March 30 2019 | Big Cat Rescue

Big Cat Updates

I’m happy to announce that Narla the office cat has officially retired from being the staff offices manager. After the loss of my house cat this month, it came time to introduce Narla to my home and her doggy sister. She commuted back and forth for a week and a half to slowly get her adjusted, and this week she let me know she would rather stay home.

A special thank you to Barbara Nicholas, Karma Hurworth, Kathyrn Stapleton, and Becky Gagliardo for accepting her in the office and helping care for her for the past year and a half. Thank you to Carole Baskin for allowing me to keep her in the office during the time I couldn’t take her home. Also, thank you to everyone who stopped by to show her love and give her pets. – Afton Tasler

Alexa Flash Briefing

In case you have missed previous days’ news briefings you can find them all at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCPv8ivo6o4CZHFifkfRYDw

GREAT NEWS for the Big Cat Public Safety Act!

NEW CO-SPONSOR! Kewlona and Dryden would like to send a big THANK YOU to the 1 rep that signed on to cosponsor HR 1380 yesterday! That’s 84 reps total!

The newest rep is Rep. Cynthia Axne [D-IA-3]. If Rep. Axne is in your district, please make a special Call of the Wild at bigcatact.com to thank her! The next step is to ask her champion the bill.

Not sure which reps are co-sponsors? Check here- https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1380/cosponsors

YOUR VOICE MATTERS! If you are a US citizen please continue to make the Call of the Wild at BigCatAct.com.com

For more info about the bill, check out our unit on the Big Cat Public Safety Act! For mobile devices, go to the link below, click on the Units tab, and scroll to the Big Cat Public Safety Act class. https://www.facebook.com/groups/BigCatRescueUnits/. If you use a computer, this link should take you directly to the unit. https://www.facebook.com/groups/BigCatRescueUnits/learning_content/?filter=2348134768570155

Co-sponsor updates courtesy of Alyssa Crenshaw!
Photo credit Desmond Fowles

Merchandise of the Day

THE PURRFECT SOLUTION for Virtual Reality on a small budget! Box-style package with easy portability, lets you take the Big Cats anywhere for only $4.99!

Learn more and see links to all of our 360 VR Big Cat Videos!
https://bigcatrescue.org/vr/

AMAZON:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DYCQQ37

Photos for the Day

Why doesn’t Keisha have a tail? Learn her story at bigcatrescue.org/keisha

Thurston bobcat has the most handsome face! (We suspect that he had a previous injury or parasite that went untreated at the place he was rescued from, and that is why his ear is folded like that!)

Mr. Handsome himself, Manny Jaguar, is happy it’s finally CATurday! 🐾❤️ Have a great day everyone! 🌼

Beautiful Miss Ginger Serval is happy to have a coolaroo to get her good nights sleep on! 💤💤

Good night Big Cat Rescue Friends! 🌙 Sleepy Ginger Serval wishes you all a peaceful, restful evening! ✨💫✨ — Good night Big Cat Rescue Friends! 🌙
Sleepy Ginger Serval wishes you all a peaceful, restful evening! ✨💫✨

Armani Leopard – YAWN

Insitu Project – The Northern Jaguar Project

Big Cat Rescue believes wild cat species should not have to live in cages. We also believe if people would learn about, promote, and support conservation projects that are truly making a difference in preserving and protecting cats in their wild habitats that wild species can be saved in the wild where they belong. To that end, Big Cat Rescue does purr-ticipate in doing just that. Here is one Insitu project we have helped support.

The Northern Jaguar Project is a bi-national non-profit organization initiated by conservationists from Arizona and Mexico, with the aim of preserving core Jaguar populations and essential Jaguar habitat through the establishment, care, and expansion of protected areas in the Northern Sonoran Desert in Mexico and the southwestern United States.

Their aspiration is to restore habitat suitable for Jaguars and other threatened and endangered species, support wildlife research and educational programs, and to reduce conflicts between carnivores and humans. Habitat loss, hunting, federal anti-predator programs, and conflicts with livestock have precipitated rapid declines of the world’s jaguar populations, and the species is today considered endangered throughout its entire range.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands where, within the last 100 years, the Jaguar has been virtually eliminated.

While individual jaguars continue to be documented in the mountains of southern Arizona and New Mexico, recent field investigations have determined that the nearest breeding population of 80 to 120 jaguars exists in Sonora, Mexico, approximately 125 miles south of the border.

The NJP has acquired land, through donation and purchase, to not only protect jaguar habitat but to preserve migratory routes. The Northern Jaguar Reserve now covers 70 square miles of consistently rough, steep terrain, sculpted by hundreds of canyons and cliffs – ideal for jaguars, bobcats and mountain lions.

The lands surrounding the Northern Jaguar Reserve form one of the largest unbroken expanses of wildlife habitat in northern Mexico. NJP is working to identify safe-passage corridors to return Jaguars to former U.S habitat along the international border, and the NJP Reserve is the major source for cats moving north, it not only provides a crucial safe zone but is the link between protected areas in Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora.

On the U.S side of the border, jaguars are protected on more than 800,000 acres of national forests, wildlife refuges, and private ranches with conservation agreements that prevent their killing. As NJP continue to seek land to provide connectivity for the Jaguar to travel northward, it appears their efforts are working, with male Jaguars being photographed on both sides of the U.S-Mexico border in recent years.

In addition to land purchase, the NJP has established a group known as Jaguar Guardians, who are employed to reside on the Reserve, to provide protection for Jaguars and other wildlife by maintaining a consistent physical presence deterring encroachment, poaching and theft.

They are also the ones regularly retrieving data from the field, which includes managing a series of motion-triggered cameras to determine jaguar, deer, and javelina densities, monitoring felid tracks, collecting scat, recording wildlife sightings, and determining the cause of death of any carcasses that are discovered. A total of $2,500 was donated to this project.