2013-04-23 Carole Diary

Carole Baskins Diary

3 Days in Charlotte, NC

with Howie visiting his brother, the Nimphies and attending Tigers 4 Tigers conference at Clemson.

Bloomfire Article about Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue

Carole Baskin is the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a nonprofit sanctuary in Tampa, Florida dedicated to exotic cats that have been abused and abandoned. We gave her a call to find out all about her life’s passion and the intertwined challenges of saving cats, keeping customers happy and running a successful business.

Zerve: Could you explain what Big Cat Rescue is, for anyone who hasn’t heard of it?

Carole: We are the world’s largest accredited sanctuary that is dedicated entirely to exotic cats. We rescue lions, tigers, leopards and more, and give them a permanent home.

Zerve: What kind of situations are these cats rescued from?

Carole: They come from the entertainment industry, some have come from fur farms where they were going to be slaughtered for their fur... a lot of them end up coming to us as pets, but it’s not that people go out thinking “I want to buy a tiger as a pet”; what happens is that people have their picture taken with a cute little tiger cub, but it’s only legal to do that — or USDA guidelines say you’re only supposed to do that — when the tigers are between the ages of 8 and 12 weeks. So as soon as those cubs are too big to handle, the breeders and dealers and exploiters of these animals start passing them off on people, saying “Oh, it’s been bottle-fed,” and “It’s been around people its whole life,” and “It’s going to be just like a dog,” and “It’s going to grow up in your family and love you.” And people believe it, but they get home with this cat that by the end of the first year is going to be 200 pounds, in the second year 300 pounds, by the fourth year 500 pounds... you just can’t get rid of it fast enough!

Zerve: I’m sure in some cases, that’s pretty dangerous.

Carole: Very dangerous, even when they’re small. If you have an infant — a lot of people think it’s so cute to have a little baby meet a little tiger cub — that tiger cub could take that kid’s fingers off!

Zerve: So when these cats get to your facility, they have the space that they need and the people with the expertise to take care of them?

Carole: Yes. We only have 10 paid staff, but we have over 85 volunteers and we’re on 55 acres, so when cats come to us, they stay with us for the rest of their lives. Our cages are known for being some of the largest in the sanctuary industry and have a lot of bushes and trees and ponds and stuff for the cats to do, so we try to just make their lives as comfortable as we can until they die of old age, which at Big Cat Rescue can be in their late teens and early twenties. Usually in most other places they only live to be 10 or 12.

Zerve: It’s impressive that you have so many volunteers; it sounds like people are really passionate about these cats.

Carole: Yes, but it’s not just that you can come in whenever you want to and volunteer — it’s very strict. They have to put in at least four hours a week and take all kinds of classes and there are different levels that they have to progress through. Everyone wants to work with lions and tigers, but they have to be a volunteer with us for two years taking care of small cats (like bobcats, servals and caracals) before we even let them get anywhere close to a tiger or lion or leopard cage, because those cats can kill you. And nobody has any physical contact with the cats, we don’t touch them at all here.

Zerve: Sounds like a good idea. I’d be terrified to get that close to a tiger!

Carole: Especially when they’re in a bad mood, oh my gosh! Your blood just runs cold when they jump at you or roar at you.

Zerve: So what exactly is your role at Big Cat Rescue?

Carole: I’m the founder and the CEO, but even I don’t have any contact with the cats unless there’s a situation where we have to net a cat for the vet to check him out.

The primary part of my job is activism. I’ve learned over the years that we can’t rescue our way out of the problem: sometimes we have to turn away 300 cats in a single year, because we can only take in five or six as our older cats die of old age. The only way we are going to fix this problem is by changing the laws. So I spend most of my time at a computer with www.catlaws.com, where we are covering general bills and bills in every state trying to ban the private possession of these animals. Because nobody needs a tiger in their backyard or basement, that’s just crazy.

In fact, in 30 minutes, I’m going to be catching a plane to go to Clemson University to lecture to all of the schools that have a tiger as their mascot. They are creating a coalition to save tigers in the wild, and I’ll be talking about how the cat population in America is what is driving the extinction of tigers in the wild, because it creates a smokescreen for a lot of illegal activity. That’s why we have to ban private possession if we’re ever going to save these cats in the wild.

Zerve: Could you talk about where your funding comes from?

Carole: It costs us about $1.5 million per year to take care of the hundred cats that we have. Just a single tiger, to give you an idea, costs over $10,000 per year just for the direct costs: that’s food and veterinary care, that doesn’t include any of the overhead. So about a third of the money comes from our tours – thank you Zerve! – about a third comes from our gift shop (onsite and online), and then the other third comes from donations.

Zerve: We love selling tickets for your tours — which is your most popular?

Carole: The most popular is the standard Day Tour, where most people come and spend an hour and a half walking around and meeting the cats. Our most beloved tour is our Keeper Tour: people take the two-hour tour, make stuff for the cats to play with, and then they get to see the cats get the toys, and they get a very educational experience. That’s the one that people seem to love the most, the Keeper Tour.

Zerve: And the rest of us get to see the cats play with the toys on your Youtube channel [[http://www.youtube.com/user/BigCatRescue]](http://www.youtube.com/user/BigCatRescue%5D), which is fantastic!

Carole: Did you see our boxes video[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY%5D) that went up yesterday?

Zerve: I just watched that this morning!

Carole: I love that, the cats have so much fun with their boxes.

Zerve: Yeah, it’s incredible how much like little house cats they are! Your channel is really impressive. Do you have a pro video crew?

Carole: No, actually we have a fabulous intern program where interns come from all around the world and spend three months living on the property and working with the cats. And one of those interns named Chris Poole offered to do a couple of videos for us, and I was like “Oh, you are fabulous!” so we ended up hiring him, which was hard because he’s from the UK and we had to do the whole process of importing this person, but he’s been with us probably five years now.

Zerve: Big Cat Rescue is in many ways unique among businesses that Zerve works with, but are there any tips you’ve picked over the years that might be good advice to people running any small business?

Carole: I think the biggest thing is the oldest cliché in the world: the customer is always right. Whenever the question arises as to whether it’s okay to cancel a ticket or refund the ticket, and it’s like “Absolutely! Always make the customer happy! Give them the money back!” Even if they come out, take the tour and then complain, give them their money back. We want people to go away feeling like this was the best experience they’ve ever had, and I think if you go at it with that kind of attitude you’re going to have the kind of success that we’ve had. We’re unique at Zerve as a cat sanctuary, but in our world, among other sanctuaries, what makes us unique is that we are financially sound! You just don’t see that very often. Most places are struggling every single day to figure out how they’re going to feed their animals, and we’ve been very successful by adopting a policy of being as transparent as we possibly can and as accommodating as we can — without exploiting the animals.

Zerve: Right — especially in today’s socially connected world, it’s extremely important to have good word of mouth feedback.

Carole: It’s our number one source of referrals, word of mouth. We do a release form when people sign in and ask them how they found out about us. We have radio ads running and sometimes are on Animal Planet and the like, but the biggest publicity throughout our entire history has been word of mouth.

Zerve: Have any celebrities ever shown up to take your tours?

Carole: If you go to our website[[http://bigcatrescue.org/celebrities/]](http://bigcatrescue.org/celebrities/%5D), you can see all the celebrities who’ve been here — probably one of the most well-known has been Bo Derek. We just had a member of Black Veil Brides and his girlfriend Juliette Simms, a finalist on The Voice, and she just recently did a celebrity auction of a bunch of her clothes for us.

Zerve: I imagine this might be hard to answer, but: do you have a favorite cat there?

Carole: I really don’t. I have a favorite species: I just love the personalities of bobcats more than all of the other cats. You know, tigers are just so cool and they just take everything in stride because they’re at the top of the food chain and they know it, whereas bobcats are just wicked! [laughs] I just love them, they’re so little and so tough and they have to prove it every day.