April 4 2018

Lauren Buckingham’s Coordinator Notes for 4/2/2018

Had a good day today with just enough people to clean, feed and take out tours.

A number of cleaning sign offs were done for small cats, cougars and bigs.

Sarah C stayed longer than intended to help Intern Lisa do food prep, while the other interns were on tours.

Denny and Susan Bass covered private tours this morning, so i didn’t have to pull cleaners except for the kids tour. I was very grateful for that

Ivermectin was a success besides a few picky’s.

Max bobcat caught and ate the front half of a black racer. I was able to retrieve the rest and noted it on his chart.

~Lauren

In April 2017 the South American country of Guatemala banned the use of wild animals in circuses. Guatemalan authorities gave the circuses one year to surrender their animals to sanctuaries or wildlife rehab centers, both national and international. The deadline of April 11, 2018 is fast approaching and the vast majority of the animals are still in need of rescuing. We need your help now to save these tigers, lions and cougars!

Big Cat Rescue is working closely with Animal Defenders International (ADI), Tigers in America and other rescue groups to save the 70+ lions, tigers and cougars and approximately 10+ other animals (camels, spider monkeys, llamas, porcupines and goats) now languishing in small cages in Guatemala.

You may recall that Big Cat Rescue worked with ADI to provide a new home to Hoover tiger in April 2015 after ADI rescued him from a circus in Peru.

ADI sent someone from their Columbian team to Guatemala to meet with authorities there, coordinate rescue efforts with the country and inventory all of the animals. It hasn’t been easy to obtain all of the information from the various circuses in the country, but they have counts for most of the animals now.

Big Cat Rescue will take in at least 3 or 4 of the big cats and will help ADI find appropriate sanctuaries to re-home the rest of the animals. The animals may be relocated to the United States, South Africa or other countries.

Because Big Cat Rescue has the most amazing volunteers, donors and followers, we are spearheading a fundraiser to not only raise the funds for Big Cat Rescue to take in some of the cats, but to literally raise the lion’s share of the funds that will be needed for ALL of the other sanctuaries that will be taking in animals.

This is not going to be a quick or easy rescue effort. There are many moving parts and it could take a year to get all of the animals out of Guatemala. But we need to start raising funds NOW so ADI can get their temporary rescue facility up and running and ready to start accepting animals. The costs for this include construction of the ADI temporary facility, cages, power, lights, security, food, veterinary team, animal care team, etc. Then the next costs are for permits, transport cages, airline transport to their new homes, etc.

We will be earmarking all of the personal Facebook fundraisers people do for Big Cat Rescue in the month of April to this rescue effort. Will you help us help ADI by setting up a Facebook fundraiser for Big Cat Rescue during April 2018?

Here’s how: https://bigcatrescue.org/facebook-fundraiser/

Viewers have nicknamed the new fire hose hammock Big Hank.  As you can see, Zabu LOVES Big Hank!!

YOU can watch Cameron, the lion, and Zabu, the white tigress, on vacation at Explore.org/bigcatrescue

With an annual budget or between 3 and 4 million we are always looking for ways to raise funds.  YOU, the viewers, are making  YouTube a good source of monthly funding for the cats.

April 2, 2018 the cats received $5,583.45 from YouTube videos.

Did You Know?  Every time you use YouTube’s share feature to share one of our videos to your Facebook or Facebook groups YOU are helping raise funds for the cats.  THANK YOU for sharing the cats’ YouTube videos.

We have two YouTube Channels:

1. BigCatTV.com
2. DailyBigCat.com

How do you share a YouTube video to help big cats?  Find out at https://bigcatrescue.org/share-youtube-video/

Max caught and partially ate a black racer snake. Keeper Lauren Buckingham had to clean it up. Of course, this episode of “wild enrichment” will get added to the keepers’ daily observation sheet and will get logged in on Max’s chart and on the vets’ chart as well.

Snakes are a natural part of a wild bobcat’s diet and this is not a snack that will harm Max, but just in case it goes on the Observation Sheets.  (Uh.. I meant snake instead of snack)

Please join us in congratulating the following;

• Andrew Sardone has been promoted to Partner
• Steven Becker has been promoted to Senior Keeper
• Stephanie Chaiser has been promoted to Level 2 Intern
• Lisa Sanders has been promoted to Level 2 Intern

What is a Partner?   What is a Senior Keeper? Find out at https://bigcatrescue.org/get-involved/volunteer/

Ever wonder what kind of training you would need to be a keeper at Big Cat Rescue?  We created our own keeper training program.  You can find all 50 lessons on our website ZooCollege.com and take all the classes yourself for only $9.00 per month.  You can stop any time you choose. Do YOU have what it takes to be a Big Cat Keeper?  Try the three free lessons to find out.

What is an Intern?  Find out at https://bigcatrescue.org/get-involved/volunteer/intern/

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