His first question was " Have you lost anything?" Now as an exotic animal owner that is the LAST words one wants to hear! My mind went rapidly and I knew I had not so I answered instantly with a resounding NO. He asked AGAIN, "Are you SURE you are not missing anything?" NOW I am FREAKING OUT! My mind does an instant inventory. Monkeys, check. Snakes, check. Horses, check. Cattle, buffalo, check. Birds, check..etc... and never ONCE in my mind did I think in a million years, that what he was asking was 'ARE ALL YOU BIG CATS HERE?" OMG.. now you have to be an IDIOT to not miss one of those and frankly I was shocked that I got asked the question twice. I assured him all were there and we did a walk through with a head count. OF COURSE All were present and accounted for. Now to the basis of this story.
Evidently, a local land owner had a blurred image of an unidentified animal on his game camera. Now I ask, how in the world did ANYONE come up with having a "tiger" (as reported by the land owner it was what he thought to be a tiger!) that is not native to our country. A phone call by me simplified that question. Evidently this person is friends of my ex-employer, of which I have no problem with except one employee that is their "key" person and really does not like me. He stated he took the photo to my ex-employer and it was told to him that it looked like a tiger. Now why would it look like a tiger in a land where tigers are not known to roam free, unless you KNOW someone has a tiger and you hate their guts? LOL!! Hey.. I get it.
So for the next week I battled with the constant accusations, even though the FWCC told people that called that the facility that has big cats in the area has all their cats accounted for. The rumor mill was rampant! I even got emails from as far away as Massachusetts from friends asking me if it is my tiger that is loose!
I figured it would all blow over, that is until on January 17th it was in the internet edition of our local paper as "Bobcat or Tiger" with those blurred obscure pictures on it... trying to cause mass hysteria. As I read the ignorant and misinformed comments, I read on where it stated that FWCC had told the paper that the "game farm" ... WHOA.. wait a minute! WE ARE NOT A GAME FARM!! I suddenly got a deluge of email from Facebook people trying to friend us, when in reality it was people trying to get to us to send us hate mail, set up a demonstration or what have you. OMG. So I notified the editor that we are NOT a game farm and to please retract that statement. Instead they offered to come out and do an interview.
I was hesitant as I have seen many of my fellow exotic animal lovers/owners fall prey to media slander as they walk into well orchestrated ambushes. I went ahead and allowed the onsite interview. The reporter was wonderful and we got front page POSITIVE coverage. I was amazed in this day and age at the fact that there are still reporters out there that report the truth.
Here is the first posting edition that caused all the mass hysteria:
Now here is the newspaper AFTER the interview
Quite the difference when someone researches facts huh?
But please understand that this is what we as exotic animal owners face EVERYDAY. It is the agenda of the HSUS, ALF, PETA and many other animal rights activists, that these animals are better off dead than in captivity. And this is where I will fight everyday until my last breath to save and protect not only the ones in my care but their wild relatives.
Please understand that none of these animals have been taken from the wild. They are generations upon generations of captive breds. They know no other life, and private owners in fact have happier, healthier cats as well as a better safety record than any public zoo.
Ok.. enough for today.. will try to keep all updated throughout the year!
No comments:
Post a Comment