Battling Coronavirus COVID-19 at Big Cat Rescue

Big Cat Rescue is working to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus in many ways.

The Public and COVID-19 Concerns

Like many other public venues, out of concern for the safety of our staff, volunteers, guests and cats we will be closed to the public until further notice. We are processing refunds for everyone who has purchased tickets and are doing them as quickly as possible.  We appreciate your understanding and hope to see you after the crisis is over.  If you want us to email you when we make tickets available, please fill out this form.  Notify Me

Meanwhile check out our online options, such as our LIVE webcams where you can chat with people who love big cats at https://bigcatrescue.org/cams/ and see our virtual options at BigCatRescue.org/VR 

We are ramping up all the ways to connect with you on our social sites too at Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok.  We have a lot of volunteers who can’t go to work or school right now, so they are getting fresh air and sunshine while helping out our cats.  This means more keeper videos to share with you, while you are on lockdown.

Our Staff and Volunteers During the Pandemic

Some of our staff are working from home.  Our weekly staff meetings are being held via WorkPlace video conferencing.  The staff and volunteers who are high risk for infection are helping out with our online presence during this crisis as a way to stay sane and help our supporters remain connected despite many being in mandatory self quarantine.  We have advanced stipends to our interns so they can stock up on food to carry them through the likely increase in Coronavirus cases, but already the grocery store shelves are barren.

Our Cats During Coronavirus

We have placed orders to fill our freezers, which can hold about 20,000 pounds of food, in case the production plants or transportation companies shut down.  We’ve ordered fuel for our generators and onsite storage tanks.  In 2003, the first year Big Cat Rescue was able to break even financially, we began tucking away a little bit into an endowment fund.  It’s money we can’t touch outside of an emergency and its purpose was to provide a pension fund for all of our exotic cats.  We did it right after seeing tourism and donations come to a screeching halt in the aftermath of 9/11 and knowing what it was like to look at the faces of hungry cats and tell them there would be no food for them short of a miracle.  (fortunately for us that miracle happened and no cats went hungry, but that’s a story for another day)

Thanks to our amazing donors the sanctuary’s cats have a fully funded pension that will provide food and vet care for them to the end of their days.  We would have to shut everything down, end all of our work to save wild cats from abuse and extinction, and let all of our staff go, but there is money in the Community Foundation endowment fund to be sure the cats don’t starve.  Even though we made the tough choices to ensure our cats’ futures, we face an immediate crisis now.  In order to keep doing the important work we do, without depleting our savings, we count on your donations more than ever.  Just the tour revenue we are losing right now is running about $160,000 a month and that doesn’t count all of the gift shop revenue and the added cost of keeping our staff employed and our volunteers housed and fed.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act and the Coronavirus Scare

Even though Congress is not congregating or thinking about anything outside of the current epidemic, we still need you to make the Call of the Wild, asking them to co sponsor the Big Cat Public Safety Act.  We have more momentum toward ending the abusive cub petting industry and phasing out private ownership of big cats than ever before.  We just can not stop now!  If your Senator and House members know you care about this issue, even under the looming threat of global disease and financial ruin, they will see how important it is to pass the bill before the last tigers go extinct from the inaction of previous Congresses.  It may actually help to point out that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease from close contact with wild animals and our bill prevents wildcat cub handling.

 

Big Cat Rescue is Caring for Big Cats and Ending the Trade

Join us in the freedom fight for exotic cats!  They were designed to live free; not in cages.  The number one cause of abuse is the practice of posing with big cats and their cubs because it creates a flood of discarded cats that serve no conservation value and end up dead or in conditions that are often even worse.  You will find us to be completely transparent in our values, care of our 50+ wild cats, and finances.

Did you know every time you make a purchase on Amazon you could be donating to Big Cat Rescue at no cost to you??

You can automatically help feed our cats at NO COST TO YOU when you select Big Cat Rescue as your charity on Amazon Smile and shop Amazon Smile instead of Amazon.com.