2015-02-24 Carole Baskin‘s Diary

Carole Baskins Diary

Raising Cubs documentary by Stephanie Holt

wrote saying: Hello, My name is Stephanie Holt and I work for Offspring Films. We are a wildlife TV production company and we are currently finishing a landmark series about the evolution of the cat family, featuring well-known big cats, such as lions, tigers and cheetahs as well as the more uncommonly known cats such as pallas, clouded leopards and margay.

We are currently developing an exciting new series, in which we hope to follow young cubs from new-born or newly orphaned to one year old. Over the course of the year, with a maximum of four visits, we want to show viewers the main trials and challenges faced by those rearing young cubs, helping fight against the extinction of some of our most stunning felines.

Through this series we will answer questions such as, what are the pivotal moments for their early development? When are the riskiest periods during which a cub’s health can turn for the worst? When do they become more dangerous or feisty? And other techniques for rearing a big cat for its potential release back into the wild.

I would love to hear if this may be something you would be interested in being involved in, and if you have or know of any cubs coming in to any rescue centers or due to be born in the next six months. I would be happy to phone and chat further about any ideas you may have on this and options for our possible star cubs/kittens? All the best, Stephanie Holt OFFSPRING FILMS LTD

Susan Bass responded to Stephanie saying:

Stephanie, your current project sounds interesting. Your developing project sounds horrendous if you are indeed talking about showing your viewers how captive cubs -- bred by breeders and exhibitors in order to make money off of them, with cub handling schemes when they are very young, and then sentenced to a lifetime in a cage when they become too large for direct contact with the paying public -- are exploited and abused by their owners/breeders/exhibitors. There is absolutely nothing educational or species-saving about watching these cubs and there is currently no way to release captive-raised cubs into the wild. Please take a few minutes to educate yourself on the issue of cub abuse: http://bigcatrescue.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/FactsheetBigCatsHandling_rev.1.pdf - Susan

Hi Susan, I'm afraid perhaps I haven't made myself clear enough, we are mostly looking for rescued wild cubs and how they can be reared and returned to the wild. And indeed the hardships people face in the decisions they must make when rearing these helpless cubs. We are already in contact with rescue and rehabilitation centres in Asia and Africa and I was more aiming towards any rescued cubs in America that you may know of, or indeed good people to contact. Our passion is towards conservation and certainly not towards breeding for the exotic pet trade. All the best, Steph

Susan to Steph: America has no wild tigers or lions, so there would never be wild cubs needing rescue. And even in Asia and Africa there are extremely few wild cubs that are rescued. I have read one or two articles about orphaned cubs found In the tiger reserves in Asia who were temporarily taken to zoos and then released. In Africa you need to be very careful about the lions bred for canned hunts. The owners of these breeding places will happily lie and tell you the cubs in their care were orphaned or abandoned, when in fact they were purposely bred and then socialized with humans before being sold off to canned hunt facilities.

I wrote them both and said: Usually once a year we will have orphaned bobcats who are raised for release back to the wild, but we are hands off, so most of their care is monitored via CCTV as we have to stay completely away from them to keep them wild enough for release. We have no bobcat kittens in rehab right now. Spring / Summer is usually when that happens. For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue

"Judge me by the enemies I have made." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Author of Big Cat Care - How to Start a Sanctuary

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Office 813.920.4130 Cell 813.493.4564 Fax [phone]

Celebrating 23 Years (1992-2015) of Caring for cats ♥ Ending the trade

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Hi Carole, Oh that sounds fantastic and we would certainly love to show the hands-off approach to rearing wild cats through to release. Where are you based? At what age do you usually release the cats? And would you be willing to share some CCTV footage with us seeings as we wouldn’t be able to film them. All the best, Steph

Carole wrote: We are always happy to share footage and may even have some stuff already that you could use. Bobcat kittens seem to be anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months old when they arrive and we release the following spring, if possible, because that is when there are baby prey animals available. This is a play list of our more polished bobcat rehab footage:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsmHBgbkKIERnTfb6_SdLzR6krmHcfeCu

This is a search for our more long form footage of our rehab work: https://www.youtube.com/user/DailyBigCat/search?query=rehab

You can use a downloader to grab these in high res, or we can try to find the original files in our on site archives, if you see something you want. Our only caveat is that we ask:

Big Cat Rescue is the largest accredited sanctuary in the world dedicated to rescuing and caring for abused and abandoned exotic cats. Located in Tampa, Florida, we are home to about 100 big cats, including tigers, lions, panthers, leopards, and bobcats.

It is Big Cat Rescue’s dual mission to provide (1) the best possible care we can for the cats at our sanctuary and (2) to educate the public about the plight of big cats both in captivity and in the wild. It is our goal to end abuse of big cats and to avoid extinction of exotic cats in the wild.

Big Cat Rescue agrees to the terms of this release provided that the media production in no way condones, promotes or otherwise glamorizes private ownership, use as entertainment or sport, or breeding of captive exotic cats. Further, we allow the use of photos, audio, video and interview quotes you acquire at Big Cat Rescue, subject to these terms.

Date:______________________________

Organization:____________________________

Authorized Representative:______________________________

Signature:__________________________________

March 1, 2015. Hi Carole,

How are you? I hope you had a lovely weekend! I was just wandering if I could borrow a bit more of your big cat rescue expertise? Could you possibly point me in the direction of some good cat rescue sanctuaries in the US as I am trying to find some other great places for our documentary as we would love to feature some other big cat rescue sanctuaries alongside conservation projects. I'm a bit worried that some places I search which call themselves "sanctuaries" may not always be what they say they are! All the best, Steph

Carole wrote: The only legitimate sanctuaries are accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. http://www.sanctuaryfederation.org/gfas/about-gfas/gfas-sanctuaries/

There is an a group that says they are accredited by the American Sanctuary Federation, but they do not do not have sanctuary standards, site inspections or renewals and their board hasn't met in a decade. Any place that tells you they don't want to be accredited by GFAS has something to hide. People will often say:

1. It's too expensive.

That is a lie. It is free and GFAS will often even award grants to the applicant to help them bring their facilities up to standard.

2. It's a club.

That is a lie. The organizations who run GFAS are some of the largest and most respected in the world and spent years developing standards for animal care that take into consideration the fact that some facilities have access to better funding than others. It is global and thus has to consider all manner of differences in access to resources, while still insuring appropriate animal care.

3. I don't want anyone telling me how to run my business.

So that makes me wonder what it is that they want to hide or what they are doing that they think GFAS would revoke their accreditation for doing.

Hi Carole, Fantastic thank you so much for that, that helps a lot! All the best, Steph

Later Note: 10/26/2021 I looked online and it seems they did do this film for Discovery, France 5 and SkyOne but I can’t find clips. https://www.offspringfilms.co.uk/life-first-steps It was also promoted as Wild Animal Babies.

Hi, I’m Carole Baskin and I’ve been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.

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Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.