Cat Chat Show 8

Zabu the white tiger and her ball. People Magazine featured it on their online version last week!

Joseph lion eating ice cream.  This is a rare and small treat for him and not a big part of his diet.

http://youtu.be/mV1CVTPVAJg

Cool Cat News

We have a complete virtual tour of the sanctuary available now in the Apple App Store. Look for Big Cat Rescue and choose the lion face. (The tiger face is our old app) Screen shot attached. This is the link to our new app in the iTunes App Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=660264668&mt=8

Win Great Prizes

We often give away tee shirts and other prizes on our Facebook page, but yesterday we signed up with FrontFlip.com to automate the daily contests and be able to offer some truly great prizes.

Win a new iPad mini so you can be one of the first to check out the virtual tour of Big Cat Rescue in our new Big Cat Rescue Tour Buddy App! More than 100 gorgeous photos of our exotic cats, and both text and audio file versions of their stories are in this app that is the second best thing to visiting in purr-son. Choose black or white, 16 GB Wi Fi iPad mini. Odds 1 in 5,000

Other prizes we may offer are:

On site:

Show at the register to get 10% off your entire purchase. (everyone wins)

Show at the register to get one free beverage. (odds 1 out of 10)

Show at the register to get a free Tee shirt (up to 25.00 value) (odds 1 out of 100)

We will work on some online ways to redeem prizes too so that people don't have to visit. Most of that will be done on facebook and through emails we send to people who are on our email list. To get on that list just sign up to win an Animal Lover's Dream Vacation on BigCatRescue.org in the right hand side bar.

It can be set up to send a gift or coupon on the person's birthday and we can set it send out a new game with prizes at set intervals, like if we haven't heard from them in a month or six months.

Take Action

There are some new things to take action on at CatLaws.com

Save big cats from circus abuse this summer by writing to two fairs that are hosting a big cat circus act.

If you live in CA you can ask your state rep to support the ban on killing bobcats near protected forests.

Adopt a Cat or Kitten

Julienne the black and white tuxedo momma cat is still at the Humane Society of Tampa Bay looking for a home.

This week we will be taking in a cute little kitten named Tonto, and maybe others if they have reached 2 lbs, to be fixed and adopted. Info for Adoptions: 3607 North Armenia Ave, Tampa, Florida, 33607 • (P) 813.876.7138 http://humanesocietytampa.org/

Canine Distemper

The BBC just did a story on how Canine Distemper is killing big cats in Asia. A few years ago it was wiping out whole prides of lions all over Africa. Now a sanctuary in TX is reporting that most of their cats have contracted the disease.

There are no safe vaccines to prevent infection. It is carried not only by dogs, but raccoons and foxes and all they have to do is poop into a cage for the cat to come in contact with it and get sick.

Symptoms include totally losing fear of humans and walking right into towns, being disoriented, aggressive, and not eating for days or weeks as their bodies struggle to fight it. No treatment and no cure is available. The only thing we can do is try to keep vermin out of the property.

(One exotic animal owner is telling people to use ferret vaccines to prevent it, which is just ridiculous)

Summer Camp

has started and the kids are all having a great time. Different staff members present to them on what we do, so yesterday Gale talked to them about the Kansas rescue of 6 cats. We still have a few spots left in future weeks.

Next Event

Hamburger Marys. July 1 at 7:30 PM. RSVP at 813 241-MARY $10.00 for set of 10 bingo cards that have 3 games each on them. We will have a lot of great prizes that night and will probably use our new FrontFlip phone scratch off games too so that we can really bump up the excitement.