildlife activists say there are now more tiger breeders in the state than anywhere else.

    Dangers of the business

    Florida is on its way to becoming the tiger capital of the world.

    "It's downright scary," says Linda Howard, a captive wildlife specialist who keeps track of big cat populations in America . "Those 1,455 registered tigers are the legal ones. It doesn't include people possessing them illegally. It's shocking."

    And dangerous. In the past five years, nine people have been mauled to death by big cats in the United States . Just last year, three people were killed, 14 were injured and hundreds of the animals either escaped or were confiscated from their owners, according to the Humane Society of the United States .

    "These are highly endangered species," says Kim Haddad, a veterinarian and manager of the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition. "Yet in this country we're breeding them in the back yard and selling them like cats and dogs. It's dangerous for people and inhumane for the animals."

    Hogwash, says Randy Davies, 43, of Phoenix , who's been selling exotic animals for 20 years and now operates the www.wildanimalworld.com Web site. "Over the years, we've saved every animal you see in a zoo -- elephants, giraffes, tigers. The only way they're going to survive is if we keep them breeding and have places to put them."

    The exotic animal trade is a $15 billion worldwide business and it's flourishing. Primates, venomous snakes, elephants, giraffes, lions, bears and tigers -- all are for sale, wildlife experts say. There are 1,000 sites on the Internet that offer exotic animals.

    These days, animal experts say you can pick up a cuddly tiger cub for $300, half the price of a Shih Tzu dog. A cougar costs even less.

    Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States , says people buy them for all sorts of reasons. "They eat them, they shoot them, they keep them as pets," he says. "It's a whole underworld that is operating in the U.S. that victimizes literally tens of millions of animals a year."

    Jim Lolli, 55, of the Lolli Brothers Livestock Market in Macon , Mo. , has been auctioning and selling exotic animals since 1978. "I haven't sold a tiger at auction for 20 years," he says. "But there are a lot of people who do it. There's a huge black market. I've had people say they sold a tiger to someone to shoot. It's illegal. It's as bad as selling cocaine."

    Or is it?

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• Ken & Sandra Smith's Wesa-A-Ge Ken & Sandra Smith's Wesa-A-Geh-Ya

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Ken & Sandra Smith's Wesa-A-Geh-Ya

    is not accredited by The Association of Sanctuaries. Check for yourself to see if they meet the sanctuary standards for an accredited animal refuge. See an interactive online map of exotic cat owners . See people being stupid with big cats, endangering themselves and others HERE . See the awful conditions that many captive cats endure HERE .

    Video of Wesa-A-Geh-Ya

    USDA findings HERE

    Warren County: Exotic animal owner charged for violating registration rules

    Cited by USDA in 2004 for more than 35 violations

    By Kevin Spradlin
    Saturday, August 4, 2007 10:36 AM CDT

    
    Warren County resident Rosella Baller only wants county officials to enforce the rules regarding the registration and upkeep of exotic animals.
    
    Doing so might be easier said than done, the commissioners said Monday. That's because the commissioners, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Missouri Department of Conservation, are still trying to figure out what the rules are.
    
    At issue is whether an animal sanctuary - a 17-acre parcel of land called Wesa-A-Geh-Ya - owned and operated by Ken and Sandra Smith in northern Warren County has been properly registering its animals with the Warren County Sheriff's Department.

    AdSys ad not found for news:instory

    Ken Smith, of Highway A between Interstate 70 and New Truxton, was charged by Warren County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Wright on June 1 with one count of keeping dangerous wild animals without registering with local law enforcement. The charge is a misdemeanor.
    
    The Smiths could not be reached for comment.
    
    Ken Smith has a court date scheduled for Aug. 21 before Associate Circuit Judge Wesley Dalton.
    
    Until then, Presiding Commissioner Arden Engelage said, there's not much the county can do. He said the commission sent Baller's complaints and mounting evidence - a pile of papers going back seven years - to the county attorney last week.
    
    Engelage said he didn't know when he might hear from county counsel. The situation might resolve itself in court, he said.
    
    Baller, who lives near the Smiths, said it was nearly impossible to ensure the Smiths were following the law and registering their animals - which include nearly 60 lions, tigers, wolves and cougars.
    
    Baller suggested Monday the county commissioners should adopt an ordinance requiring exotic animal owners, such as the Smiths, to insert microchips into each animal. That would help identify an animal's owner should one escape, she said, and keep track of the animals in captivity.
    
    Northern District Commissioner Jim Logan said that wouldn't fix the registration issue because a female animal could have babies - which, of course, wouldn't be born with the microchips.
    
    Baller pointed out this is not a new issue. The Smiths were cited for roughly three dozen violations of the Animal Welfare Act in November 2004 by the USDA.
    
    Those complaints, which were administrative in nature and not civil or criminal, were settled early last year. The Smiths agreed to a $13,000 fine and two years' probation.
    
    The USDA said the Smiths operated "a dilapidated backyard animal menagerie" which "masquerades as a sanctuary while breeding lions and tigers and confining animals to small, barren cages," according to a report from www.bigcatrescue.org, a Florida-based sanctuary and educational facility.
    
    The USDA report filed in 2004 said the Smiths "failed to provide minimally adequate veterinary care." Examples of that substandard care included a malnourished bear with sores on the pads of both front feet, a young lion who was "lethargic, cold to the touch and dehydrated," a lion with bite wounds on its legs and a tiger whose hind legs were paralyzed.
    
    The Big Cat Rescue organization also reported USDA officials "found maggot-infested food storage; unsafe caging; inadequate shelter from inclement weather; unsanitary drinking water; and insufficient perimeter fencing for dangerous animals."

    http://suburbanjournals.stltoday .com/articles/2007/08/04/news/sj2tn20070801-0801wa r_zone.ii1.txt

    Wesa-A-Geh-Ya Charged With Denying Care to Dying Animals

    January 25, 2005

    Contact:

    Lisa Wathne 757-622-7382

    Warrenton, Mo. - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed multiple charges against Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, a dilapidated backyard animal menagerie in Warren County, Mo., which masquerades as a sanctuary while breeding lions and tigers and confining animals to small, barren cages. The USDA launched an investigation and charged Wesa with violations of the Animal Welfare Act after PETA filed a formal complaint with the agency in June 2003, based on eyewitness reports of atrocious conditions at the facility.

    The USDA's 13-page complaint states, "The gravity of the violations alleged in this complaint is great. They include instances in which respondents impeded an inspection and failed to allow access to their facility, and repeated instances in which they failed to provide minimally adequate veterinary care." The USDA cited the following examples of Wesa's failure to provide veterinary care:

    * A bear who "appeared malnourished and had sores on the pads of both front feet"

    * A juvenile lion who "was lethargic, cold to the touch, and dehydrated"

    * A lion with an abscess on his face and bite wounds on his legs

    * A tiger whose hind legs were paralyzed

    The USDA also found maggot-infested food storage with foul-smelling, rotten meat; unsafe caging; inadequate shelter from inclement weather; unsanitary drinking water; and insufficient perimeter fencing for dangerous animals. Wesa's menagerie includes more than 65 animals, including tigers, lions, cougars, wolves, and a bear.

    In December 2003, PETA also filed a formal complaint with the Missouri Attorney General's Office, asking that it declare Wesa in violation of the Missouri Nonprofit Corporation Act. The attorney general determined that Wesa was in violation of state law for continuing to advertise as a zoo after forfeiting its USDA exhibitor's license.

    "Wesa-A-Geh-Ya bills itself as a sanctuary, when it's nothing but a hellhole of animal misery," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "The only thing that can stop perpetual suffering at Wesa is to rescue these animals and padlock the place for good."

    For more information, please visit PETA's Web site WildlifePimps.com.

    Big Misery for Big Cats at Wesa-A-Geh-Ya

    Update January 2005: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed multiple charges for violations of the Animal Welfare Act against Wesa-A-Geh-Ya.
    
    The USDA's 13-page complaint states, "The gravity of the violations alleged in this complaint is great. They include instances in which respondents impeded an inspection and failed to allow access to their facility, and repeated instances in which they failed to provide minimally-adequate veterinary care. Respondents have continually failed to comply with the Regulations, after having been repeatedly advised of the deficiencies."
    
    Wesa was charged with failing to provide veterinary care for the following animals:

    . A juvenile female bear named Hazel who "appeared malnourished and had sores on the pads of both front feet"
    . A juvenile male lion named Jeffrey who "was lethargic, cold to the touch, and dehydrated"
    . An adult male lion named Pooh who had an abscess on his face and month-old bite wounds on his hind legs
    . An adult male tiger named Samson whose hind legs were paralyzed
    . A lion named Simbanala who had a lacerated ear
    . A tiger named Brutus who had an injured tail

    The USDA also found maggot-infested food storage with foul-smelling, rotten meat; unsafe caging; inadequate shelter from inclement weather; unsanitary drinking water; and perimeter fencing that was insufficient to safely contain dangerous animals.
    
    In December 2003, PETA also filed a formal complaint with the Missouri Attorney General's Office, asking that it declare Wesa in violation of the Missouri Nonprofit Corporation Act. The attorney general determined that Wesa was in violation of state law for continuing to advertise as a zoo after forfeiting its USDA exhibitor's license and notified Wesa that it must amend its articles of incorporation and advertising.

    Background
    
    Down a rural road 60 miles west of St. Louis, in Warrenton, Missouri, sits a collection of haphazardly constructed dog runs at a facility called Wesa-A-Geh-Ya (Wesa), operated by Ken and Sandra Smith. At first glance, Wesa appears to be yet another backyard puppy mill so prevalent in the Midwest-but its dilapidated, barren cages aren't filled with neglected and overbred dogs; they're crowded with an estimated 63 tigers, lions, cougars, wolves, and other exotic animals. Warehoused, the animals have neither environmental enrichment nor adequate space to exercise. Wesa is a classic roadside zoo and backyard breeder of big cats that masquerades as a sanctuary, preying on people's sympathy to collect donations while exploiting the animals in its care.
    
    Whistleblowers-many of them former board members and volunteers-have come forward with shocking and persistent complaints of overbreeding, inbreeding, abuse, animal disappearances, malnourishment, neglect, and preventable animal deaths. State officials charged the facility with violating caging laws, and Wesa has been repeatedly cited by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for failure to provide adequate veterinary care, failure to provide adequate shelter from inclement weather, improper food storage, sub-standard perimeter fencing, poor construction of animal enclosures, and unsanitary conditions.
    
    Sick, Dying, Malnourished, Crippled Animals Left to Suffer
    Witnesses report animals dying slow, agonizing deaths without any veterinary care, including an 18-year-old tiger who lay in her cage for more than a month, not eating or drinking. She withered away to skin and bones until she died. A black bear cub was in so much pain with raw and bleeding wounds on the soft, tender pads of her paws, apparently caused by living on rough gravel, that she actually tried to walk on the tops of her front paws. After being shot and killed by the Smiths, a sick horse was found to have had an untreated broken hip. A goat who approached a wolf cage to eat straw out of sheer starvation was badly injured when the wolf attacked, perhaps out of hunger. Volunteers claim that the animals are often fed only once every five days.
    
    An animal nutritionist, funded by a local veterinarian concerned about the animals' care, had found vision problems attributable to vitamin A deficiency; bowleggedness in big cats from rickets, metabolic bone disease, or vitamin A deficiency; unsanitary food storage; and failure to provide enough time between pregnancies to allow animals' nutritional stores to recover.
    
    A former board member reported seeing Ken Smith punch, hit, and kick the animals on numerous occasions. In one instance, Smith repeatedly kicked three lion cubs in the face and head because they jumped on him when he entered their cage.
    
    A veterinarian who visited the facility was appalled at the shocking conditions: "Animals were cramped in crowded cages. Males were not separated from females, encouraging breeding. . The animals had nothing in their tiny enclosures for enrichment. Cages were barren, with cement or gravel floors. Ken and Sandy Smith did not seem to care about enhancing the lives of the animals." In fact, conditions are so overcrowded that a former board member reported four cougars were stored in a horse trailer for an entire year before being moved to a cage.
    
    Jeffrey was a young lion cub who suffered and died because of Wesa's apathy and greed. According to volunteers, Jeffrey was not given enough to eat so he consumed straw, gravel, and bone that caused an impaction. Over several weeks, Jeffrey lost weight and grew listless. In August 2002, Jeffrey was obviously in severe pain and deteriorating. Volunteers expressed concern to the Smiths, who not only refused to seek veterinary care for Jeffrey, but also denied permission for a volunteer to take him to a veterinarian. Fearing Jeffrey was on the brink of death, the caring volunteer finally rushed Jeffrey to a vet hospital anyway.
    
    The veterinarian who treated Jeffrey wrote, "[Jeffrey was] gravely ill ... On presentation, this lion appeared to be dying. His body temperature was 96°F, and he was virtually lifeless. . A large foreign body mass was found in the stomach." The lion cub was operated on, but it was too late. Jeffrey died following surgery.
    
    Despite overwhelming evidence that Wesa had failed to provide adequate care to Jeffrey in the form of wholesome and ample food and health care, and therefore was in direct violation of Missouri's cruelty-to-animals statute, the county prosecutor declined to prosecute the facility for Jeffrey's unnecessary suffering and tragic death.
    
    "Scamtuary"
    In violation of any legitimate sanctuary's guiding principles, Wesa breeds animals in order to remain well stocked with cute babies to draw visitors to the backyard menagerie and to sell for a profit. No legitimate sanctuary would make a bad situation worse by breeding and selling exotic animals. Volunteers report that more than half of Wesa's "rescued" animals were actually born there. And it has been documented that the zoo has sold at least a few animals to a man who was recently convicted of selling and slaughtering tigers and leopards to sell their meat and skins on the black market.
    
    In addition to breeding animals, Wesa-A-Geh-Ya engages in the harmful practice of prematurely removing baby animals from their mothers, which is psychologically cruel to both the infants and their mothers and deprives the babies of proper maternal care and normal development. The lion and tiger cubs have been sold or carted around to state fairs where people pay to have photos taken with them, a practice that perpetuates the exotic pet trade by inspiring others to obtain wild animals. The additional stress of transport, excessive handling, confusion, and other unnatural aspects of these events puts further stress on the babies' delicate immune systems and increases the chances of their becoming ill. No legitimate sanctuary would ever tear babies from their mothers or take animals off site except for medical reasons.
    
    PETA has filed a formal complaint against Wesa with the Missouri attorney general for violations of the state Nonprofit Corporation Act and deceptive trade practices. PETA is asking that Wesa's nonprofit status be revoked and that Wesa be required to immediately terminate all public and private deception, fraud, misrepresentation, and use of false pretenses in connection with the solicitation of funds for charitable purposes or, in the alternative, face criminal prosecution. PETA is also asking that Wesa's assets, including the animals, be placed in receivership for their own protection.
    
    What You Can Do
    Please write a polite letter to the Missouri attorney general. Ask him to seriously and carefully review PETA's complaint regarding Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, which thoroughly documents the many ways in which the facility is violating the state's nonprofit rules and engaging in deceptive trade practices, and to revoke Wesa-A-Geh-Ya's nonprofit status, to institute criminal proceedings if necessary, or to institute any proceedings deemed necessary to protect the animals' welfare:

    Please write a polite letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials. Thank them for thoroughly investigating and pressing charges against Wesa-A-Geh-Ya. Urge them to pursue aggressive prosecution of this case and to levy the maximum penalties possible against Wesa-A-Geh-Ya.

    Dr. Chester A. Gipson, Associate Deputy Administrator
    USDA-APHIS-VS
    4700 River Rd., Unit 84
    Riverdale, MD 20737-1234
    301-734-7833
    301-734-4993 (fax)
    Chester.A.Gipson@usda.gov

    No genuine sanctuary would make a bad situation worse by engaging in or condoning commercial activities such as breeding, buying, selling, and exhibiting animals or by keeping animals in deplorable, overcrowded, neglectful conditions. Please contact PETA (e-mail CaptiveAnimals@peta.org) for help in combating pseudo-sanctuaries in your area.

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• Pat Engesser Robert Engesser Pat Engesser Robert Engesser

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Pat Engesser Robert Engesser DBA The Zoo AKA Jungle Safari

    Robert Engesser, d.b.a. The Zoo
    USDA License #58-C-0295
    P.O. Box 2060,

    Chiefland, FL 32644

    Robert Engesser’s traveling exhibit, The Zoo, has repeatedly failed to meet minimal federal standards for the care of animals used in exhibition as established in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The U.S. Department of
    Agriculture (USDA) has cited The Zoo numerous times for failing to provide proper food and water sources and adequate veterinary care, for failing to provide environmental enrichment to primates, for failing to maintain
    enclosures and transport trailers, and for poor housekeeping. A leopard from The Zoo attacked a 5-year-old girl, causing injuries. The exhibit has traveled under the names Engesser’s Exotic Felines, Luce Enterprises, and Endangered Species, Inc., in the past.

    January 24, 2005: A Hernando Today article about an exotic-animal auction in Florida described Pat Engessor as a big cat breeder who had been in business for “more than 30 years.” Engesser said that she attended the auction with the hope of selling lion cubs to other breeders. Animals sold at such auctions often end up at canned hunts, in the “pet” trade, or at poorly run roadside zoos.

    March 1, 2002: The USDA cited The Zoo for allowing children to come into direct contact with animals without supervision during exhibition. For the third time, the USDA cited the facility for failing to develop and implement
    an environment enrichment plan for primates. The baboon and a lemur were exhibiting stereotypic behavior.

    August 22, 2001: During an inspection, the USDA noted that the baboon’s stereotypic behavior was still not being addressed.

    May 24, 2001: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to provide environment enrichment to a baboon housed alone or to the ring-tailed lemurs. The baboon was seen pacing and head-rolling. A lion cub was being fed an inadequate diet of goat milk replacer. Water containers for the camel and llama were
    covered in algae.

    August 17, 2000: The Zoo was cited for failing to provide proper veterinary care to a tiger cub suffering from metabolic bone disease due to lack of proper diet and to a leopard with several areas of missing hair.

    June 28, 2000: During a complaint- based inspection, the USDA cited The Zoo for failing to provide adequate food to animals.

    November 4, 1999: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to store food to protect against deterioration, mold, or contamination by vermin.

    April 30, 1999: The Zoo was cited for keeping a tiger cub in a cage in which he was unable to turn about freely and make normal postural adjustments. The exhibit was again cited for failing to maintain proper veterinary records to document that an underweight elephant was receiving proper medical attention.

    January 28, 1999: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to provide an inclusive program of veterinary care, including measures to prevent zoonosis. A lion cub transmitted ringworm to other animals and a caretaker. The facility was also cited for failing to keep enclosures and food storage areas in good repair. A dead tiger cub was found in the freezer, having died of an unknown (“probably infectious”) respiratory illness.

    July 24, 1998: During a complaint- based inspection, the USDA cited The Zoo for failing to maintain enclosures adequate to prevent animals from escaping. The exhibitor was also cited for lack of a proper program of
    veterinary care.

    August 15, 1996: A Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., official wrote to Engesser, instructing him to cease exhibiting animals at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club locations because this was a violation of their corporate policy.

    April 24, 1996: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to maintain transport enclosures in good repair.

    November 7, 1995: The Zoo was cited for improper storage of supplies, for failing to maintain enclosures in good repair, and for a lack of proper water sources for three leopards.

    May 20, 1995: In a letter to the owners of The Zoo, the attending veterinarian noted observations that the big cats were overweight and stated that a leopard’s tail had to be amputated.

    May 15, 1995: The Zoo was cited for failing to maintain enclosures in order to prevent injury to animals.

    March 2, 1995: The USDA cited The Zoo for housing goats, sheep, and llamas in enclosures in which they could not make normal postural adjustments. It was again cited for failing to provide enrichment to a baboon who was constantly pacing and picking at her skin—a sign of zoochosis. There was also no record of veterinary care, and an elephant was observed to be thin.

    October 12, 1994: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to store food in order to prevent contamination and to maintain transport containers in good repair.

    June 10, 1994: The Zoo was cited for failing to store food properly to prevent contamination. The baboon was exhibiting stereotypic behavior indicative of zoochosis.

    March 8-11, 1994: During this inspection, the USDA cited The Zoo for failing to maintain enclosures in good repair and for failing to store bedding to prevent contamination. A male tiger was noted as underweight and suffering from a lame paw. The Zoo staff was not able to provide records to account for the whereabouts of all animals. Enclosures and perimeter fencing were noted to be inadequate to safely contain animals. The camel’s water source was found to be filled with algae and silt.

    February 11, 1994: The USDA cited The Zoo for failing to implement an environment enrichment program for primates, and the lemurs did not have access to a den to which they could retreat from the public. Food was noted to be stored in a manner in which it could become contaminated, and enclosures were noted to be in disrepair.

    May 11, 1993: The USDA cited The Zoo for housing lemurs, lions, and tigers in transport containers.

    August 9, 1990: According to the Rapid City Journal, a leopard attacked and mauled a 5-year-old girl while on display at the Black Hills Motor Classic in South Dakota. Reportedly, the leopard, who was restrained with a small chain fastened to a box, leaped on the girl’s back as she walked past him.

    See an interactive online map of exotic cat owners . See people being stupid with big cats, endangering themselves and others HERE . See the awful conditions that many captive cats endure HERE .

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• Marcus Cook of Zoo Dynamics or Marcus Cook of Zoo Dynamics or Zoo Cats 2

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    Man mauled by tiger remains hospitalized

    DALLAS, June 21 (UPI) -- A man remained hospitalized in Dallas Wednesday after being mauled by a Bengal tiger at a facility that supplies exotic animals to zoos and exhibitions.

    The incident happened last Friday at Zoo Dynamics. Part-time employee Don Roberts was mowing a strip of grass when the 300-pound tiger jumped a fence and attacked him, The Dallas Morning News reported.

    The sheriff's office told the newspaper a power failure allowed the animal to jump an electrified fence. Roberts said the tiger attacked as he ran to warn another employee it was on the loose.

    The company, which has had exotic animals on its 5-acre property for 15 years, said it is investigating how the mauling occurred.

    A hospital spokesman said Roberts was in the intensive care unit through the weekend and was in good condition Tuesday. He lost an ear, had claw marks all over his body and needed thousands of stitches.

    The tiger is under quarantine and the victim reportedly does not want to press charges against the facility

    http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060621-104855-3483r

    State halts roving big cat exhibit

    

    Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has obtained an emergency court order in Kaufman County to stop a traveling hands-on exhibit featuring wild jungle cats and cubs.

    Abbott on Friday said the action was taken to prevent harm to the public from exhibits put on by ZooCats Inc. The nonprofit organization brings animals such as tigers, leopards, lions and cougars to exhibit at children's birthday parties, weddings, commercial and media events and educational settings.

    In addition to the emergency court order, the charitable assets of ZooCats and related nonprofits, as well as operator Marcus Cline-Hines Cook, have been frozen. District Judge Howard Tygrett also named Dallas attorney Robert Trimble as temporary receiver.

    Trimble will oversee placement of the wild cats and other animals in the professional care of the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary in Boyd, northwest of Fort Worth .

    "This operator deliberately downplayed the potential danger of these animals, as well as the group's safety record and trainer qualifications, letting children and adults touch and hold them without regard for disease or possible physical harm," said Abbott in a statement. "This dangerous deception against the public, and the organization's false assertions about its charitable intentions, led our legal experts to conclude that we needed to act quickly."

    ZooCats officials were not immediately available to comment.

    ZooCats has exhibited the animals at the Mesquite Rodeo, Six Flags Over Texas, the Dallas ArtFest and various private schools. It has also set up show booths at a number of events in North Texas where children and adults may hold and feed the animals and have their pictures taken for a fee.

    The principal facility housing the animals, which also include wolf pups, a bear and a zebra, is near Kaufman. ZooCats obtains its animals through donations from zoos, sanctuaries and refuges, but the group also buys them from exotic breeders.

    Cook has made public claims about his group's perfect safety record. But, according to Abbot, ZooCats has been cited numerous times by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations such as failing to keep the adult animals under the control of a trained animal handler and for failure to maintain structurally sound facilities to prevent escape.

    The attorney general said the organization also falsely claims to be distributing charitable funds it collects for its services. It purports to represent, and donate funds to, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Save the Tiger Fund, and wildlife programs underwritten by Irving-based Exxon Mobil Corp.

    But, said Abbot, these organizations claim no affiliation with ZooCats and have not given Cook permission to use their logos or trademarks in exhibits. Cook also has falsely claimed an affiliation with the Dallas World Aquarium, the attorney general said.

    Abbot said he also suspects that Cook has misappropriated charitable assets for personal use and will ask the court to correct this abuse of public funds.

    The state will request civil penalties under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the Texas Nonprofit Corporations Act. Also requested are attorneys' fees and reimbursement of investigative costs associated with the case.

    ZooCats related nonprofits, which are also named in the lawsuit, include Zoological Studies Group, ZooCats Zoological Systems, Specialized Species Humane Society Inc., Zoo America Inc., and Technology Specialities and Research Group Inc.

    
    
    2003 American City Business Journals Inc.

    ZooDynamics Exhibitor Has Abysmal History of Mistreating Animals, Endangering Public

    August 11, 2005

    Contact:

    Amy Rhodes 757-622-7382

    Miles City, Mont. - Today, PETA sent an urgent letter to the Eastern Montana Fair president, urging the implementation of a strict policy prohibiting exotic-animal displays at the fair, which opens on August 25. PETA's request comes after the group learned that the carnival booked for the fair, Thomas Carnival, includes an attraction called Zoo Dynamics (formerly called ZooCats). Zoo Dynamics, owned by Marcus Cook, has been cited numerous times by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), and the big-cat display has resulted in injuries to members of the public.

    In 2003, the USDA filed charges against Cook for alleged AWA violations including using a cattle prod to stun a tiger as a means of discipline, exposing young animals to excessive handling, causing animals trauma and harm, unsupervised public contact, mishandling an injured zebra, dozens of instances of unsafe handling of dangerous animals during public exhibition, allowing a bear cub to be teased with a stick, filthy enclosures in disrepair, exposing animals to extreme heat and inadequate ventilation, failing to provide minimum space, food and water, and failing to comply with veterinary care requirements.

    Cook was recently charged with unsafe handling by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after one of his tiger cubs bit a woman at a car dealership in Tampa . PETA filed a formal complaint with the USDA after obtaining photos of two of Cook's tiger cubs at the dealership with bloody abrasions around their noses and eyes. Another cub used by ZooCats bit an employee while on display at Six Flags Over Dallas in 2002 and the exhibit was later removed from the park.

    Animals used for photo ops are often still babies and are typically forcibly removed from their mothers, causing extreme stress to both mother and baby. When they outgrow their "cuteness," exotic animals are often sold at auctions, where they may be purchased by "canned-hunt" operators or people who kill them illegally for their body parts.

    "The Eastern Montana Fair would do the animals and the public a favor by banning exotic-animal acts," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "Tearing babies from their mothers for stressful and potentially dangerous public contact isn't wholesome family entertainment."

    PETA's letter to the Eastern Montana Fair president is available upon request. For more information, please PETA's Web site WildlifePimps.com.

    Big-cat exhibitor Marcus Cook of ZooCats and Zoo Dynamics is traveling the country with Thomas Carnival, which operates at local and state fairs. Cook charges a fee for visitors to have their photos taken with tiger cubs.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees animal exhibits, filed charges against Cook, in part for allegedly failing to handle animals safely, failing to protect animals from temperature extremes, and using a cattle prod to stun a tiger as a means of discipline during an exhibit.

    In February, Cook was charged by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission with unsafe handling of wildlife after it was revealed that a visitor to an exhibit at a car dealership was bitten by one of his tigers. Another cub used by Cook bit an employee while on display at Six Flags Over Dallas in 2002

    Group Sends USDA Photos of Displayed Cubs With Bloody Facial Sores

    For Immediate Release:
    March 10, 2005

    Contact:
    Amy Rhodes 757-622-7382

    Tampa, Fla. - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has launched an investigation of exotic-animal-trainer Marcus Cook for possible violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. PETA contacted the USDA about a woman who was reportedly bitten on the hand by one of Cook's tiger cubs. According to news sources, on February 12, Sandra Hopps-Caraballo received two puncture wounds on her hand during a controversial photo op with the cub at the Tampa Bay Auto Mall on Tampa Road. Cook, who does business as Zoo Dynamics, was exhibiting two adult and two baby tigers at the dealership when the incident occurred. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission charged Cook with unsafe handling of captive wildlife.

    PETA also complained to the USDA that the two cubs had bloody abrasions on their noses and around their eyes and provided photos of the tiger cubs' marred faces to aid in the investigation. PETA has asked the auto mall to ban exotic-animal displays from its properties.

    Cook has been cited by the USDA for failure to provide veterinary care, failure to provide shelter from inclement weather, inadequate ventilation, filthy cages, failure to provide minimum space, and improper handling during public exhibition. In 2002, Six Flags Over Dallas dismissed Cook's tiger exhibit over concerns for public safety. In August 2004, Cook was charged in federal court with conspiring to violate laws pertaining to wildlife. Cook was named, along with eight others, in a 55-count indictment that alleges that the accused bought or sold more than $200,000 worth of endangered or threatened animals between 1999 and 2003, violating interstate provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.

    Tiger cubs used in traveling acts are prematurely removed from their mothers, denying them proper nutrition and maternal care. If the animals survive the stress of transport and handling, exhibitors typically dispose of them a few months later when they become more difficult to handle, replacing them with new cubs. Since 1990, there have been at least 177 dangerous incidents involving big cats in 36 states.

    "Besides the cruelty of taking baby tigers away from their mothers, these cats become ticking time bombs when constantly subjected to handling and stress," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "The best way to protect the cats and the public would be to revoke Cook's license to operate."

    The Federal Wildlife Officer

    REGION 3
    Paul Beiriger, Regional Rep
    
    Nine Individuals Indicted on Wildlife Related Charges

    Minneapolis - In a 55-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury, a Racine, MN, couple faces additional charges related to their operation of an animal park and animal brokerage business. In addition to the charges against Kenneth G. Kraft and his wife, Nancy L. Kraft, seven others were charged with various wildlife related charges.

    The grand jury charged the Krafts will conspiring to violate a number of laws including the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act. The Endangered Species Act generally makes it unlawful to buy/sell in interstate commerce animals that have been designated as either endangered or threatened. The Lacey Act generally prohibits the interstate sale or purchase of endangered or threatened animals with a market value in excess of $350, and it also makes it unlawful to make and/or submit a false record or label for any endangered or threatened animals in interstate commerce from 1999 to 2003.
    
    The other individuals charged by the grand jury on wildlife-related charges were: Robert E. Baudy, age 80, from Bevilles Corner, FL; Marcus Cook, from Dallas, TX, and the operator of Zoocats, Inc.; Troy Allen Hyde, from Bozeman, MT, the operator of Animals of Montana, Inc.; Hans Jakob Lueck, age 50, from Shoreline, WA, the operator of Wild Eyes Animal Adventure and Photography in Montana; Merle Multhauf, age 50, from Emerald, WI, Craig Perry, from Center Point, IA, the operator of Perry's Wilderness Ranch & Zoo; and James F. Rienow, age 55, from Suamico, WI, an animal broker and taxidermist.

    According to the indictment, the Krafts advertised their interest in buying, selling, and trading exotic wildlife, including endangered and threatened animals through several means, including the Internet and a national exotic animal publication "Animal Finders' Guide". The Krafts bought and sold numerous protected animals, including tigers, grizzly bears, and leopards. They had sources and customers around the country, including, but not necessarily limited to: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
    
    The indictment alleges that at the same time the Krafts were illegally buying and selling protected wildlife from their property in Racine, MN, under a number of different names, they also operated an animal park called BEARCAT Hollow. BEARCAT Hollow stands for Beautiful Endangered and Rare, Conservation and Therapy. The Krafts solicited donations, memberships, and other forms of sponsorships for BEARCAT Hollow by representing that the funds raised would go to feed and otherwise support the animals of BEARCAT Hollow, but they failed to disclose that the animals at the Racine, MN, property were regularly bought and sold as inventory of Kraft Game Farms or Kraft's Animal Escapades.

    Because protected wildlife may not generally be offered for sale, bought, sold, or transported in interstate commerce, the Krafts allegedly made false records and false identifications of the wildlife involved in the transaction on forms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the indictment, Nancy Kraft told at least one person that, for instance, the Krafts would make an illegal sale of a protected grizzly bear appear lawful by declaring the animal to be a "Syrian grizzly," believed by the Krafts not to be protected, on the federal APHIS Form 7020. The Krafts are also alleged to have falsified records in order to hide their illegal activity by claiming the transactions were a "donation" or "breeding loan" instead of the sale or transfer of animals.
    
    The indictment also charges Kenneth Kraft with witness tampering for allegedly instructing a person to lie to federal officials and maintain that animals he bought from Kenneth Kraft had been illegally donated rather than illegally purchased.

    If convicted on the conspiracy or wildlife-related charges, the Krafts and the other defendants face a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. If convicted of tampering with a witness, Kenneth Kraft could face a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. Any sentences would be determined by a judge based on the federal sentencing guidelines.
    
    The case is the result of an investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Koch is prosecuting the case. Criminal indictments are only charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

    The Christian Science Monitor

    Trouble at wild-animal parks? Study cites lax US regulations for private exhibitors.
    By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor August 31, 2006

    The grainy picture, taken at a private wild-animal park, shows a girl reaching out to pet, or grab, the tail of a full-grown leopard. How will the leopard react?
    As the debate over private ownership of exotic pets intensifies in the US, attention is also beginning to fall on private wildlife exhibits that display "big cats" like lions, tigers, and leopards.

    
    TIGER HUG: Gloria Johnson with Casanova at her Havana, Fla., farm. As states ban private custody of exotic pets, some owners seek USDA licenses.
    PHIL COALE/AP/FILE
    
    Licensed by the US government, these parks are required to put "significant barriers" between visitors and big cats. But there's enough gray area in the law so that some facilities permit close contact with the animals, including touching them - sometimes with tragic results.

    In the year since 17-year-old Haley Hilderbrand was fatally mauled while posing for her senior photo with a leashed tiger at a Kansas wild-animal park, pressure has grown at federal and state levels to explicitly ban public contact with big cats at facilities that are licensed and regulated by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

    In April, Kansas became the first state to ban direct contact between humans and potentially dangerous animals at wildlife exhibits. It also joined 21 states that prohibit private ownership of certain big cats.

    Last month, Rep. Jim Ryun (R) of Kansas introduced legislation in Congress to beef up the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which governs animal safety at USDA-regulated facilities. His bill would prohibit direct contact between big cats and the public and require the USDA to write public-safety regulations for exhibitor licensees.

    Activists say AWA rules are too weak to ensure that the animals are securely kept and well maintained - or to protect humans from the animals on display. "We're not even that critical of the USDA because it doesn't really have the authority it needs to deal with the public-safety problem," says Greg Wetstone of International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a Yarmouth Port, Mass., animal rights group.

    About 5,000 lions, tigers, and other big cats are kept by nearly 700 USDA big-cat licensees in the United States. Someone seeking a license to exhibit tigers is subject to requirements similar to those for someone seeking a goat license, IFAW reported last week, after a year-long investigation of such facilities.

    As a result, in states where private ownership of exotic animals is banned, people can legally keep their animals by getting a USDA license as an exhibitor. In a rising number of cases, license applicants are mom-and-pop outfits building animal collections.

    "These animals are dangerous, and it takes a lot to contain and feed them," says Mr. Wetstone of the IFAW, which included in its report the grainy photo of the girl touching the leopard. "So some folks decide to make a few bucks and escape state rules barring them as pets. They go get a USDA license."

    The IFAW report - which looked at 42 wild-animal exhibits in 11 states, all USDA-licensed - cites these problems.

    • Most of these big-cat facilities are "structurally unsound."

    • Most allow public contact between people and big cats.

    • "Vermin and grossly inadequate sewage disposal" are often evident. Meat fed to big cats is often rotten.

    • Many facilities have no attendants at big-cat exhibits, and some "allowed children to work as attendants."

    In the past decade, there have been 13 big-cat-related incidents in Florida, 12 in Texas, six in California, and five each in Illinois, Nevada, Minnesota, and Kansas. Since 1990, 13 people have died in these incidents, IFAW says.

    A USDA spokesman says AWA regulations are adequate to keep the public safe and are zealously policed by its team of inspectors.

    "There is no public-safety crisis," says Darby Holladay with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "Whenever any incident occurs, the USDA animal-care program looks into it. If there's a possible violation of the Animal Welfare Act, enforcement action is taken."

    The process can be slow. In the case of the park in Kansas where Hilderbrand was mauled, the USDA has yet to decide on whether to revoke the operator's big-cat license.

    Critics of the IFAW report say it fails to deliver specific violations at specific facilities. "I don't think it's a well-informed report," says Marcus Cook, spokesman for the Feline Conservation Federation, which represents big-cat exhibitors. "If they know something, let's report it. If you've got a valid complaint, let's make it to the USDA. Don't just throw a bunch of numbers out there."

    An IFAW member says the group has more than 2,000 photos documenting the violations cited in its report. "Our staff member was at [one] facility when a leopard bit the finger off an untrained worker," says Josephine Martell, a principal author of the report. "You can't just say, 'here's the tiger. Take care of him. I'm going to get some coffee.' But that's what's happening."

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    L & L Exotics

    Check for yourself to see if they meet the sanctuary standards for an accredited animal refuge. See an interactive online map of exotic cat owners . See people being stupid with big cats, endangering themselves and others HERE . See the awful conditions that many captive cats endure HERE .

    USDA Finally takes away license from Lorenza Pearson of L & L Exotics

    Lions and tigers and bears denied

    
    Ruling prohibits Copley Township man from selling or displaying exotic animals

    
    By Bob Downing

    Beacon Journal staff writer

    
    A federal administrative judge has ruled that a Summit County man cannot exhibit or sell exotic animals.

    Lorenza Pearson, who operates L&L Exotic Animal Farm in Copley Township, apparently will be allowed to keep his lions, tigers, bears and other animals under the ruling by Victor W. Palmer, a U.S. Department of Agriculture administrative law judge.

    In a 47-page ruling signed on April 6, Palmer revoked Pearson's federal license to show and sell exotic animals and ruled that Pearson is permanently disqualified from obtaining such a license.

    Palmer rejected a request by the Agriculture Department that Pearson be fined $100,000 for failing to care for his animals in compliance with federal rules.

    The orders will take effect May 11, barring an appeal by Pearson.

    Efforts to reach Pearson and his attorney, William T. Whitaker, on Friday were unsuccessful.

    Pearson was cited by Palmer for 26 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act between Jan. 5, 2000, and Feb. 22, 2006.

    The violations ``were in every sense egregious, obvious violations of the (federal) act and the regulations that substantially endangered the health and well-being of the animals Mr. Pearson kept at his facility for exhibition,'' Palmer wrote.

    ``The fact that many of these violations were often uncorrected and persistent requires, in addition to the issuance of a cease-and-desist order, the revocation of Mr. Pearson's exhibitor license as the only effective way to prevent their future occurrence.''

    The judge called the conditions for the animals ``deplorable.''

    ``Inadequate drainage of pens housing the animals was a chronic problem that was never fully remedied and the animals frequently had to endure the discomfort of staying wet,'' he wrote.

    ``When water receptacles froze in the winter, the animals had no water to drink. In the summer when water was accessible, the water receptacles were dirty.

    ``If the hibernation of the bears that he denned in forced hibernation was interrupted, there was no food or water available to them. And some of the bears were kept, as were some lions and tigers, in enclosures that were too small for their comfort.''

    Palmer rejected Pearson's defense that his problems with federal inspectors stemmed from his failure to cooperate with veterinarian Norma Harlan in an investigation of another exotic-animal exhibitor. That led federal inspectors to seek revenge against him through repeated inspections, Pearson claimed.

    It is not clear whether Pearson will be permitted to keep his license during an appeal.

    Termination of the federal license also could mean that the inspections of Pearson's facility on Columbus Avenue by federal inspectors will end.

    On June 14, 2002, the Agriculture Department cited Pearson for 900 violations of its animal-care rules. He was accused of committing numerous, willful violations of federal rules, including inadequate medical care and nutrition, dirty conditions and inadequate facilities.

    Pearson faced a fine of up to $3,750 per violation.

    Between 1999 and 2005, Pearson had as many as 82 animals at the same time -- mostly exotic cats and bears, Palmer said in his report.

    The number of animals that Pearson had varied at times, but he had a medium-sized exotic animal operation, Palmer noted.

    Testimony in the case was heard in Akron in September 2003 and June 2006.

    Conditions at the Copley site were horrible, according to veterinarian Dr. Albert Lewandowski, who works at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and accompanied federal inspectors on a 2005 inspection.

    ``The facility is squalid,'' he wrote in a report. He said he was shocked that a USDA-licensed operation would ``have facilities as bad as this.''

    He said Pearson's facilities were ``dirty, unkept, uncared for, just general neglect, just a facility that had been neglected not just recently, but for a long period of time. The animals were living under conditions that just weren't appropriate for any type of animal.''

    In 2005, seven of Pearson's bears were judged to be undernourished and suffering from malnutrition. They were confiscated by federal inspectors and removed from Pearson's care.

    Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com .

    http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/ 17078038.htm

    Wild-animal case languished nearly 3 years

    Wednesday, June 21, 2006

    Karen Farkas

    Plain Dealer Reporter

    Akron -- As federal inspectors issued citation after citation accusing Lorenza Pearson of raising exotic animals in deplorable conditions at his Cop ley Township farm, he was immune from sanctions because it took almost three years for officials to resume a hearing.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a complaint against Pearson and the L&L Exotic Animal Farm in 2002, but the process to revoke his license stagnated after the hearing was temporarily halted in September 2003. When the hearing resumed Tuesday, Pearson faced 953 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, from February 1997 through February 2006.

    Federal officials cited scheduling problems and the need to appoint a new administrative judge to hear the case as reasons for the delay.

    Pearson and his attorney, William Whitaker, maintain that the Copley Township facility is safe for animals and people.

    Federal officials said they removed seven bears in May 2005 because of lack of adequate food and veterinary care, and a Summit County judge ordered the removal of 27 exotic cats, including tigers and lions, in 2004 because of poor handling of animal waste.

    During a Feb. 22 visit, a federal inspector reported Pearson had 18 animals: eight bears, six tigers, two lions, a black leopard and cougar. The inspector believed Pearson was hiding more, he wrote in a complaint.

    Violations cited in that visit, which were similar to citations from previous inspections, included holes in a perimeter fence. Animals were not being fed well; were kept in pens that were unsafe and too small; and were not receiving adequate food and water, the complaint says.

    The inspector said he failed to adequately care for a black leopard and a female tiger with a lame hind leg. The only food for the 10 large cats was a dead animal that was contaminated with dirt, hay and feces, records show.

    Pearson was notified in October 2005 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it intended to terminate his Animal Welfare Act license. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied renewal of his captive-bred wildlife registration in February 2004.

    Even if Judge Victor Palmer rules his license should be revoked, Pearson can appeal, with the license remaining in effect until appeals are exhausted, a federal lawyer said.

    Pearson's operation has come under increasing scrutiny following the unrelated May 22 escape of a 500-pound black bear from an Ashtabula County animal compound. The bear mauled a 36-year-old woman. Two days later a fire ignited by a space heater in an iguana terrarium destroyed Pearson's Columbus Avenue home and killed a bear cub, two tiger cubs, two iguanas and many birds.

    The farm made national news in 1983 when Pearson's 2-year-old son was killed by a Bengal tiger.

    Ohio law provides virtually no oversight of wild-animal breeders. Some legislators have said they will introduce a bill calling for regulations.

    The Animal Protection Institute, a national advocacy organization, asked legislators Monday to ban ownership of dangerous wild and exotic animals in Ohio. It said owners allow people to have direct contact with dangerous animals.

    While people are in danger, the animals are also suffering because of poor care, Zibby Wilder, spokeswoman for the agency, said Tuesday.

    She said that the USDA does not have enough inspectors and that the Pearson case illustrates how the government does not act, even after years of violations.

    "Even when they are inspected, they are given a fine or have a hearing and nothing happens," she said. "It's not a priority until someone gets hurt."

    To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

    kfarkas@plaind.com, 1-800-628-6689

    http://www.cleveland.com/ne ws/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/summit/115087876815 0920.xml&coll=2

    Animal exhibitor accused of neglect
    
    Copley exotic creature keeper to face 953 complaints in court

    
    By Mary Kay Quinn
    Beacon Journal staff writer
    
    The owner of an exotic animal farm on Tuesday will face federal officials who claim he committed 953 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
    
    Lorenza Pearson, owner of the L&L Exotic Animal Farm in Copley Township, will face U.S. Department of Agriculture officials in Summit County court.
    
    Pearson, who needs a federal license to exhibit exotic animals, could lose that license and be fined up to $2,500 each time he is found in violation.
    
    Pearson was in the news last month when a fire blamed on a space heater destroyed his house. Two tiger cubs, a bear cub, two iguanas and some small
    birds died.
    
    The alleged violations date to 1997, and many concern lack of veterinary care and adequate structures for the animals.
    
    ``Many of these -- and other -- violations continue to this day,'' according to the USDA complaint filed in March.
    
    The USDA notes that Pearson has owned anywhere from 26 to 82 animals at the times he sought renewal of his USDA license.
    
    As recently as February, Pearson had 18 animals -- eight bears, three white tigers, three ``orange'' tigers, two lions, one black leopard and one cougar at
    his Columbus Avenue property.
    
    County officials initiated action that led to the removal of 29 animals in June 2004, while the USDA removed seven bears in May 2005.
    
    Failure to provide veterinary care to the bears was among the reasons the USDA seized them, according to the complaint.
    
    Many of the 119 alleged violations of veterinary care standards appear to deal with record keeping, but in one instance, the USDA claims Pearson didn't get a
    veterinarian to treat a tiger with a lame hind leg.
    
    He also didn't watch the animals on a daily basis, according to the USDA, and in January 2001 he was unaware that one of his tigers had died.
    
    The USDA found fault with structures and fences on the property.
    
    In February, the USDA found holes in the perimeter fences that surrounded the enclosures of six tigers.
    
    Sometimes the animals were in danger, according to the USDA. The USDA also claims that cages had protruding wires that could hurt animals, and that between
    1997 and 2001, some animals -- including tigers and lions -- were in enclosures that were too small for normal posture and for freedom of movement.
    
    Food could be bad, too, the USDA claimed. It said that in June 2000 Pearson provided ``old decaying food contaminated with maggots'' to 26 tigers and lions.
    
    As for Pearson, losing his home has been difficult, said his lawyer, William Whitaker. But he has been working hard, he said, and someone is always on site
    to take care of the remaining animals living behind the burned house.
    
    Pearson could not be reached for comment. Mary Kay Quinn can be reached at 330-996-3778 or mkquinn@thebeaconjournal.com .

    Two years after trucks hauled away 29 exotic animals, the Pearson's are right back at it:

    Tiger cubs die in house fire

    3 wild animals die in Copley house fire
    USDA investigating breeder's business
    Thursday, May 25, 2006
    John Horton
    Plain Dealer Reporter
    Copley Township- A black bear cub and two tiger cubs died inside their cages Wednesday morning as flames swept through the Summit County home of a wild-animal breeder, fire officials said.

    The blaze consumed the residence of Lorenza Pearson, but did not damage the nearby pens of L&L Exotic Animal Farm, fire Chief Todd Chambers said. State records show Pearson held eight black bears on the property. Pearson's son said 10 large cats - including lions and tigers - also share the property.

    The fire comes two days after a 500-pound black bear escaped an Ashtabula County animal compound and mauled a 36-year-old woman, raising questions about the safety of wild-animal facilities.

    Both businesses are under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, officials said Wednesday.

    The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is investigating Mark Gutman's Grand River Fur Exchange in Ashtabula's Hartsgrove Township to determine whether the operation requires a federal license, said Robert Willems, an animal-care specialist.

    Gutman breeds and sells a variety of wild animals, and he holds a state license that was renewed in March. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

    A pending USDA case against Pearson claims numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act at his Copley Township farm, including inadequate housing for animals. The complaint covers a period between May 1998 and November 2001. A hearing before a federal administrative judge is set for next month in Akron.

    In 2004, officials removed wild and exotic animals - including bears, tigers and lions - from Pearson's farm after a judge deemed the operation a public nuisance. The issue involved the handling of animal waste.

    In 1983, a 250-pound Bengal tiger that served as a pet killed Pearson's 2-year-old son inside the family's home.

    Ohio law provides virtually no oversight of wild-animal breeders, a situation that has drawn increased attention following Monday's bear escape in Ashtabula County. Statewide, there are 57 bear breeders with 130 bears, according to a report provided Wednesday by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

    Pearson's farm is second in bear population. The largest is Sam Mazzola's animal rescue center in Lorain County.

    Pearson declined to comment Wednesday. His son, Lorenza Pearson Jr., 30, of Bath Township said operations like L&L Exotic Animal Farm can be safe "if it's done right."

    Plain Dealer reporter Steve Luttner contributed to this story.

    To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

    jhorton@plaind.com 800-962-1167

    http://www.cleveland.com/news /plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1148545846278060 .xml&coll=2

    Trucks haul away 29 exotic animals from L & L Exotics owned by Lorenza Pearson

    1983 one of their tigers killed their own two year old son

    Posted on Wed, Jun. 09, 2004

    June 9, 2004 Copley Twp. Ohio : Trucks haul away 29 exotic animals. Pearson's L&L Exotic Animal Farm loses bid to keep lions, tigers, leopards. This is not the first time the farm has drawn attention from the law and from the media, reported Costen. In 1983, tragedy struck when a 250-pound tiger killed Pearson's 2-year-old son.

    By Craig Webb and Carol Biliczky

    Beacon Journal staff writers

    COPLEY TWP. - Lorenza Pearson could only stand by and watch as his so-called pets -- and source of income -- were loaded one by one onto a convoy of trucks Wednesday at his exotic animal farm.

    From just after sunrise to just before sunset, a small army of volunteers from animal sanctuaries around the country and officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture toiled to lure the menagerie of 29 exotic animals, ranging from tigers to black leopards, into portable cages that were loaded onto waiting trucks and hauled away.

    Some of the animals resisted the temptation of raw chicken, snarled at the volunteers and paced back and forth in their cramped cages on Pearson's L&L Exotic Animal Farm on Columbus Avenue .

    Copley Police Chief Mike Mier said the process was a slow one to ensure that neither the handlers nor the animals were harmed. He said one particularly agitated tiger and a lion had to be tranquilized before they could be moved.

    Wednesday's court-ordered seizure of the animals has been simmering for years as county and federal authorities sparred with Pearson over conditions at his farm where exotic animals were bred and kept between gigs at area fairs and carnivals.

    While the animals were being loaded onto trucks awaiting transport to four animal sanctuaries in Colorado , N orth Carolina , Pennsylvania and Indiana , Pearson made one more bid in court to keep his farm intact.

    But Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove rejected the plea of Pearson's attorney to vacate her Tuesday order for the removal of the animals.

    ``Enough is enough,'' she said forcefully. ``There is a time when the Board of Health's order must be enforced.''

    This was the latest chapter in Pearson's extensive battleto keep wild animals, despite concerns about environmental hazards, complaints from neighbors, a mauling and even a death on his property.

    Appeal planned

    Pearson's attorney, William Whitaker, said he would appeal the judge's decision to the 9th District Court of Appeals.

    At the hearing, he said the court's decision ran afoul of his client's constitutional rights, and that the township, county and health board had acted in secret.

    He told the court he didn't even have a copy of the court order permitting authorities onto Pearson's Columbus Avenue property Wednesday morning.

    ``There isn't a single bit of evidence that he hasn't complied,'' with the court's order, Whitaker said.

    But Irving Sugerman, law director for Copley Township , said Pearson has had two years to meet the health board's orders to keep his animals.

    ``He does not have a wastewater collection treatment plan and he's had two years to do it,'' Sugerman said.

    After the hearing, Sugerman denied Pearson's allegation that the township wanted to close his farm so that it could establish a housing development behind him on Wright Road .

    ``That's absolutely false,'' Sugerman said. ``That's the most absurd comment I've heard of. That's never even been discussed.''

    Pearson, wearing a T-shirt bearing illustrations of wild animals, said before the hearing that he would understand the judge's decision if he had been cruel to his exotic wildlife -- but he hadn't been.

    ``This is all about housing on Wright Road ,'' he said. `` Nobody wants to live next door to big cats.''

    Animals in good shape

    William Sheperd, a veterinarian from the Western Pennsylvania N ational Wild Animal Orphanage south of Pittsburgh , said there's no question the animals were well cared for. He looked over each of Pearson's animals at a makeshift clinic set up on the property.

    Aside from a couple of the big cats suffering from teeth problems, Sheperd said, most of the animals were in fairly good shape.

    The problem, he said, is cramming wild animals into a hodgepodge of cages that cover an area of less than two acres that includes Pearson's ranch-style home.

    ``This removal needed to be done,'' he said.

    Sheperd's sanctuary agreed to take in two white tigers and a black leopard.

    Custody of the animals was turned over to animal sanctuaries handpicked by the USDA on the condition that the animals not be bred or destroyed.

    The animals divvied up on Wednesday included 15 tigers, two spotted leopards, one black leopard, 8 African lions, one cougar, one lynx and one female Himalayan sun bear.

    Another of the beneficiaries was the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Center Point , Ind.

    Dave Hodge, director of the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky who also volunteers at the rescue center, agreed that the cramped conditions on Pearson's farm were not a healthy environment for the animals.

    ``The attitude (here at Pearson's farm) seems like they are out to make money,'' he said.

    Pearson's namesake son, Lorenza, took exception to that notion.

    Pointing to his parents' small home, where the gutters are about to fall off and at the older cars parked around it, Lorenza asked: ``Does this look like they are making a lot of money?''

    If anything is about money, the son said, it is the government coming in and seizing valuable animals like the white tigers and leaving behind nine black bears that aren't worth a dime.

    ``Maybe next time they should go down to the Akron Zoo and take some of their animals,'' he said. ``This is all about them pulling their authority.''

    Sugerman said the remaining black bears that were also ordered removed by Cosgrove will go once federal officials locate an appropriate place for them.

    ``Bears are harder to place than the cats are,'' he said, adding that they hope to move them within three weeks.

    With 25 years of working with exotic animals apparently nearing an end, Pearson said he was upset.

    Cosgrove's order prohibits him from having any more such animals at his farm.

    ``Who wouldn't be'' upset, he said. ``But the only thing I'm thinking about is what's going on right now.''

    Craig Webb can be reached at 330-723-7119 or cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com. Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com.

    2 7 Exotic Animals Seized From Farm

    News Net5.com7:18 p.m. EDT June 9, 2004 - The city of Copley seized 27 animals from an exotic animal farm Wednesday, reported N ewsChannel5's Jonathon Costen.

    The lions, tigers, and leopards lived on L and L Exotic Animal Farm, which is owned by Lorenzo Pearson.

    The city and the health department says they shut down the farm because it is a nuisance, saying that it is difficult to dispose of the animal waste on the relatively small piece of property.

    Pearson's son says the family is being victimized, and that the removal is really about politics.

    SLIDESHOW:Animal Refuge Raid

    Other supporters say that the city is picking on the Pearsons, and that the animals were loved and well-cared-for on the farm.

    In a last minute effort, Pearson's attorney filed a motion to keep the animals.

    But Judge Patricia Cosgrove upheld the removal of the animals.

    This is not the first time the farm has drawn attention from the law and from the media, reported Costen. In 1983, tragedy struck when a 250-pound tiger killed Pearson's 2-year-old son.

    Charges against Pearson were dropped.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5175870/

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• Karl Mitchel of All Acting Ani Karl Mitchel of All Acting Animals

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    Karl Mitchel of All Acting Animals

    Check for yourself to see if they meet the sanctuary standards for an accredited animal refuge. See an interactive online map of exotic cat owners . See people being stupid with big cats, endangering themselves and others HERE . See the awful conditions that many captive cats endure HERE .

    Karl Mitchell / All Acting Animals big cats go to San Antonio

    By Angie Wagner

    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    1:37 p.m. March 2, 2005

    PAHRUMP, Nev. - Down a quiet gravel road lined by homes, six tigers and two leopards live amid the roosters and cats in a small back yard. They are hungry and dirty, and their owner can no longer care for them.

    Carol Asvestas is tired of seeing the same scene played out across the country. Big cats are taken in as pets or kept in so-called sanctuaries, but then are neglected by owners who become overwhelmed.

    Many big cats, like the ones here, will end up with Asvestas at her San Antonio , Texas , Wild Animal Orphanage.

    Animal protection groups want private ownership of big cats outlawed. They say that with an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 large cats kept as pets in the United States , the problem is out of control.

    Just last week, authorities shot and killed a 425-pound tiger that had been roaming the hills near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles . Where it came from and who owned it is unknown.

    State laws vary on owning exotic animals such as tigers, wolves and alligators. Just 14 ban private ownership altogether; eight have a partial ban on some species, 13 states regulate exotic animals and 15 states, including Nevada, have no regulations of many exotic animals, according to the Animal Protection Institute.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires licenses for exhibitors, dealers and researchers, but not private owners keeping a big cat as a pet.

    "It's a huge public safety risk that is 100 percent preventable," said Dr. Kim Haddad, a veterinarian and manager of the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition, made up of more than 20 animal protection groups, sanctuaries and zoos.

    "The solution is so easy. You just cannot have these animals as pets."

    Sure, tiger cubs are cute and cuddly. But when they reach 600 pounds and eat 20 pounds of meat a day, owners often find themselves in over their heads. And it's often Asvestas who comes in to help.

    Such was the case in Pahrump, a dusty desert town near the California border, where a woman decided she couldn't care for her back yard tigers and leopards anymore. One pet leopard was quarantined after it bit off the tip of the woman's finger last week.

    Asvestas and the International Fund for Animal Welfare organized a rescue mission Tuesday, at the owner's request. She and helpers tranquilized, then loaded the skinny and mangy cats one by one into a trailer for the trip to Texas . There, they will be among 700 animals, 200 of them big cats. In the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson on Wednesday, the group collected two tigers, three lions and four wolves from another private owner.

    Animal groups cite numerous incidents of big cats getting loose or harming someone.

    - A 600-pound tiger belonging to a former Tarzan actor escaped in Florida and sent authorities on a 26-hour hunt before the tiger was shot and killed last July. The state does not monitor the keeping of exotic animals as pets.

    - A 10-year-old boy at a relative's house in North Carolina was killed by a tiger that pulled him inside its cage in December 2003. The next month, a tiger mauled a 14-year-old girl taking pictures in a tiger's cage at her father's farm. There is no state law about owning exotic animals.

    - In April 2003, authorities found 58 dead tiger cubs stuffed into freezers, 30 dead adult tigers, and two alligators in a bathtub at a California home. California has one of the strictest exotic pet laws in the nation, but critics say enforcement is a problem.

    - Pet owner Antoine Yates was bitten on the leg in 2003 by the pet tiger he kept in his New York apartment, a building where children also lived. New York now bans possession of many wild animals, though it doesn't apply to current owners.

    The popularity of owning big cats prompted Congress to pass a law in 2003 that makes it illegal to sell or ship lions, tigers and other big cats across state lines without permits. But animal welfare groups want an outright ban, saying the 5,000 to 7,000 privately owned tigers probably exceed the total number in the wild.

    "It is an odd phenomenon where people are setting up, essentially, personal zoos," said Chris Cutter, spokesman for the IFAW. "For some people, it's a status thing."

    The call for an end to private ownership is not unanimous. Patti Strand, president of the National Animal Interest Alliance, said her organization supports regulation of exotic pet owners, but said people who can handle the animals should be able to have them.

    "There is a growing body of animal groups that do nothing but exploit rather than try to solve problems because there are fund-raising dollars to be made by the sensationalism that goes along with that,' she said.

    The tigers in Pahrump, kept in cages behind a tan-colored trailer home, were part of a defunct animal sanctuary, said Steven A. Benson, who identified himself as a board member.

    "There's just too many cats to take care of," Benson said. "It's overwhelming."

    Animal groups say many big cat owners set up as a nonprofit sanctuary as a front to get money and really aren't capable of caring for the animals.

    "You have a lot of facilities out there who call themselves sanctuaries or rescue facilities," Haddad said. "For the most part, a lot of these people, these animals are their pets and they keep collecting them."

    Big cats kept and bred in captivity can never be released in the wild because their fear of man is gone, and often their genetics are upset through inbreeding. As long as animals are kept in back yards, Asvestas will likely keep getting calls.

    "I get tired," she said. "I can't take them all. We just turned down five animals last week."

    EDITOR'S NOTE - Angie Wagner is the AP's Western regional writer, based in Las Vegas .

    Big Cat Rescue Note:

    Shaquille, the black leopard and Dara, the cougar were rescued from Karl Mitchell many years ago. They had been beaten unmercifully and Dara (who is gone now) had a brain infection from the severity of her blows to the skull. For years when we would tell people about Shaq's story people would ask, "Why can't someone shut him down!" It wasn't until the owner was sent to jail for stealing a car that anything could be done to save the animals.

    March 4, 2005

    Exotic animals in town rescued

    MITCHELL'S TIGERS, LEOPARDS HEADED TO SAN ANTONIO REFUGE

    By DOUG McMURDO PVT

    HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT

    Norma Lagutchik of Animal Sanctuary of the United States helps Chuck Tay and Trey Alecio (not pictured) carry a sedated tiger to a trailer designed to transport the big cats from the far western Pahrump compound of Karl Mitchell, now imprisoned on theft charges.

    Karl Mitchell, the former Pahrump and Amargosa Valley animal control contractor, might still be in the pen but the tigers and leopards he kept for years at a compound in extreme western Pahrump were freed Tuesday, in a sense, when members of the Animal Sanctuary of the United States arrived to haul off six tigers and two leopards to the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio.

    According to Josephine Martell, Sandy Allman contacted the group last week and asked for assistance. Martell said the exotic cats were living in deplorable conditions.

    Martell, a captive wild animal specialist with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said Allman, who last week had the tip of her index finger bit off by a leopard, had tried in vain to care for the tigers, but "she was barely hanging on. The animals hadn't seen a vet in more than a year. They were covered in feces and had urine burns ... the conditions were just really filthy."

    One of Allman's neighbors called the newspaper Tuesday to say he was happy the cats were being taken away, but fretted over the large number of dogs still on the property. "They are all in bad shape," said the man, who spoke on condition his name not be used. "They've been hauling stuff to the dump for days now, but that place is in bad shape. What are they going to do about the dogs?" Allman is Mitchell's former partner.

    Mitchell is one of Nye County 's more controversial characters. He is now in prison following a theft conviction last year related to a Suburban he failed to return to the dealership after its lease expired and he awaits sentencing on additional theft charges after he cashed three checks totaling more than $40,000. The checks were mistakenly sent to Mitchell after Nye County Commissioners terminated his animal control contract in 2000.

    In 2001 the United States Department of Agriculture revoked Mitchell's All Acting Animals license to own exotic cats after it was determined he didn't provide minimal care per federal standards.

    Where they are going is going to seem like heaven. According to Martell the Wild Animal Orphanage will treat and "immediately vet" the cats, they will be put on a diet and will see a veterinarian regularly. "It's a big, natural habitat," Martell said of the orphanage. "There will be no contact with humans, and they'll be neutered so no breeding, but they will be able to live out their lives in peace."

    Martell said the no breeding rule is included in sanctuary standards, and is used to spot illegitimate sanctuaries that would exploit the animals for profit.

    "After getting the tigers and leopards from All Acting Animals some much-needed veterinary care, I greatly look forward to releasing them in to spacious, naturalistic enclosures," stated Carol Asvestas , executive director of the Wild Animal Orphanage.

    Martell said the group was at Betty Honn's Animal Adoption Ltd. in Henderson on Wednesday to rescue eight tigers, three lions, two leopards, four wolves, and four monkeys. The taking was necessary, said Martell, in light of Honn's death and the subsequent insolvency of her sanctuary.

    The leopard that bit Allman last week remains penned up on the Pahrump property. It is in quarantine.

    http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes. com/2005/03/04/news/sanctuary.html

    To: National Desk

    Contact: Chris Cutter, 508-737-4623 or ccutter@ifaw.org , Kerry Branon, 508-744-2068 or kbranon@ifaw.org , both of the International Fund for Animal Welfare

    YARMOUTH PORT , Mass. , March 1 / U.S. Newswire/ -- Thirteen big cats and their neighbors will be safer thanks to the help of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare - www.ifaw.org). Over the next two days, an IFAW-funded sanctuary, the Wild Animal Orphanage (WAO) is moving three lions, two leopards, four wolves and eight tigers from two separate homes near Las Vegas to a suitable sanctuary in Texas .

    "Keeping lions and tigers as pets is a growing phenomenon that is causing a huge public safety and animal welfare issue," said IFAW's Josephine Martell, "It's a bad idea for animals and people."

    The number of Americans keeping tigers and other big cats as pets continues to grow. IFAW estimates that there are 10,000 tigers being kept as pets in the U.S. , double the amount left living in the wild in the entire world. Since 1990, tigers have killed 11 people and injured 60 others. Just last week, a tiger escaped and was roaming the neighborhoods of Ventura County , near Los Angeles before it was shot and killed by authorities.

    "Many of the animals are living in filthy conditions. They are malnourished, without water and standing in their own excrement in cages that are too small," WAO's Carole Asvestas said. "With IFAW's help, we will provide them with the care and facilities they deserve."

    Across the country, legislators have realized that private ownership of dangerous animals is a national public safety threat. State legislation is currently being considered across the country including Washington , Maryland , Arkansas , Iowa , Ohio and Missouri . Although the passage of the Captive Wildlife Safety Act outlawed the selling and shipping of big cats across state lines without permit, there is no federal ban against owning a tiger, lion or another big cat as a pet.

    All Acting Animals (Mitchell, Karl)
    USDA License #88-C-0076
    6941 Oakridge Rd., Pahrump, NV 89048
    
    

    All Acting Animals has failed to meet minimal federal standards for the care of animals used in exhibition as established in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed formal charges against All Acting Animals for chronic, serious violations that include failure to provide animals with drinking water, failure to provide wholesome, uncontaminated food, failure to provide shelter from the elements, failure to provide adequate space, and failure to maintain enclosures and for threatening and harassing USDA officials. The USDA has cited All Acting Animals for failure to provide veterinary care and for filthy and unsanitary conditions. Karl Mitchell has been arrested numerous times and charged with burglary, carrying loaded guns in public, assault, felony stalking, auto theft, and evading arrest. The California Fish and Game Department considers Mitchell a danger to both people and animals. Contact PETA for documentation.

    
    Animals in recent inventory: 12 tigers, 2 ligers, a lion, a kangaroo, and a camel.

    February 5, 2001: According to a KLAS-TV Las Vegas, Nevada, news report covering Mitchell's controversial hiring as head of Nye County Animal Control, "California Fish and Game . has seized animals from Mitchell, denied him permits for others, and . characterized him as 'a dangerous person and a serious liability to any person or animal he's involved with.' . [Mitchell has been arrested for] burglary, carrying loaded guns in public, [and] assault. In Nye County, he was busted a dozen times in just six years, for, among other things, pointing a loaded gun at a person and trying to intimidate witnesses. . In a 1996 interview, Mitchell's then-wife . said he started beating her shortly after they were married. The last time, he sent her to a hospital with broken ribs. . Mitchell was busted in Clark County for felony stalking of his estranged wife."
    
    The newscast also stated that Clark County officials reported Mitchell had sewn shut a snake's mouth using a needle and thread-and no anesthesia-to keep the animal's mouth closed during use on a movie set.

    January 18, 2001: The USDA filed charges against All Acting Animals for violating the Animal Welfare Act .

    USDA investigators found that on several occasions, Mitchell had interfered with, threatened, abused, and harassed USDA officials in the performance of their duties. In addition, investigators have documented that Mitchell has failed to:

    · allow officials access to his facilities, animals, and records

    · maintain required records

    · maintain enclosures

    · adequately store supplies of food so as to protect them from deterioration or spoilage

    · provide sufficient shade to protect animals from direct sunlight

    · provide shelter from inclement weather

    · house animals in outdoor facilities with a proper perimeter fence

    · construct perimeter fencing that restricts the entrance of other animals

    · provide animals with sufficient space in which to make normal postural and social adjustments

    · provide food that was wholesome, palatable, and free of contamination

    · provide animals with water as often as necessary for the health and comfort of the animal

    · maintain an effective program for the control of pests

    · properly clean and repair premises

    September 14, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct previously identified violations of not providing adequate shelter from the elements, failure to repair enclosures and fences, and poor housekeeping .
    
    The inspector discussed watering regulations after Mitchell stated that he withholds water as a training technique . This practice may lead to dehydration and cause serious damage to internal organs.

    
    The USDA inspection team requested and received an escort from the Nye County sheriff's office.

    July 24, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct previously identified violations of not providing adequate shelter from the elements, failure to provide minimum space, failure to provide animals with drinking water, filthy conditions, and failure to repair enclosures and fences .
    
    The inspector wrote, "Animals appeared crowded and unable to receive the exercise required for healthy young animals. . Several enclosures had a buildup of old, soiled, and damp straw bedding. . [A]ccess to residence was repeatedly denied by licensee, Karl Mitchell. When asked if animals were in the house, he stated that there were 'no cats in the house that we want to see.'"
    
    All Acting Animals was also cited for giving a kangaroo drinking water that was "totally fouled, red in color, and opaque." The kangaroo enclosure had a buildup of fecal material and soiled straw. A young camel had no ventilated shade to provide relief from heat. All Acting Animals was cited for failure to provide wholesome, palatable, and uncontaminated food and failure to maintain records of acquisition and disposition.
    
    The inspector also noted that Mitchell was instructed to remove a sign identifying the facility as a "USDA Government Facility."
    
    The USDA inspection team requested and received an escort from the Nye County sheriff's office.

    June 29, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct a previously identified violation of refusing access to the premises . The inspector wrote, "Mr. Mitchell denied access to his facility for an inspection on June 29, 2000. He did not provide a reason for not allowing us to inspect. He refused to sign the inspection report and walked away."

    May 16, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct a previously identified violation of not providing animals with adequate shelter from the elements .

    
    A lion named Nala was not provided minimum space. The inspector wrote, " Enclosure has inadequate space as evidenced by poor coat condition and abnormal behavior patterns (i.e., stereotypic pacing) ."

    
    The facility was cited for failure to provide animals with water. The inspector wrote, " When released, [a tiger cub named Valentino] drank thirstily for several minutes ."

    
    The USDA cited All Acting Animals for filthy conditions. The inspector found enclosures with a buildup of fecal material and old, soiled, and damp straw bedding.

    
    All Acting Animals was also cited for failure to provide access to records, enclosures in disrepair, and improper food storage.

    April 11, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct previously identified violations of not providing animals with adequate shelter from the elements and direct sunlight as well as for poor housekeeping .

    
    All Acting Animals was also cited for unsanitary conditions and inadequate pest control.

    January 20, 2000: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to have a responsible person available for inspection. The inspector noted, "Unauthorized public would have easy and immediate access to enclosures housing large exotic felids. . [I]nspector observed enclosures in disrepair and without adequate shelter."

    December 7, 1999: All Acting Animals was cited for failure to provide veterinary care to a lion with a weak and wobbly gait , failure to have a current veterinary care program, failure to maintain records of acquisition and disposition, failure to secure enclosures to prevent unauthorized access, improperly constructed enclosures, failure to provide shelter from the elements, inadequate perimeter fencing, failure to provide a veterinarian-approved diet, and poor housekeeping.

    January 7, 1999: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to have a local veterinarian and failure to provide minimum space to a tiger named Diva.

    June 30, 1998: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct the previously identified violations of not properly disposing of food and animal waste and poor housekeeping .

    
    All Acting Animals was also cited for using soiled bedding material, enclosures in need of repair, and a cluttered food preparation area.

    May 13, 1996: All Acting Animals was cited by the USDA for giving animals contaminated drinking water in dirty receptacles, filthy enclosures littered with several days of feces and food waste , failure to adequately train employees, failure to make transport enclosures, program of veterinary care, and acquisition and disposition records available for inspection, inadequate pest control, and grounds and food storage area scattered with trash.

    August 3, 1993: The USDA sent certified mail to All Acting Animals cautioning the facility that its repeated failure to construct a perimeter fence could result in legal action.

    August 1, 1993: According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal , Mitchell acquired two "liger" (tiger and lion crossbreed) cubs from Jordan Circus after they were born on the road. Mitchell claimed that the cubs make "good pets."

    July 13, 1993: The USDA cited All Acting Animals for failure to correct a previously identified violation of not constructing a perimeter fence . The facility was also cited for improper fencing and fencing in disrepair, algae buildup in the tigers' water receptacle, and poor housekeeping.

    July 11, 1990: According to the Las Vegas Sun , Karl Mitchell stored a 5-year-old tiger in a garage for nearly three months. Mitchell was asked to remove the tiger when he failed to provide proof of insurance to the owner of the garage. The tiger was relocated to a bookmobile.

    June 24, 1985: The San Diego Union-Tribune reported, "Following a wild chase, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies booked Karl Mitchell, 33, for investigation of evading arrest, assault against an officer, auto theft, possession of a concealed weapon, damaging a state vehicle, and possessing a tiger without a permit."

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• Phoenix Exotics Part 7 Phoenix Exotics Part 7

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    From: exoticanimals2@...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:46 pm
    Subject: Re: Bay News 9 exoticanimals3

    I found the earlier post that someone had taken off of Bay News 9 and I am wondering why that specific post was copied and pasted with out posting all of them. In case anyone would like to see the other posts I have copied and pasted them.
    Jude

    

    From: " Deb" < chimps@...
    Date: Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:06 pm
    Subject: BCR news clip now available to view luvgr8apes

    The news story can now be viewed at the following site:

    http://www.phoenixexotics.org

    Permission to cross post most definitely granted

    

    From: " Deb" < chimps@...
    Date: Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:01 pm
    Subject: BCR & FCF connection is fact luvgr8apes
    
    Straight from BCR site.. When did Carolyne join FCF, 2000? Sounds like Carole
    Baskin doesn't allow or approve of volunteers who do not agree with her ideas.
    But it's ok for CC to remain... how convenient.

    3/16/06 Chris Hawes interviewed former volunteers who had left our mission prior
    to the year 2000 due to their failure to evolve with our understanding thatexotic cats should not be bred, sold, traded or used for personal gain.

    

    Message: 16
    Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:23:37 -0000
    From: " slowswimmer1 " thomaskirby169@hotmail.com
    Subject: Re: MN: Wow! We got noticed! Details

    It's just crazy. A lot of this stuff seems so very staged that I get suspicious. I made this speech about how it wasn't necessary for there to be a conspiracy and they were just taking advantage of natural occurences but there are features of both the Hilderbrand
    incident and the Gamble incident that are very suspicious, stinking of setups. Maybe all it was was that they were so mentally ready for it. But the Gamble incident came shortly after Meme's death and a lot of Quist's bashing of other tiger owners including Gamble. Sometimes things happen at far too opportune a time. Even without being guilty of arranging incidents, some of these people are obvious ghouls.

    Sometimes they deliberately employ the most indecent tactics that they can excuse, like attacking someone right after a family member has died and driving them to have to move their animals when they are disabled by grief. When they are that indecent, arranging incidents doesn't seem like such a stretch anymore. I don't really think that
    this kind of vulture has the patience to wait until something dies of natural causes.

    A long time ago a writer by the name of Vance Packard talked about a "screwing by expertism." Experts on a given subject would lie to support a given agenda, like we are seeing. The "truth" became what the hired experts said. Real people have big trouble understanding what happened because they have trouble believing that such lies
    carried such weight, especially when they know that a lot of people don't believe those lies or the experts.

    But the PETA types have really played both ends against the middle and screwed us around. People really do expect PETA types to push for laws allowing people to keep big cats and oppose those laws on those grounds even through PETA has very vocally opposed private ownership. How do people get so confused? It's because PETA deliberately confuses people. Local authorities often deliberately confuse people too. Why does one sanctuary get a pass and another doesn't? To further the confusion, to make people think that the animals are being rescued, and because they know which sanctuary owners are willing to conspire to destroy the others. Someone like Quist gains an unlimited supply of animals that she doesn't have to pay the owners for. She
    gets the donations for "rescuing" the animals. A lot of them no one is going to know if they were euthanized to make space and made into fur coats the way Baskins does. They even confuse people about why the "rescues" were necessary, when it's often due to the ban laws.

    I am having real trouble living with all of this.

    

    Message: 8
    Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:17:21 -0700 (PDT)
    From: BOB PITT <azooforu@yahoo.com
    Subject: Re: Re: drawing attention to zoo incidents

    YOU ARE NOT A ZOO !!! You may be licensed like a zoo, you may be inspected like a zoo, but I PROMISE you that you will NOT be considered a ZOO to the general
    public or to a politician. You are a "private collector, a road side attraction." You are no
    different then any other USDA licensed facility that does NOT have an AZA stamp by their name.

    Read the first post I wrote. I said we need to show the experts are wrong and are not deserving their EXPERT status.

    We are NOT showing that ownership is this or ownership is that. We are showing AZA is nothing more then a club. they have the same incidents as everyone else. We are showing that PETA is a scam, as well as HSUS. We are showing the BCR is a lying, thieving witch. We are showing that WAO is a lying, thieving witch that needs to go back to her own country and deal with their animal problems. We are showing that TAOS and ASA are both nothing more then CLUBS, that have NO more experience, or better care then any private keeper.

    We need to show how these groups with their experts cause the deaths of 100's to thousands of animals every year. PETA claims 90% of ALL MACAQUE monkeys
    have Siamian B. If this were true many people would be dead every year, when in fact the last death due to S. B. was to a research tech. working with a known Siamian B monkey, NOT A PRIVATE KEEPER !! These "EXPERTS" have casued many monkeys to be killed because they are "BELIEVED" to have a diesease.. This is what we MUST SHOW !!!

    We must stop hiding in the shadows, we must stop thinking we are exempt, we must stop saying cat people are worse then monkey people. Stand TOGETHER and call our enemies BLUFFS. They can NOT show proof of ANY of their claims. Likewise , most if NOT all of our major enemies have such a SHADY BACKGROUND, that if we go on the attack and ask questions into their groups we can and will win victories every step of the way.

    Their comes a time in every fight to drop the gloves. NOW is the time to hit right in the nose. This will snap the @#@#$#@%@$'s back into th real world. It is time to STOP turning the other cheek, stop letting it go in one ear and out the other. It is time to PUNCH them right in the nose and give them a REALITY BREAK.

    

    Message: 11
    Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 15:19:55 -0400
    From: "Ray" < rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com
    Subject: Re: drawing attention to zoo incidents

    People are listening to zoos damn EVERY other form of owner and exhibitor. Zoos have credibility. Everybody assumes they know everything.

    Yes, zoos are working with AR groups. This is largely because they feel superior to everyone and think they don't make mistakes. They feel invulnerable to criticism. They have defused most of the classic "ethical" questions regarding captivity to the public's mind. They feel safe.

    If we place THEM in perspective maybe they will see the same arguments can be used against them. Keepers and public get hurt in every segment, not just "pet" ownership, which is low by comparison.

    The sanctuary groups also feel secure since they are directly in bed with the AR groups. Airing their dirty laundry would make them less willing to criticize others. They get a COMPLETE pass as things stand now. They are the number ONE thrust behind ban pushes and ALWAYS get themselves exempted.

    If they thought THEY risked facing the same consequences of a ban they'd be a LOT less willing to demand them, maybe even shut up or change sides.

    How long would Carole Baskin campaign for changes to Florida's laws if she knew they would shut her down too?

    The public is not getting the whole picture on this anymore than they get it on 95% of any other stories. The media takes a side, doesn't question info supplied by those it agrees with, and acts as a tool, knowingly or unwittingly, to push the agenda.

    Most of the time they never hear the true details. If they did they would hesitate to lie by omission lest it come back to bite them. No reporter likes to be embarrassed.

    We have to provide perspective. Nobody else will. A few seeds of doubt here and there could kill some stories and campaigns and change directions of others.

    Staying silent is accepting the current situation, even endorsing it.

    Ray

    Point out shady pasts

    

    Message: 22
    Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 08:45:47 -0000
    From: " Marsha " <marshaha@pressenter.com
    Subject: Re: MN: Wow! We got noticed! Details

    --- In Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com, Tim Stoffel <tim@... wrote:
    Any theories what happened here?

    Not enough info on this specific case, and it looks like no witnesses. Past history of the tiger and the autopsy may be the only clues. If you like conspiracy theories...I have to wonder if someone has come up with something to agitate big cats into being more likely
    to attack (unbeknownst to the handler, who would otherwise take sensible precautions) A device that plays an annoying sound the human can't hear, a scent, etc. Who has a vested interest in seeing more attacks happen, so they can pontificate on how the incident proves
    that private ownership should be banned? Perhaps the best Anti ammo of all is when the person that is injured or killed is someone with years of experience, who truly love their animals, who are assumed to be able to "read" their animals. You'd think that every owner would be taking extra precautions these days with so much publicity about each incident. So why are these incidents happening? Complacency on the part of handlers, perhaps a defensive desire to prove large carnivores aren't the killing machines the media portrays? Inbreeding? Environmental factors? Or a deliberate act?

    Marsha

    

    Message: 23
    Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 08:48:31 -0000
    From: " Marsha " <marshaha@pressenter.com
    Subject: Re: MN: Wow! We got noticed! Details

    --- In Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com, Tim Stoffel <tim@... wrote:
    tell you how many times (the tiger) kept running at the fences and just making that screeching roar. It's something I'll probably never, ever forget. I don't know how these people get used to it and work with those animals."

    It's not the spine-tingling "screeching roar" that steals human hearts, it's those chuffs of greeting and purrs of contentment.

    Marsha

    

    Message: 24
    Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 05:48:46 -0700 (PDT)
    From: BOB PITT <azooforu@yahoo.com
    Subject: Re: Re: MN: Wow! We got noticed! Details

    The zoo director who states he is against private ownership, what can we find on him. At least a dozen accidents have occured in the USA at ACCREDITED ZOO's. The time has come to show the faults of all of our enemies. AZA, TAOS, ASA, BCR, ACE. Everyting from questionable financial records, to lacking health papers, to violations of the AWA. This needs to be complete and detailed, then we can present it to a national paper and show facts, NOT opinons.. WOULD ANYONE like to lend a hand on getting this together, proofing and set-up and final print. This has to be done to combat comments like the Sen.made in the paper about banning them all. It has to be done in a detailed, and undeniable fashion. This is what is on our side. Figures are real for us, and
    INFLATED against us.. This is what we MUST show.

    

    Message 12
    From: " lndmonk@aol.com " lndmonk@aol.com
    Date: Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:21pm(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Getting paranoid now

    In a message dated 4/13/06 12:19:19 AM Central Daylight Time,
    aklizard@ptialaska.net writes:

    well if we license all breeding it should weed out, or breed out irresponsible people too, then only responsible ones could reproduce, why limit it to dogs?and accidental breedings would be banned too, by making a law that all must be neutered but the approved , surely that is more dire with all the billions I believe API, BCR,WAO and many many other licensed facilities are proof irresponsible, lying, cheating, and corrupt people are not weeded out by simply licensing ....Again who will be the judge of who is responsible and allowed to breed and who is not?? TAOS? PETA? HSUS? USDA? AZA? Linda

    _Simply Simian_ (http://www.simply-simian.com/)

    

    Re: Zoning Report

    Message 18
    From: " exoticanimals2@comcast.net " exoticanimals2@comcast.net
    Date: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:17am(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Big Cat Rescue approved for rezoning

    Watch for their upcoming news on Washington's Channel News 5. Will be airing
    next week. I also, will be a part of that news.
    Jude

    

    From: Bigcats10@aol.com
    County officials give Big Cat Refuge the right to rezone 3 acres for housing
    and other amenities.

    By JACKIE RIPLEY, Times Staff Writer
    Published April 14, 2006

    ...and who was watching the tigers?

    Posted on Fri, Apr. 14, 2006

    Details emerging from the tragic Pine County tiger attack that took the life of trainer Cynthia Gamble last week paint a more gruesome picture than previously imagined. The tiger, now euthanized, was examined and found to have had parts of the woman's body in its stomach. The cat was at least 150 pounds underweight, no doubt a major factor in the killing.

    Gamble, who held a USDA license for her bankrupt Center for Endangered Cats, was described by friends as an expert handler who "loved" her feline charges. That would have been tough love at best. No reasonable parent would starve a child out of love, and Gamble's terrible fate offers the most compelling case yet against private ownership of big cats.

    Not helping is the confusion of who's really acting in the interest of the animals. Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Fla., denounces private ownership of menageries such as Gamble's. Las Vegas tiger trainer Zuzana Kukol expressed support of Gamble but accuses Baskin of breeding cats rather than rescuing them from abusive owners. Baskin calls that "old news," saying her past actions are what make her so adamant against the practice.

    Whatever. The whole scat fight is reason, as expressed in a letter on this page, for restricting big cats to their natural habitats or zoos -- and accredited ones at that.

    http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du luthtribune/news/opinion/14337083.htm

    Caro le’s Note: Zuzana Kukol was the VP of Phoenix Exotics and may still be.

    

    From: "Tim Stoffel" < tim@lionlamb.us
    To: <Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 2:19 AM
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Aslan / Big Cat Rescue

    On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 14:58 -0400, Jerry & Linda Gleisser wrote:
    Thought you'd find this result I got from googling Narnia artwork
    interesting:

    Aslan Lion Photo with Cub
    Find out what having your picture
    with a baby big cat is all about.
    www.BigCatRescue.org

    It took me a few minutes to find this as a SPONSORED LINK on Google. If you follow the link, it takes you to one of Carole Baskin's anti exhibiting pages, full of misinformation and hate. I wonder if there is a way to petition Google not to accept money for such a misleading link.

    Further, to use the good name of ASLAN to promote her twisted agenda is reprehensible. Aslan is such a special name among lions that I would never even use that name myself. In my opinion, using Aslan's name this way is the same as using God's name in vain. All this will do is call a well-deserved curse down on Mrs. Baskin.

    For the lions,
    Tim Stoffel

    

    Message 17
    From: " Prometheus Horse " prometheus_horse@yahoo.com
    Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 1:13am(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Aslan / Big Cat Rescue

    Why not squabble about it on the boards related to the movie and get them roaring at BCR about their use of the name . Picketing movie-fanatics isn't good press no matter how you slice it so I'd bet it'd disappear in a hurry.
    
    DTF

    
    

    Message 18
    From: " BOB PITT " azooforu@yahoo.com
    Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:01am(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Aslan / Big Cat Rescue

    Also, is that more "LOBBYING" on there part. We have a non-profit and I know that you can only use a very small portion of you revenue for this purpose. I'm sure all trips to all the bans they are pushing are on this, as well as the people who write them up, and I
    wonder what kind of "GIFTS" the board got to go against everyone else to allow their zoning ?? Do you think they (board) did it for a free years pass .. LOL

    

    Message 22
    From: " Ray " rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com
    Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:32am(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Aslan / Big Cat Rescue

    Send the link to Disney legal and see what they think. They probably have a trademark issue here. This is akin to selling toys with the name on them. Be sure to send a copy of Carole's 20-year plan so they understand she's an enemy of theirs too.

    Otherwise there's a risk of them allowing her to do it as a charitable act.

    Ray

    

    Message 24
    From: " Ray " rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com
    Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:02am(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Aslan / Big Cat Rescue

    DANGER!

    That's the WORST thing we could do. (Been there!)

    There's a very REAL danger that they would actually encourage Disney to sanction it as a PR move.

    Think about it: Concerned, loving, sanctuary for poor abused pet big cats wants to get support for its oh-so-wonderful work. What a swell opportunity for promotion and positive PR for a big and hated media company!

    And it's for the lions, right?

    And if Disney doesn't do it they will be attacked as a cold, heartless, corporation by the movie crowd, as is their habit. So, which way will Disney/Walden jump in that situation?

    Remember, those people neither know who Baskin is nor the complex exotic animal industry, animal rights/liberation, and political web. Many right here haven't gotten it yet. Many there WILL be AR-leaning to start with.

    The result? BCR gets an OK AND a powerful media partner - which owns networks - to promote her agenda.

    Can't you just see it? "This week on ABC! At 8:00 it's Carole Baskin's World of Wild Cats!" You thought the crocodile hunter was big? Get a real media outfit behind her and watch the dust. Tippi will be an old forgotten star but Carole will be a current name.

    Better write Disney fast, before Carole and her AR friends sell them on it. Mention her back story. Don's murder, etc.

    Ray

    

    Message 1
    From: " annette.lundberg " annette.lundberg@chello.se
    Date: Sun Apr 16, 2006 0:48pm(PDT)
    Subject: Carol Baskin and bigcatrescue

    Hi,
    i am forwarding this from the bobcat-lynx list Its interesting though...
    
    Annette
    
    Vänliga Hälsningar
    Annette & Sirpelkvick
    From: "Cyndi" <luna6killer@...>
    Date: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:54 pm
    Subject: Fw: [hybridcats] IMPORTANT SEND THIS TO EVERY CAT/HYBRID LIST YOUCAN

    Hi everyone - this came thru on another list I belong to - please check it out and then see if you can help. This site has the most damaging slide show and the page referred to is very anti-exotic or hybrid owner. There is some evidence (I can't verify it yet) that the owner of this website may actually be a less than honest person as it has been stated that most of her exotics were actually her animals and she was breeding them and selling the kits at one point? Anyways, not trying to start any more 'flames' around here but would like to see if we could keep this from happening. Exotic and hybrid owners do not need a bad rep!! Cyndi

    

    From: <mailto: julia2@gate.net > julia2@gate.net
    To: <mailto:julia2@gate.net> julia2@gate.net
    Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 3:06 PM
    Subject: [hybridcats] IMPORTANT SEND THIS TO EVERY CAT/HYBRID LIST YOU CAN

    HELP COMBAT CAROL BASKIN'S LIES!!!!!
    
    If you google in bengal cats, jungle cat hybrid, chausie, savannah cats, safari cats, or stone cougars (all keywords in the Big Cat Rescue flaming hybrid page, a sponsored link appears on the right hand side of the Google page that reads...
    
    
    <http://www.google.com/url?sa=l&ai=BspopFJt ARNGaIpHosQGC_YQG8PvGDoykkvYBxL7mtQuQvwUQARgBKAM4A EiTOVCszY7B_f____8BmAHfc6oBBDJOUlPIAQGVAic0LAo& ;num=1&q=http
    ://www.bigcatrescue.org/hybrids.htm> All Hybrid Exotic Cats
    are listed here with photos, facts,
    stories, myths & breeder insiders.
    www.bigcatrescue.org <http://www.bigcatrescue.org/>
    
    Click on that link and you are directed to the page she has set up maligning hybrid cats, exotics and breeders.
    
    This means that anyone looking on the biggest search engine in the world for a hybrid will promptly see the above sponsored link and fed Carole Baskin's lies . Not only will this impact on adoptions, but it will undermine everything responsible breeders and hybrid owners have worked to accomplish for so many years.
    
    This is a PAY PER CLICK link--anytime anyone clicks on the link, BCR pays.
    
    Go to Google. Type in one of the key words. Click on the sponsored link. When the page appears, hit the "Back" button. Click again. Click as many times as you can in your spare time. If the link does not appear, it means that the daily or monthly budget may have been maxed out. Check back daily and click away.

    

    Message 4
    From: " Prometheus Horse " prometheus_horse@yahoo.com
    Date: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:15pm(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Carol Baskin and bigcatrescue (IMPORTANT)

    *smiles* well, you're sorta half right. Sites log each click by individual IP per day (usually 12m to 11:59p). So if you're on dialup, you can click, log off, sign back on and click again, running their bill up . If you're on DSL you're pretty much stuck to one click a day. But that's a flyby of how IP logging works regarding charge-per-click. Thus, if too many clicks come from an individual IP address they'll void them all, but... the trick is "how many is too many?" Either way... there's the long and the short of it all. DTF

    

    Message 23
    From: " Mbrafford@aol.com " Mbrafford@aol.com
    Date: Mon Apr 17, 2006 1:25pm(PDT)
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: Need a Big Cat Expert to reply

    So, does Phoenix launch editorials back at her or is it best to remain silent? I would think silence is our enemy. The Lakeland Area is close to Tampa and Orlando Florida and is the home to a very large SPCA organization. The town also has many of Florida`s politicians living there. I know, I taught their children. The Ledger was chosen for a reason.

    

    Message 1
    From: " Ray " rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com
    Date: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:20pm(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Need a Big Cat Expert to reply

    IF the Ledger will publish an opposing view then write them.

    The SPCA is already working with Carole through HumaneUSA if I recall correctly.

    The pliticians are a toss-up. Some may be open to reason and some may agree philosophically with Carole. Contact all you know about and maybe it will create enough doubt to undermine support for her.

    Too many believe what they hear and never question or look into things. The material has to be brought to them and shoved under their noses or they will act on slanted views and lies.

    Ray

    

    Message 5
    From: " Ray " rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com
    Date: Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:08pm(PDT)
    Subject: Re: Need a Big Cat Expert to reply

    They also need to be informed that activists are using their editorial pages to push an agenda without their knowledge. A link to the original source should suffice. Maybe they will also want to know about Carole's past.

    There are several good stories here for an enterprising reporter. Maybe even a Pulitzer. Ray

    

    Re: Smuggling exotics across state and federal boundaries in violation of the Lacey Act

    myzootoyou@yahoo.com http://www.geocities.com/animalambasador/ (979) 388-0782 Nathan Wheelock < myzootoyou@yahoo.com > wrote: Well.....we were talking about ferrets. 50,000 ferrets are beleived to be in California. CA has advocotes for legalization, yet gets shot down each year. I, for,one, have no problem with people sneaking in ferrets, or hedgehogs/sugar gliders for that matter.

    Message 20 From: "Prometheus Horse" prometheus_horse@yahoo.com Date: Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:42pm This is primarily directed to Mark Cameron, but just so everyone knows.... I don't promote illegal activities until all legal means are, or have been exhausted. I've done emergency relocations to prevent seizures of animals by the powers that (may times shouldn't) be.... and other similar activities, where the only damage is to the pride of some DA, ACO, or other governmental or quasi-governmental individual. My forte is canines.... which are a bit easier to transport en masse without arousing suspicion, but when it comes to saving an animal's life, you're damn skippy I'd do damn near whatever it takes. And that's something you can take to the bank. And for those that immediately think "AR raids"... no. That's not in me, nor would I ever be that way, but in the hypothetical I wouldn't be averse to aiding in the "disappearance" of an animal accused of something before it can be seized, the midnight-relocation of an accused indivdiual's beloved animals, or even the magical escape of specific animals from the animal version of death row. And yes, I do support the underground exodus of Pit Bulls from the cities of Denver, and would support the same from Aurora if they pass legislation similar to Denver. For any explanation greater than that, you'll have to get to know me personally. DTF

    Kathy Gallagher < celticferret@yahoo.com > 614-785-0794 HEART OF OHIO FERRET ASSOC. & RESCUE P.O. Box 15753 Columbus, OH 43215-0753 wrote: Jumping in Without giving you the route there are directions posted on ferret boards for getting into CA without having to go through CA agricultural inspection. There are roads with no inpsection and there are roads where the inspection centers have been closed due to budget cuts. It's all in the knowing and in the time of day. KG

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• Phoenix Exotics Part 6 Phoenix Exotics Part 6

  • From: TheirVoice
  • Description:

    From: "Ray" < rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:48 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] RE; Expose on BCR runeraion
    
    Record it!!!

    Ray

    

    From: "shelleen mathews" < katladysam@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:41 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] RE; Expose on BCR katladysam
    
    Hi Vicki... since I'm not in the BayNews9 coverage area do you know if there is
    a link where I can view this after it's aired? Thanks... Shelleen

    

    From: "Bob Nevin" < bob@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:37 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] RE; Expose on BCR iluvclydesda...
    
    Thank for the heads up Vicki

    Well for those who can't tune in, is it possible you can report back to the
    group on their findings? This sounds interesting... I wonder How warped it
    will be - either pro or con...

    Give Ty a hug for me!
    -Bob

    

    --- In Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com, Bigcats10@aol.com wrote:

    In a message dated 3/16/2006 5:29:36 PM Eastern Standard Time,
    cathspohrer@... writes:

    I just listened to Expose done on BCR and Carol Baskin

    Here is the link to the story:

    _http://www.baynews9.com/content/36 /2006/3/16/149024.html

    

    From: "slowswimmer1" thomaskirby169@hotmail.com <thomaskirby169@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:26 pm
    Subject: Re: Expose on BCR slowswimmer1

    Isn't it amazing how long she has gone on believing that her manure pile doesn't stink? Shocked and surprised that anyone would criticize her?

    Has she ever really done the work? Has she ever shoveled out a barn or litter box? She does not act like someone who really works or think? It just makes me want to rant.

    

    From: "slowswimmer1" thomaskirby169@hotmail.com
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:59 pm
    Subject: Re: Expose on BCR slowswimmer1

    Her greatest fear is a truth campaign.

    Poor lady is going to have to live on less than fifty million dollars for the rest of her life if this keeps up.

    She wants to whine about this being caused by people who are motivated against new legislation. What motivates us but the lives of our animals? She has enough money and gets enough money and she hurts other owners to do it.

    

    From: lndmonk@yahoo.com
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:44 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] RE; Expose on BCR lndmonk
    
    In a message dated 3/16/06 3:05:27 PM Central Standard Time,
    katladysam@... writes:

    area do you know if there is a link where I can view this after it's aired?
    Thanks... Shelleen

    _http://www.baynews9.com/Home.htm l_ (http://www.baynews9.com/Home.html)

    _Monkey Transport Fund ( March 2006)_
    (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick &business=repopac@aol.com&page\
    _style=PayPal&no_shipping=1&no_note=1
    &tax=0&currency_code=USD&bn=PP-Donatio nsBF&charset=UTF-8)
    _SIMPLY SIMIAN INC._ (http://www.simply-simian.com/)

    _Repo-Pac_ (http://www.repo-pac.com/)

    _Grannys against Peta_ (http://www.grannysagainstpeta.com/)
    Warrior Grannys strike against Peta.

    

    From: "Ray" < rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:40 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Expose on BCR runeraion
    
    "All this is being caused by those motivated against new legislation "

    Hey, you use propaganda on people then you better expect the truth in response.

    Welcome to politics, Carole. Did you think it was all one-sided? That nobody would ask questions, ever?

    When you hold yourself up as a paragon of morality and virtue you had better be spotless. When you judge others you should expect to be judged.

    Welcome to reality. Hope you like it. More will come.

    Ray

    

    From: "Cathy" < cathspohrer@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:27 pm
    Subject: Expose on BCR cathspohrer2000
    
    I just listened to Expose done on BCR and Carol Baskin

    Bottom line??
    It was told that Carol Baskin had said she has wanted the Largest Private Collection of exotics.

    Carol was confronted with accusations that she has breed after1997,when she says she has stopped.

    It was stated :
    Bingtorongs where born there:
    "?"

    1998 Caracal litter of cubs born. Carol Baskins response:
    " I dont know"

    Pet shop owner has stated that she had a Serval that was bought by
    Carol Baskin aka Big Cat Resuce for $1000.00

    Taped recording of Carol Baskin saying how Tiger cub Shar Khan was
    bottled fed and came from loving place.

    Carol was asked if all exotics at her facilty came from abusive places:
    " I think so"
    Carol Baskin stated that some Leopards at her facility where born
    into the pet rade market:
    It was said by another BCR volunteer that those leopards had been born
    at BCR

    There was more but this was excellent in getting BCR exposed for what is really going on there and what she is attempting to do

    Carol Baskin parting comment was:
    "All this is being caused by those motivated against new legislation "

    

    On Mar 16, 2006, at 3:10 PM, Ray wrote:

    It seems the matter gets darker:

    She is also working with an AR group:

    www.humaneusa.org/images/PrintOuts/ PAC%2006%20Job%20Description%
    20and%20Task%20List.xls

    Carole Baskin runs the Florida branch:

    http://www.humaneusa.org/humaneusa fl.htm

    SAOVA describes them:
    http://saova.org/arpac.html

    An AR PAC. Members include HSUS, the Fund for Animals, Farm Sanctuary,
    ASPCA, Doris Day Animal League, Animal Welfare Institute, The Ark
    Trust,
    Animal Rights Foundation of Florida, and others.

    This is disturbing. Certainly a conflict of interest.

    Ray

    

    From: Raven Simons < raven@performanceaudio.com

    Raven Ariana / Cables, Service	EXT 000
    raven@performanceaudio.com
    Raven works in our custom cable department. If you need some cable, connectors or custom cables, she can make it happen.

    
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:22 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Oh, my! Was: re: Expose on BCR ladyraven_69

    Yuck!

    This sounds terrible. Can something be done?
    Are you an FCF member? I do know that there are several FCF members on this list. I wanted to join FCF because I want to take the feline husbandry course and I thought they were for responsible private/ownership conservation breeding.

    Raven

    

    From: Bigcats10@aol.com
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:49 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR - FCF connection? bigcats10
    
    In a message dated 3/16/2006 3:45:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ... writes:

    I'm sure either her or her long time volunteer, Carolyne Clendinen, the newly appointed FCF membership director would be more than glad to help you with your study. Just a thought.....

    This is a joke, right? The membership Director of FCF is a volunteer at BCR and has access to addresses and such????

    Please tell us this isn't true.....

    Vicki

    

    From: "Bob Nevin" < bob@...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:28 pm
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR iluvclydesda...
    Hello,

    I asked before that you refer this question to Jeanne, our group moderator regarding Mr. Figg. She can fill you in on the details if that is what you need for your investigation. Please understand, I do not want to get involved more than I already have. He has caused enough trouble for me.
    Please don't take it the wrong way either. I'm not trying to be nasty.

    -Bob

    

    From: exoticanimals2@...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 2:35 pm
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR exoticanimals3
    
    Bob;
    Your telling me and others to avoid him though you don't give a reason why. I take it that you have had problems legally with him if your attorney is saying not to "get into it". If there were a bookie man lurking around the corner, I don't know about anyone else but I wold certainly like to know why I need to fear him in case I ever come across him. If you can't apeak about this issue, anyone else know?
    Jude

    

    From: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    [mailto:Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
    exoticanimals2@ ...
    Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 5:55 AM
    To: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: RE: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR

    So do you know Mr. Figg personally? Does it really matter if this to be true about the parking lot, where someone sets up to do photo ops? I would think that the care and health of his animals are way more important then where the photo ops are. Lets weigh this out... a parking lot with a hugh arena with sunshine, fresh air, cleaning caging, healthy animals or like some of the things we saw on the video. Hmmmmm is that so tough?
    Jude

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:18 am
    Subject: RE: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR zbrubruff
    
    I didn't not write that comment, I just copied and pasted it from the article comment website, I have no clue who cavedog is
    Z

    

    From: < exoticanimals2@...
    To: <Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:56 AM
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR

    So Bob you know Mr. Figg personally? If not, what do you base such an opinion on?
    Jude

    

    From: "Bob Nevin" < bob@...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:59 am
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR iluvclydesda...
    

    Jude,

    I'd rather not get into it as advised from my attorney. Get it? It opens up a big can of worms. Just avoid him.

    -Bob

    

    From: "Ray" < rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ...
    Date: Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:29 am
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR runeraion
    
    That's correct. It was announced on the list just this afternoon. Not a word about it before then.

    PE would have to be pretty damn powerful to get something like that done in
    2 hours!

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    To: <Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 8:58 PM
    Subject: RE: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR

    More comments:
    big cat rescue
    Posted By jerry on 03/16/2006 @ 08:27 PM
    i CAN SEE IT NOW ALL THE PUSSIES are coming out of the woodwork

    BCR
    Posted By Roger Figg on 03/16/2006 @ 08:06 PM
    I am well versed in the current big cat trade. I have been licensed for 20
    some years by USDA. This station is being used to push a PETTY attack by the
    members of www.phoenix_exotics@... If you jion the list the archives
    show this was planned by PE members to harm BCR. If you go to a API report
    on Phoenix Exotics, they need to CLEAN themselves.
    http://www.api4animals.org/gallery/displayimage.ph p?album=16&pos=0 Phoenix
    list members have even attacked me in person. Is a private exotic ownership
    group thats in support of ownership, Animal rights terrorists by attacking
    others? Roger Figg www.DomesticPanthera.com www.CarnivoreConcepts.com

    

    From: "Bob Nevin" < bob@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:53 pm
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR iluvclydesda...

    I put a comment on BCR's website representing my views and my views only. It
    was not PE's. I just wanted to clarify that. It was also not planned as an actual PE event. what a goofball.

    Thank you.
    -Bob

    

    From: "Bob Nevin" < bob@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:48 pm
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR iluvclydesda...

    OH GOD!!! NOT HIM!!! <puke, gag, cough, spit up WHY THE HELL DID YOU POST
    HIS NAME????!!! AAAAHHH !!! GRAB THE LYSOL QUICK TO DISINFECT OUR
    COMPUTERS!!!!!! HE IS A CON MAN AND IS AN INTERNET PREDATOR!! DON'T BELIEVE
    A FRIGGIN WORD HE SAID!!!!!

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:30 pm
    Subject: RE: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR zbrubruff
    
    Figg is a fruit
    Posted By cavedog on 03/16/2006 @ 10:06 PM
    Mr Figg is another of Ms. Baskin's ilk. Check out this article
    (http://cwapc.org/news/NewsDescription.asp?FileNam e=news_20041214.html) that
    details how he kept "wild" animals in a parking lot so you can get your picture taken. I'm sure he has his own version of this, which is fine. I'm all for free speech. In fact, I dedicated almost twenty years of my adult life to the preservation of his rights, some of which was spent in nameless jungles avoiding predators such as the ones he puts in cages in parking lots. One of the website he references is slick, yeah, it almost looks lifelike. He is simply cashing in on the "wild" animal trade. By preying on your sympathies for animals, he can line his pockets. Put the animals in a zoo, and go back to selling suck brooms door to door.

    

    From: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    [mailto:Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Raven Simons
    Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 5:07 PM
    To: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Re: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR

    My 2 cents posted:

    Thanks for this story. Carol has actually been hurting the endangered cats she claims to care for. Bad enough that she lies about the origins of her cats to get donations, she goes further by trying to strip the legal rights of others. She seems to be all about legislative extinction of endangered felines everywhere. Is this so she can have the largest and "only" collection of felines in the US? This would certainly bring in the bucks for her facility. I would like to see more new stories about the real heroes of
    endangered felines, the responsible private owners trying desparately to save the diversity held within the existing US gene pools of these animals. A story would be great about those unsung heroes that have tried to keep the Ocelot gene pools thriving and the consequences of the Lacey act on their efforts. How about stories on those responsible private owners who love their cats and provide a life for them that would be the envy of many felines living in zoos and sanctuaries? We can talk about Servals and Caracals. It's only a matter of time before these become endangered in their wild homelands. Human encroachment, habitat destruction, and poaching are the biggest threat to all endangered species. A big hand needs to be given to responsible private husbandry and conservation efforts!

    

    "Z" < tigers9@...
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:29 pm
    Subject: my comment:RE: comments:RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR zbrubruff
    
    BCR
    Posted By Zuzana on 03/16/2006 @ 10:27 PM
    First of all, I would like to congratulate Chris Hawes for excellent job and having guts to expose the truth behind many so called sanctuaries. Too many journalists out there don’t do the research like she did, great job Chris. As for Ms. Carole Baskin’s claim as reported by Chris Hawes that “”She stood by her web site's story of Shere Khan's abuse, despite the video showing him standing on his hind legs. "He could lift himself, but just barely," said Baskin.””,….hmmm,… well, I saw the video, it was a very happy and healthy tiger cub playing with volunteer. Carol herself narrates the video, saying she just got Shere khan 1 week ago and says that it came from a loving and nurturing home and then mentions how this tiger cub bites hard but that she was told he would outgrow it (this was Carol’s first pet tiger). Now, on ‘Big Cat Rescue’ website it says that he:” was far beyond salable and had sores rotting through his face from his rotten teeth,” Well, the video shows a very bouncy strong tiger with pretty healthy face that likes to bite in play, if he was as sick as Ms. Baskin claims, he wouldn’t be biting with rotten teeth. The video/ picture don’t lie.

    

    From: Bigcats10@aol.com
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:43 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Re: RE; Expose on BCR bigcats10

    In a message dated 3/16/2006 8:36:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,
    rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ... writes:

    To all the volunteers who spoke out - and we know there are more than those named in the report - THANK YOU!!

    Ray

    

    BCR
    Posted By WHACKM on 03/17/2006 @ 12:03 AM
    www.Phoenix_Exotics@... This group sucks! Mean whore and Heathens with no lives reside there. The president of the playgroup, fatty fatty two by four, she couldnt fit through the bathroom door, But she can sure open cougar pens for tourists cameras. CLEAN those cages, some PE members animals are sleeping in filth. http://www.api4animals.org/gallery/displayimage.ph p?album=16&pos=0 How
    responciable is private ownership if the animals suffer or endangered by
    members? I see both on the API expose of PE.

    

    Carole Lewis Baskin
    Posted By Monkey Mom on 03/16/2006 @ 11:32 PM
    Whether or not you support a private citizen's right to own an exotic animal, committing fraud by lying to the people who support you should never be tolerated. For a woman of Carole's character to be calling private owners and others 'unethical' because they live and work with exotics is a joke. The only difference is that private owners care for and support their own animals while Carole has found a way to have the public support her cats while she pays a staff to care for them. The majority of cats listed on Carole's website are not rescues at all, but her own private collection. They are not 'victims of the pet trade' but cats bought and bred by Carole Lewis Baskin for her own enjoyment ... something she wishes to deny every other person but herself. The people who donate to BCR are doing so on the basis of the lies told both on the website and by the tour guides. And by the way....what ever happened to Carole's 'disappeared' husband, Don?

    

    Big Cat Lies
    Posted By Shoe on 03/16/2006 @ 11:30 PM
    Let’s see if I got this right, Carole Baskin (formerly Carole Lewis) was an exotic pet owner, who became a breeder, who bought and/or bred up to 130 animals. Then decides to become a “Sanctuary� , make up rescue stories (normally called lying) to entice/solicit donations for the upkeep of her pets. Meanwhile lobbying to ban others, thinking she is one of the chosen few that knows best. Not to mention keeping her tax-free non-profit status. Additionally, badmouthing anyone else doing what she does/did. Yup Chris Hawes got it right, and probably would find out more if he had the time.

    

    Petty"?
    Posted By Tom on 03/16/2006 @ 09:49 PM
    Petty attack, Roger Figg? Carole Baskins fights to get everyone banned from owning big cats. She fights to punish people who try to take care of big cat species by raising more big cats. Her program amounts to a deliberate attack against several species that she pretends to care for. The kind of morality she pushes is very strange, that it is somehow moral to eliminate the lives and bloodlines of most of the representatives of the feline species on this planet. So it's petty to point out Baskins's hypocrisy. I don't accept that. I don't know why you think that anyone would accept your rhetoric. The fact is that humans who raise exotic animals are the only hope for many species. By that I do mean private owners, the same private owners who have raised millions of dogs, cats, cattle, and other species. Whatever you call it, success speaks for itself. Any species that is "exploited" by humans has a guaranteed future, in large numbers, many of them enjoying a very high standard of living compared to living in "nature." This is a result that cannot be accomplished by a diminishing number of zoos that have a plan to breed a few hundred invididuals without the genetic variety needed to make a truly viable species. And I haven't even talked about the monkeys that I have seen pictures of that the API has
    allowed to rot.

    

    BCR
    Posted By Roger Figg on 03/16/2006 @ 08:06 PM
    I am well versed in the current big cat trade. I have been licensed for 20 some years by USDA. This station is being used to push a PETTY attack by the members of www.phoenix_exotics@... If you jion the list the archives show this was planned by PE members to harm BCR. If you go to a API report on Phoenix Exotics, they need to CLEAN themselves.
    http://www.api4animals.org/gallery/displayimage.ph p?album=16&pos=0 Phoenix list
    members have even attacked me in person. Is a private exotic ownership group thats in support of ownership, Animal rights terrorists by attacking others?
    Roger Figg www.DomesticPanthera.com www.CarnivoreConcepts.com

    

    Big Cat "Rescue"
    Posted By Tom on 03/16/2006 @ 07:22 PM
    Carole Baskins has published a plan to rid the United States of all big cats in human hands within twenty years. Presumably this means what it says. Her plan includes the end of keeping big cats in zoos and the species survival plans. The US is actually very good at improving the chances of survival of many endangered species, and private owners actually produce the majority of successful breedings towards this end. Animals that are vanishing due to human predation against them are actually prospering in private homes and this is what Carole Baskins's program wants to bring to an end. Breeding of threatened and endangered species should be encouraged, not discouraged. I don't even know how it occurred to anyone to ban the private breeding of animals that are becoming
    rare in the wild. What can I say that this is like? A captive bred tiger is still a tiger. If we breed more of them the species may die out in the wild, but there are thousands already in captivity that make up a viable breeding pool. Yes, there are some problems when private owners breed any animal, but the end result is that we have more tigers when the world needs more tigers, more ocelots when the world needs more ocelots, and so on. It's the only way we can do it right now. We need to get over it, grow up, and start taking
    responsibility for what humans have done to other species. We can do this by working on what humans can do FOR other species.

    

    BCR
    Posted By Victoria on 03/16/2006 @ 06:19 PM
    I am pleased to see reporting that for once exposes the real truth about Bigcat Rescue in Tampa and Mrs. Carole Baskin. I applaud the reporter, Chris Hawes, for having the courage to set the record straight and for those that participated in exposing the lies generated from Ms. Baskin's propaganda. Ms. Baskin of Bigcat Rescue is an exhibitor of exotic animals not a Sanctuary. Here in Florida real Sanctuaries do not need a USDA license to provide caring homes for animals as long as they don't breed, sell, or exhibit. Ms. Baskin has a Class "C" exhibitors license which allows her to show her animals commercially and for money. She also asks for donations from the unsuspecting public to provide homes for animals that we now know were not abused?? Hypocritical? Yes, I would say so.

    

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• Phoenix Exotics Part 5 Phoenix Exotics Part 5

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    From: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    [mailto:Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bob Nevin #bios
    Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:04 AM
    To: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Carol Baskin: Video of ShereKhan free

    This leads me to believe that Carol is mis informing the public so that she can set the rules of owning exotics on her terms as other groups like PETA and HSUS are doing.

    THEREFORE we must resolve an action that we as a group must stand up together to
    fight off these vicious lies and mis information and to band together to help
    those folks (NOT FIGHT AGAINST) who are at risk for having their animals taken
    away and fight against laws banning or highly restricting exotic animals.

    Why in the world are we not suing PETA and Carol for making up lies? funny but I
    feel like we are getting walked over and stomped on. Are there any Legal Eagles
    out there that can come up with some way to shut these organizations down?

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    Date: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:56 pm
    Subject: RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] Carol Baskin: Video of ShereKhan free zbrubruff

    Just not to create confusion, the tape was made at Carol's place,Wildliofe
    on easy Street,NOT Dennis place one week after Carol got ShereKhan from
    Dennis. SK is obviously normally behaved healthy tiger cub.
    Z

    

    
    From: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    [mailto:Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bob Nevin
    Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:04 AM
    To: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Carol Baskin: Video of ShereKhan free

    I got the video from Z and I thank you. I see someone who is playing with SK

    (for short) as a cub in a small water tub. Cubs are different from adults duh but in my humble opinion this animal not a candidate for removal from the property unless the rescuers and prove without a reasonable doubt (my grandfather was a municipal judge) that the cats where mistreated in any way

    shape or form and given adequate care and security. From what I saw in this tape I saw a person playing with a cub more gently and caring than an adult mother tiger would. This leads me to believe that Carol is mis informing the public so that she can set the rules of owning exotics on her terms as other groups like PETA and HSUS are doing.

    THEREFORE we must resolve an action that we as a group must stand up together to fight off these vicious lies and mis information and to band together to help those folks (NOT FIGHT AGAINST) who are at risk for having their animals taken away and fight against laws banning or highly restricting exotic animals.

    Why in the world are we not suing PETA and Carol for making up lies? Funny but I feel like we are getting walked over and stomped on. Are there any Legal Eagles out there that can come up with some way to shut these organizations down?

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    To: <Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 12:04 PM
    Subject: [Phoenix_Exotics] Carol Baskin: Video of ShereKhan free

    I just made 2MB mpeg video of ShereKhan from Carol's tape Big Cat
    Companions, and who ever wants to see it email me privately and I will
    send it to u so u can see how she is lying on her website. I don't know Dennis
    Hill, but this is disseminating lies against him (in my humble opionion)what
    she is saying on her website .
    All I am interested is the truth, and all u breeders/dealers on this list,
    see this story and be careful who u sell to, money is not everything, u need
    to fight these lies some scamstuaries tell about their animals and how they
    got them.U guys have USDA transfer papers, PROVE it how some sanctuaries
    are buying pets not rescuing, u have the official proof.
    Z
    Tigers9@.. .
    Read and compare with video

    http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_ news_files/2005/sherekhanownershutdn.htm

    

    From: "Z" < tigers9@...
    Date: Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:18 am
    Subject: RE: [Phoenix_Exotics] What's the rest of the story? zbrubruff
    
    I just read what she had to say about Shere Khan on her website, this is the tiger featured in the video I have, Big Cat Companions that Carol and Don used to sell back then.
    They show tiger on the tape, tiger looks great, they say they just got him a week prior making this tape from loving a home and that his 'only' problem was he was biting.

    Then they admit this is their first tiger.Carol and Don obviously had no idea how to train a tiger , it is normal for young animals like this to be biting, but judging/looking at the tape Shere Khan was NOT bad at all. Dennis Hill needs to fight this accusations, using this tape would be a good start,the tape shows that 1 week after arriving to Carol his conditions was great, if he was as sick as carol claims on her website, he codln't look so
    good on the tape, especially since she herself narrates it how loving tiger's previous home was,. Can u please fwd this email to Dennis? If Dennis is bad, carol needs real facts not lies to shut him down
    Zuzana

    

    From: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    [mailto:Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marsha
    Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 2:36 AM
    To: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Subject: [Phoenix_Exotics] What's the rest of the story?

    Carole (Lewis) Baskin of Big Cat Rescue has recently sent out an appeal to shut down Shere Khan's breeder, Dennis Hill of Indiana. Shere Khan arrived at Wildlife on Easy Street as a cub in 1995. He is the star attraction at BCR. I hand fed him a couple of chicken legs back before they started using tongs. WHY the sudden campaign more
    than 10 years later? What's the rest of the story???

    http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news_files/2005/sherekhanownershutdn.htm

    

    From: "Gini" < ginival@...
    Date: Sun Jan 8, 2006 6:29 pm
    Subject: Tigers9...Carole Lewis Baskin tape ginigoneape
    
    Could you please copy the tape you speak of and mail it to me? I will be happy to pay you to do this. Carole is here in my area and her 'missing' ex was a friend. I have a file on her and we have been looking for a copy of this tape that she sold along with her book about keeping exotic cats as pets. She is buttering up all the local county commissioners and speaking out against us and we want to be able to show them her true character. Yes, of course people can 'change' but she has so much in her past that accumulatively you have to at least wonder about her credibility and character. Contact me at home please.
    Gini

    

    From: lndmonk@yahoo.com
    Date: Fri Jan 6, 2006 11:09 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Dear Carol of former Wildlife on Easy street lndmonk

    In a message dated 1/6/06 9:22:53 PM Central Standard Time, otaije@...
    writes:

    http://capwiz.com/bigcatrescue/iss ues/alert/?alertid=8349821&queueid=[capwiz:
    queue_id_

    I did just taht and wrote a letter: copy below:

    Thank you for using Big Cat Rescue Mail System

    Message sent to the following recipients:
    Carole Baskin
    Message text follows:

    Linda Hunnicutt
    secretary
    Simply simian inc
    po box 671
    winnie, TX 77665-0671

    January 6, 2006

    [recipient address was inserted here]

    Dear [recipient name was inserted here],

    Mr. Ken Hagan
    County Commissioner - District 2
    County Center, 2nd Floor
    Tampa, FL 33602

    Dear Commissioner Hagan,

    Please support the proposed rezoning application RZ 06-0115 for Big Cat
    Rescue.

    Carole baskins has used her cats for her own profit for years, she
    threatened to kill her husband who was a millionaire and when he had
    restraining orders put on her he dissappeared? Never to be found yet she
    acquired his estate thoruhg what has been reported as a fake will. she
    has been written up by the USDA for abuse of animals in her care and now
    wants the public support? My God what a lot of nerve..

    Why has her husbands dissappearance never been fully investigated?

    Did the cats eat well in 1997:?

    Thank you for considering my request that support Big Cat Rescue in their
    rezoning application RZ 06-0115.

    Sincerely,

    Linda Hunnicutt
    409 6734891
    secretary
    Simply simian inc

    _Simply~Simian Inc._ ( http://www.simply-simian.com/index.html )

    

    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Z and others re: Carole Lewis Baskins leiloublue

    In a message dated 1/6/2006 2:36:39 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
    ginival@... writes:

    Let's not forget that this self-righteous woman who speaks of ethics and morals is still the main suspect in the 1997 disappearence of her millionnaire husband, Don Lewis who has been declared dead, although his body has never been found. He filed for a restraining order (which was denied) after she threatened to kill him just weeks before he
    disappeared!

    She will blame all her previous breeding and selling for pets on Don, who conveniently isn't here to defend himself, but It was Carole who dealt directly with a local pet shop on buying baby bobs and servals.

    Her website is full of lies about the origin and treatment of her cats as well as her rantings about other private owners, as many of her former volunteers can attest to. If anyone wants to read more on this hypocrite contact me privately.

    

    From: BOB PITT < azooforu@...
    Date: Fri Jan 6, 2006 2:27 pm
    Subject: Re: [Phoenix_Exotics] Dear Carol of former Wildlife on Easy street azooforu

    Hell no her ground ain't strong !!! Her whole place is on a former land fill. material still pushes up thru the ground. Call her what she is a slum lord and animal WHORE !!!

    

    --- SOUTHZOO@... wrote:

    I'd say that this "East Coast Tippi" type is quite aware that her transparency would be seen by our group. To take such high moral ground, one would think she'd be first in line to explain to us how wrong we are. Maybe her ground isn't so strong. What
    is it? The truth shall set you free?

    Rhonda

    

    From: Z < tigers9@...
    To: MakeADifference@...;
    info@...
    Cc: Phoenix_Exotics@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 08:58:03 -0800
    Subject: [Phoenix_Exotics] Dear Carol of former
    Wildlife on Easy street

    Dear Carol, since (in my humble opinion) you happen to be one of the most
    hypocritical&controversial person in exotic animal world, I have been watching you for a while, I remember your "guests sleeping with the big cats for lots of $$$ in your cottages " business venture to your selling horrible quality video tapes on how to breed and raise exotic cats pets ( YES, I own your tape) .

    You bought and bred many exotic cats, you had a volunteer badly injured by leopard in 1998, so I don't understand what made you one day to turn around and become a god and 'non profit rescue' and criticize the rest of us ethical exotic owners. Remember the saying: people who throw rocks shouldn't live in glass houses? You have a very colorful past, not a very good resume for a wannabe preacher.

    And while you criticize others, you have $50 dollars a head feed the tiger business venture http://www.bigcatrescue.org/feeding_tours.htm
    with welded fence (4x4 inch?) where visitors can easily put there hand
    inside the tiger cage during their feeding ? See the video:

    http://www.tampabays10.com/aroundth ebay/aroundthebay_article.aspx?storyid=23
    278

    You criticize Phoenix members, while you yourself keep the animals in cages and engage in activities that can be dangerous and you do it for the entertainment/amusement of people who pay you.

    When we invited you to speak at our Phoenix Exotics Las Vegas meeting this year, this was your reply (posted on our website with your permission):
    http://www.phoenixexotics.org/p2006meeting.html
    CEO of Big Cat Rescue an Educational Sanctuary Home ,Carole Baskin was also invited to be a Guest Speaker for the upcoming 2006 Phoenix exotics Annual Meeting. "Phoenix Exotics has long stood for everything that I oppose when it comes to ethics. I cannot imagine your group would invite me there for anything but a stoning. I speak for the
    animals, not for the selfish people who would breed them for life in cages for their own
    amusement, regardless of their lame justifications for it. "

    Sincerely
    Zuzana Kukol, VP
    www.phoenixexotics.org
    http://www.phoenixexotics.org/

    

    From: lndmonk@aol.com
    To: monkeyyardsale@yahoogroups.com
    Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 3:11 PM
    Subject: Re: [monkeyyardsale] Caorle Baskins.

    In a message dated 3/10/06 3:06:36 PM Central Standard Time, lndmonk@aol.com writes:
    No Vernon didn't I did... with Vernons information..lol.... and with all the messages we have sent out, (you and me) she is being removed from the commission board and they will be doing a TV expose' on her next week.. the tv crew is out at Vernons now.. he keeps calling me and having me speak to the reporter on behalf of simply simian... so we are in the forefront anyway.... Gloria is the one that wanted the website.. she is our ace in the hole, a professional lobbyist.. doing a crack up job at it too.. and she is thinking we are angels as we put that site up for her.. she was supposed to send you a check for the cost a few days ago.. so when you get it that is what it is for... not a membership... from Gloria Johnson...
    
    I thought this was going to Karen please you guys keep this quiet...

    Monkey Transport Fund ( March 2006)
    SIMPLY SIMIAN INC.
    Repo-Pac
    Grannys against Peta
    Warrior Grannys strike against Peta.

    

    From: "Ray" < rrooney@ucwphilly.rr.com ...
    Date: Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:26 pm
    Subject: Carole Baskin Slams Lion Movie runeraion

    Even South Africa isn't safe from her...

    Inbred Lions Shouldn't Be Glamorized

    I am appalled at the ignorance behind the creation of such a film and those who would support it about how the white lions are produced. If the average person is equally uninformed then this sort of propaganda will surely lead to more suffering as all of the back yard breeders start trying to fill the new need for white lions by inbreeding their cats to the point of deformity and death. To learn more about how the white coats are created in lions and tigers read more at: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/white_tigers.htm

    Carole Baskin, MakeADifference@... [13 Mar 2006 15:26]

    http://www.bizcommunity.com/Content/Comment.aspx?l=196&c=11&cci=22879

    

    From: Bigcats10@aol.com
    Date: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:35 pm
    Subject: RE; Expose on BCR bigcats10

    Hi Folks,

    An expose on BCR should air tonight at 5pm EST on Baynews9. It could change,
    but as of right now this is the schedule.

    Vicki

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