Dear John Torres,
It is well known to everyone in the animal protection community that Ray Thunderhawk purposely inbred white tigers to produce babies that he would then drag out to flea markets for attention and ill gotten gain. There is absolutely NO reason for anyone to breed white tigers and you can learn more about that at Big Cat Rescue’s web page called White Tigers.
In USDA reports from 2004 Thunderhawk listed 14 big cats and by 2007 had more than 70. He did not rescue cats, but rather bred them and has close ties to other low life back yard breeders. He relied on the ignorance of the public about how white tigers are produced and their lack of accessibility to see how he was caging the animals. 75 big cats crowded into the muddy backyard of a residential home in Cocoa that sits on less than 2 acres, is not what anyone would consider humane or ethical.
Big Cat Rescue has offered to help spay and neuter the cats so that Ray’s “accidental” births (which were never part of any contraception program as he claimed) but required that Ray surrender possession to his board as his actions prove that he does not have the well being of the cats in mind. It was a tough decision for his board to take over the facility, but they are remarkable people and they know that the only way to end the abuse is to stop the breeding. We will help them in any way we can and hope that the public will do so as well.
This is a very sad situation and the good people on the board of CFAR are to be applauded for stepping up and taking action to protect the cats from the likes of Ray Thunderhawk.
A few pages of background:
http://bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news.htm Why should anyone care?
http://bigcatrescue.org/exoticownerprofile.htm Who owns big cats?
http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00169.htm Photos with baby big cats
http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00081.htm What do these backyard breeder’s facilities look like?
For the cats,
Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL 33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457
http://www.BigCatRescue.org MakeADifference@BigCatRescue.org
Sign our petition here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/344896451?ltl=1140270431
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