2009 Annual Report

Big Cat Rescue is more than just a place that provides permanent care for big cats. It is a movement; a change in the tide of human perceptions and is the combined effort of more than 60,000 supporters. If you are one of them, you are a Big Cat Rescuer and the following is the great work YOU did! If you haven’t helped yet, you can do so now at the top right of the screen or here: http://bigcatrescue.org/donate

Big Cat Rescue’s Mission Statement: Big Cat Rescue’s dual mission is to provide the best home we can for the cats in our care and educate the public about the plight of these majestic animals, both in captivity and in the wild, to end abuse and avoid extinction. We are Caring for Cats and Ending the Trade

Advances: With your help we are winning in the battle for compassion! Up until 2003 the number of requests for rescues we had to turn down due to lack of space or funds had roughly doubled every other year, to 312 that year. We feared it would double again to over 500 in 2004. Instead, it has steadily declined since then thanks to the passage of a federal bill and several state bills that restrict the ownership of exotic cats. This year we “only” had to turn away 50 big cats who were unwanted by their owners. We offered to take all of the cats who were cougar size or smaller, if their owners would contract to never own another exotic cat, but they all refused. We just do not have enough Senior Keeper staff to take on more lions or tigers.

By now everyone knows that communication and fundraising will be cell phone centric. On April 30, 2009 we added mobile phone number collection to our contact forms and promoted this new request with the Animal Lover’s Dream Vacation Giveaway.

We upgraded all phones and Internet service at the sanctuary to FIOS which Increased upload / download speeds by 10 times enabling us to be much more efficient. This was necessary to handle the fact that so many more of our programs are hosted in the cloud, such as Raiser’s Edge, which we invested in, for donor management and online donations. Another area in which we improved our efficiency was in opening accounts with SendOutCards.com and Enthusem. Both sites are similar in that they provide a fast and easy way to send real cards from anywhere that you have an Internet connection, but we chose both because they have different aspects that work well for us. SendOutCards.com has an easy to use interface and Enthusem gives us both a way to track who has responded to special codes that we print into the card and also provides us with an excellent card shop that our supporters can use without having to commit to a contract.

Animal Care: By the end of this year, 74 of our 120 cats are over the age of 15. This is well beyond how long they are designed to live in the wild and much older than most zoo cats. This is a testament to the excellent animal care we provide, but we are dealing with many more age related illnesses and are losing more of our big cat friends every year. Even though we offered to rescue the 17 lesser cats who were in need of rescue in 2009, Sophia the cougar and Desiree the serval were the only ones to come here. We renovated a mobile spay trailer that we had provided to local area feral cat groups, who now have their own clinic, into a mobile rescue trailer. Vern stayed busy this year with all of the maintenance issues and with these cage improvements:

Added a room addition onto both of the rehab cages so that these cats can be shifted to a safe side with plenty of places to hide while their cages are cleaned. Repaired Serengeti Serval’s cage, and most of the other servals cages that had rusted from the constant spraying. Katmandu & Kanawha Siberian Lynx’s cage was repaired as was their den, repair of ponds in cougar cage and in most of the tiger cages, Anasazi and Will Bobcat’s den repair, replaced rusted wire on Natasha & Willow Siberian Lynx’s cage, repaired the damage done by a falling tree on Hallelujah’s cage, fixed Bella’s doors and that of 18 more big cats.

Connected two serval cages with a tunnel and doors for Peaches and Lucky so that they can shift into new spaces easily. Built a new cage for Nikita lioness so she could be on the tour path in a big enclosure, and still give up her old cage to provide more room for Joseph’s Pride to spread out. Built a concrete den for Precious Bobcat, installed a barricade around Nikita.

Installed more video surveillance cameras, resurfaced Easy Street , repaired leopard statue on land bridge that was installed to give people a moment to think a cat is loose and thus get a feel for what it means to have big cats in private hands, repaired wells, water lines, pulled down most of the remaining rotten pine stumps (30+ foot high)

We assisted in the rehabilitation of an orphaned baby bobcat in NC. Nina Fischesser, Director, Blue Ridge Wildlife Institute Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, NC had contacted us for advice in rehabbing and releasing an orphaned baby bobcat. Giving cats a second chance at living free is the best part of our day!

On 3/12/09 we had another perfect USDA inspection.

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.

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Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.