Hello there cat people, Dan the cat man here and welcome to episode 65 and the season 3 finale of the Shelter Cats podcast, the podcast created by shelter cats.

And joining us today is my Co host, Michelle the Meow Maven.

Hi, Michelle.

Samantha, queen of all kittens from Itty Bitty City, kitties.org and Stephen Quant, our producer and not exotic cat behavior expert, domestic cat behavior expert from catbehaviorhelp.com.

Hello everybody.

And our very special guest for our Season 3 finality is Bobby Brink.

Why does everybody have better names than me?

Bobby Brink of Lions, Tigers and bears.org, which is a nonprofit exotic animal rescue and sanctuary in Alpine, CA Bobby, before we get to talk to you, we have a little commercial.

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Bobby, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank.

You for having me?

Can I lead off with with like an opinion hot?

I think we'd call it a hot take kind of question before we get into your back story.

I don't want to assume I know the answer.

What do you think of these?

You know, social media is filled with influencers of all of all walks of life.

And there also seems to be exotic cat influencers, I think is a good way to put them.

I can't call them out by name because we can't afford lawyers on this show.

But there's is it called Caracal?

Is that how you pronounce it?

Caracal.

I was close there's there's a few of them in particular that at first I thought they were really cute and I almost wanted one, but it didn't take long before watching the content in my feed.

I kind of felt bad for them.

I felt like they were being exploited for social media clicks and likes and follows.

And some of them even have merch where you can buy a T-shirt.

I don't want to assume, I know how you feel about that, but is that something you you'd want to comment on about these people that have these caracals at home and other types of I know there's one, there's a Puma, 1 is a serval.

I feel like they're being exploited.

What do you think?

I think they're fully being exploited.

And I don't really know exactly who you're talking about, but these, you know, they're wild animals.

They don't belong in your house.

They have wild instincts.

And you know, they really need to be outside in the dirt and have bushes and rocks and trees to climb and space to travel.

And my opinion is wild means wild.

And I think the people posting all the photos, even of the big cats, the lions and the tigers, they're just doing it nothing more than to be selfish or for money or to exploit the animal like you say.

And most times they don't last very long as a pet.

The lucky ones will end up at a place like mine.

A lot of them disappear, a lot of them are put down and a lot of them are sold into the trade, second to drugs and weapons and human trafficking in our country.

Well.

Yeah, it just, it just didn't take long for me to feel really, you know, this one in particular lives in a home, lives with another domestic cat and just looks miserable to me.

And the whole point of the of the content is, oh, look, he's growling on the couch again.

Oh, look, he's growling while going for a walk.

I just wanted to to get your opinion on that so that out of the way.

He's a wild animal.

Hello.

You know, the whole, the whole, the whole shtick, to use a, a Brooklyn term is, you know, oh, he's, he's always growling.

He looks miserable, but it doesn't educate me on why he communicates that way or why, why he, why he shouldn't be on somebody's couch in a, in a home, because I can't speak for it.

You know, the rest of the Co hosts here, but we've interviewed a lot of domestic cat, you know, be they rescues or shelters.

I unfortunately, I know very little about the work you do.

I don't, I know very little about the, the plight of these animals and what goes into rescuing them.

So that's, I want to leave today having a better understanding of why you what, why you do what you do and why it's necessary and what these, what these beautiful.

I binged on some of your Youtubes last night, you know, introducing the bears and the, and the animals and they're beautiful videos.

And it's just, there was even one that was a, a cat that befriended some of the domestic cats.

It's just, it's just such a lovely sanctuary.

So can you kind of take us back into that, how you got into this in the 1st place and how you became passionate about rescuing these animals?

Well, I kind of got involved in this on by mistake.

I was opening a restaurant.

I moved to Richmond, TX because it was the fastest growing city at the time.

It's the location I chose to open a restaurant and when I was in the classified ads looking for a restaurant, equipment and stuff to furnish the restaurant we were putting together.

I kept seeing lions, tigers, leopards, Cougars for sale and just out of curiosity I answered the ad so I could see in the 1st place I went.

The lady lived in a mobile home on five acres.

She had 30 big cats all being bred and babies crawling all over the mobile home floor.

You could buy 1 ticket home today.

So just like in the domestic cat breeding or puppies, you could just buy one and take it home.

So I need to.

Buy a lion baby out of a trailer and take it home.

Very popular in Texas at the time.

This was in the early 90s and I've actually seen them for sale in the Walmart parking lot.

I used to have a hay farm.

I've seen them at the cattle auctions being held up for sale.

The Amish breed a lot of exotics to sell at the auctions or to sell just to people?

To anyone who will, who will buy them.

So anyway, I answered a couple other ads.

I continued to volunteer for this woman for many years.

And then you just kind of see all the bad.

And, you know, being from San Diego, we don't see the exotic animal trade like you see it in Texas and Oklahoma and in the South.

And it's really sad how many animals were just being sold to anybody and no place to go and in little teeny cages or improper, you know, living in someone's kitchen or basement.

And yeah, so just kind of wanted to make a difference.

And we had, and I think it was like 1998, we had donated to help some leopards.

And the deal was we would help build the habitat and the person would take care of the animals and we would pay for them and they would never be bred again.

And they'd get to live their life in this habitat.

And it wasn't, we didn't even finish the habitat.

And the woman had the animals bred again to sell.

So that's when I decided that I was going to start lions, tigers and bears.

And I was going to do it myself and I was going to do it right and try to stop the, you know, the craziness.

At the time, there was no social media, so nobody really, you tell people that, you know, someone's just sells lions and tigers and they look at you like you're crazy.

But it was happening and it's still happening in our country.

And so just trying to make a difference.

So 2002 I started lions, tigers and bears and 28 states it was perfectly legal to own a lion or tiger as a pet.

It took 18 years.

I've been working on the federal bill and I, Tippy Hedren and myself were the first ones to walk the walk the halls to try to start the bill.

And of course we failed multiple times and just kept going.

So we finally got the Big Cat Public Safety Act through with multiple organizations now help, and now we're going to work on the bears, the primates, and the wolves, so.

I just want to ask what?

Is the average person supposed to do with a with a full grown tiger?

I mean they.

Have no idea and most of them get them and they they don't even think about, you know, what a cage is going to cost or what the care is going to cost.

I mean, most people can't even take proper care of their domestic cat.

And a lot of the times, you know, where we're going, we work with the first responders all over the country because, you know, they're not really trained to go get a tiger out of someone's basement or horse trailer or or kitchen or wherever they seem to be keeping it.

And that's how we help.

And then transport all across the country, you know, not only to our own sanctuary, but to other facilities, because no one sanctuary can take all that, take all the animals.

So can you I feel like I I'm maybe a little more familiar with what the plight of these animals outside of the United States.

I I feel just based on what you said in the introduction about the legislation and I'm 28 states it was perfectly legal.

What were, it seems like it's the Wild West with, with these, with being able to to house these animals.

What, what were the regulations when you started versus today?

Is it just every state is different?

That seems like, it sounds like that's a big part of what you do is, is legislation and 1st and, and that sounds very frustrating and challenging.

Is there some overarching regulation in this country or how does that even work?

Can you go into that in terms of what people can do in Cancun?

It was the wild Wild West and every single state is different and and like even Ohio had no laws for animals.

California had the strictest laws when I started.

So it it's state by state and in some states like Texas, perfect example, it can even be parish by parish.

So it can be a county by county.

So it's different.

So while we were trying to get the federal bill through, we also worked on, on state laws and we were successful getting some, you know, some state, state by state, Ohio being the biggest one after the Zanesville incident.

So we were actually working on the state bill to make it illegal.

And the governor said absolutely no way because animals are considered property.

We can't take people's rights away to own animals.

And then that's when the Zanesville incident happened.

I don't know if, you know, that's when like 60 exotic animals were let out and we're running loose.

And a lot of them had to be killed, including endangered tigers and lions and other other animals.

And that actually helped us to get the first big state bill, which was SB310 in Ohio through.

And then I'm the one that picked up the contract for the state of Ohio.

I actually went in and taught their Department of Agriculture.

You know how to sedate tigers and you know what to build.

You know what fencing is proper for what species.

And then they, they built a, a huge building and Department of Agriculture building to compensate animals.

And then we went in and helped them compensate animals.

I moved well over 200 lions, tigers and bears and Cougars out of the state of Ohio when we got that bill passed.

So that was a big one that we got.

And then we just worked, you know, state by state, but you know, some of the standards were federal USDA and it was stand up, turn around fresh food and water.

So there really were no, you know, not that much of a standard.

And the USDA's take on it was we're not in the business of shutting down businesses because these people are considered businesses to have a USDA permit.

Because in order to have a USDA permit, you had exhibit or breed or be doing research, that's how they would get the permit.

So it made it really hard.

And plus they're considered property.

So the Breeders who were doing the photo OPS, they would just continuously breed animals.

So like we know people who have breed like 400 animals in a year.

Tigers for, you know, nothing more than photo OPS because the tigers will their gestations 105 days.

So it's just like a puppy mill.

They pull the babies, brings the female back into heat.

They'll pull them when they're eight days old, which is really sad, and then put them on the bottle.

Some of them die, some of them live, and they use them for the photo OPS.

But to keep their business going, they had to continuously breed animals.

Trying to stop that was really crazy.

But it's illegal now in the United States, finally.

Incredible.

Can I just ask for some background a little bit about what the physical sanctuary looks like and what the daily life of these cats and and?

Bears are like.

Here at Lions, Tigers and Bears, yeah, once, once they come here, they're pretty spoiled.

So it depends on this.

It depends on the species.

They get better medical care than you and I, and they've got a lot of volunteers and their keepers and myself that take care of them.

And we.

It just depends on the animals because sometimes they come in, they're afraid of space because they've never been outside or never been on dirt or things like that.

So it's really important that they all have running water and pools and rocks and trees and, you know, space to move around and space to forage if they're a bear or room for enrichment if they're big cats.

So sometimes the geriatrics can't have that much space.

Sometimes they'll have from malnutrition and from these breeders who don't feed him properly, properly or people who don't feed him properly, metabolic bone disease.

And a lot of them have been declawed.

So we've got to deal with those things.

They've a lot of times never had any medical care till they come here.

So it kind of depends on the animal.

Yeah.

Now, do you, do you take in all of the animals that you rescue or do you distribute any to like zoos or other facilities or anything like that?

Yeah, there there's no way we could take all of the animals.

So I've, I've probably transported well over 1200 animals that have not gone here since 2002.

And then right now we have 67 animals here, 19 different species.

So all it, you know, all of them will be here for life.

Anything we take is for life.

So we've got to be able to provide for that animal for life and let a tiger will eat about $20,000 worth of food a year.

So we can only take in, you know, what we can build for our, some of our habitats will cost over $1,000,000 to build.

So it just depends on the, you know, the cost and Mark, sorry.

Sorry, no problem, My cat's knocked over the microphone.

Yeah.

And you know, like right now we just worked on a rescue helping the authorities move some animals.

So we actually have some in quarantine while we're building a habitat.

So that's another thing that's always our our biggest cost is building the new habitats and they are so expensive so that we can continue to take more animals.

How did you even get this?

How big is the sanctuary now?

Like in terms of, I guess acres?

We have 146 acres.

And it sounds like.

Room to expand this was a cow pasture and it was a mess.

And we've just cleaned up the property and started, you know, with one habitat.

And then I've built it day by day.

You know, I've, I've been involved in every single thing that's been built on this property.

I've drawn it with pencil and we've gone from there.

So our our next capital campaigns we're going to build another what we call linking Love, which is a about a three acre habitat for cats and we want to build a Animal Hospital will be our next big campaign that we're going to launch at the end of the year.

So we don't have a really nice Animal Hospital in our area where we are.

So it will you know, not only be for our animals, but for other people.

There's a lot of a lot of livestock and things around here.

Where are your donations come from?

Like how many come from the public and and?

And.

How do you raise all the money that you need?

If it's legal, we're trying to do it for fundraising.

Just kidding, just kidding.

We do.

We do a lot.

We let people just, we let people visit.

Of course we have a venue.

I just finished building a venue so people can get married here.

You could have corporate retreat, your anniversary party, whatever, rent the pools.

We have two pools for people.

We have an Airbnb.

We do, you know, our E blasts, our social media, our mailings, we do outreach to the community.

Just the basic fundraising like I'm sure like you guys do and any other non nonprofit does.

Yeah.

I didn't know how to fundraise.

So that was like I had to learn how to fundraise and learn how to ask for money.

Yeah.

Yeah, you.

You were a restaurateur before you started this.

Is that am I?

I thought it was before.

So it says this accident thought it was going to be in the hospitality industry.

So all that time for that and then.

But I did have a really nice little restaurant and it did really well and that helped me to start Lions, Tigers and Bears.

And, you know, the key thing was the location and that's why we, that's why I moved there.

And it turned out really well because there was a courthouse right across the street.

So you're going to get the day business no matter what.

So we always had a line out the door and then we changed the menu to suit the, you know, the residential neighborhood at night.

And it works really well.

And then when I sold my restaurant and came back home, this is what I decided to do.

So it's all self talk.

Yeah, it's all self-taught.

You know, learning about these, these lions, tigers and bears, the sanctuaries that they need, the care they need, all all self-taught.

That's amazing.

Thank you so much in Rescue, there's so many.

People standing in the world.

That fall into rescue accidentally and have to learn as they go.

It's not easy.

You got to be pretty, pretty resilient.

And no doesn't mean no.

You just got to find another way and, you know, trying to work with my, you know, I have a lot of interns now and a lot of students, so trying to teach them that and yeah, 'cause I'll have to have a replacement here soon is.

This is are is it safe to interact with these animals or or we do.

Interact with them but we don't touch them so we do what's called protective contact.

So no to answer your question, because these animals could kill you in a hot 2nd.

So especially a lot of the ones that, you know, we go and get, we have no idea how they've been raised or, you know, what they've been through.

So we always have a piece of chain link or fence in between US and them.

But they're, you know, they're, they very much choose who they like.

They're very doglike.

They, they know their keepers, they know the routine.

We don't really train the animals, but we condition them.

So like example is they all have rolling cages and they all have safety bedrooms.

So they'll be asked to come into their safety bedroom every day and we lock them in there.

And then some days we ask them to get into the rolling cages or the transfer cages or it's also a squeeze cage.

So they're going to the safety bedroom so the keepers can safely get out in the habitat, service their pools, hide their food, swap their toys, clean it up and so on.

Glamorized landscaping, weed whack, things like that.

And then if they're asked to go in the transfer cages, it's so that if we need to, we can move them.

We can take them up to the surgery room.

Like we had a fire, you have a way to evacuate.

And then these rolling cages also have a squeeze.

So sometimes we can draw blood or vaccinate or microchip without having to sedate every single time.

So we condition them for things like that.

And then to rotate so we have alleys so they can run down the alley so we don't have to catch them up.

So they like a lot of the big cats that way they don't have to stay in the same habitat.

We can rotate them around because it's really good enrichment.

It's just really good.

They get to smell each other's smells and be someplace new and stuff like that.

But we do, you know, talk to them through the fence.

We give them their meds on tongs every day so they're, you know, hand feeding them.

We do hand feed at the rail, especially our geriatric cats because it really gets them up moving around.

Body emotion stays in motion for them, just like us.

When they start having arthritis and things like that, it really helps to go for a walk with them and give them food or or you know, feed them at the rail so that they're having to come down to you and it's like their daily exercise.

Things like that.

Especially when they start getting older and lazy.

Because cats can be really lazy.

Especially lions.

Male lions.

You said you hide their food, what is their?

Again I'm asking dumb questions.

What is their diet?

Well, the cats, it would be raw meat.

So it could be venison, beef, chicken, pork.

And we, you know, of course, wrote rotate a little bit.

So they're getting a variety.

Any muscle meat is always supplemented because cats have such high calcium taurine, things like that needs.

And then bears would be omnivores.

So they'd eat like raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw fish, cooked meats, raw nuts, even like avocados, cooked eggs, things like that.

They kind of eat how the normal halfway healthy person would try to eat I.

Was going to say they all eat way better than me.

The livestock could be like hay or different grains or things like that, depending on the llamas.

The mini horse, the macaw, of course has bird food.

And then we cook them foods and yeah, every day, every, every animal has their diet.

So every Tuesday is pretty much our food prep day where we empty and clean all the clean all the freezer and refrigerator.

And then we have a whole crew.

It's just like organized where they weigh every single diet for every single animal.

The bears will do three days because it's produce.

You don't want to prep much further in advance because your produce might start going bad.

But the meat, we can, you know, prep a few days in advance and and then it's weighed.

So each animal gets their exact weight and their supplements out of that tip, and then they'll stack them all up in the refrigerator, and we use the Expo marker to mark the animal's name and the day it's for.

Yeah, that takes all day because that's quite an undertaking.

I'm just think like just keeping that all organized is.

I can't even keep my own food organized for myself, just me.

I haven't heard about the the bears in England in the sanctuary who escaped their enclosure and went to the peanut butter and honey storage and ate their fill and one lay down and took a nap and the other one walked back into his his his sanctuary.

That sounds like a bear.

Yeah.

All they want is food, food and more food.

Can I ask you a sanctuary specific question?

Actually, I'm from Southern California too.

How do you guys deal with it wildfires, especially where you are, because there's horrible fires in the early 2000s in Julian County, which is right by you guys.

We are forever weed whacking and clearing brush and we keep, we have a lot of oak trees here.

So we keep them all like, you know, so you can't touch the the canopy.

So which really, actually makes them really beautiful and grow better.

So we have a one full time guy that's pretty much all he does is Fire Protection work all, you know, most of the year like we'll pull him because we break a pipe or and we need help or something.

But for the most part, he mows and weed wax and we have about a half a mile, mile long road.

So we have to keep both sides of that road cleared, like 100 feet on each side and then around all the around everything.

So even inside the habitats right now, we're all mowed down pretty much, except we leave, you know, some areas for them on purpose.

Yeah, Yeah.

And then we have a lot of grass around some of the enclosures to keep things pretty wet.

So it would stop a fire.

Right, so we have a.

Whole we have a whole plan, yeah, like we have about 40,000 gallons of water at any given time.

So most people don't know a fire truck only has 500 gallons of water.

Yeah.

So yeah, there's hydrants around each tank and gravity fed as well as pumps.

So on a normal basis during the week, like the some of the bare ponds are pumped out and then we use that water to irrigate when we pump out those ponds.

But in a fire, those are the pumps that we would use to pump water.

So every pool that's built here is set up to be pumped in a fire and all of the water tanks are where the fire trucks can access.

And then of course, we have both a stay in place plan and a slow, what we call this slow evacuation plan, where we would actually, if we were starting to evacuate, we would be evacuating the people and the domestic animals first.

And then everybody's asked to leave the property, but the ones who are trained to work with the exotics.

And then we would have them all locked in their safety bedrooms by that time.

And that's how we would choose to slowly evacuate.

But we do have a stay in place plan because if there were winds, you can't be driving a truck and trailer on the road.

Yeah.

So it just depend on the circumstances of the fire, how fast it's coming.

And, you know, the, the, the biggest thing is getting them locked up because the way we have the property cleared, the biggest risk would be smoke.

Yeah.

So that's a whole plan in itself.

And then everybody who volunteers and is on the property has to go through the emergency training, you know, not the full thing, but if you're going to be, you know, here, you have to know the emergency plan if there is a fire.

And then as they work their way up, especially volunteers who start to work with the animals and the ones who are here to learn how to be a keeper or vet or a visit guide, they have to learn the full safety training.

So we're constantly doing the safety training and practice.

How many people do you have on staff?

25 total.

And volunteers outside of that.

About 120 now 140 that kind of come and go.

Some of them will only like volunteer 8 hours a week but then some you know we have some that come like I have one girl that comes four days a week as a volunteer.

Just depends on what they can do.

Do local next.

Time I visit my parents.

I'm in a busy here.

Puts you to work.

Yes, please.

No, we all can.

You build us a sanctuary for the for the podcast.

We'll be your like resident podcast.

That sounds way better.

They eat better.

They live better than me.

I'm in a 2 bedroom in on Long Island.

Do you have schools that visit as well?

We do.

Yeah, actually.

That, that's a good question because we, we have a lot of school field trips, but we just finished our, we have now have accredited scientific curriculum kindergarten through 5th grade.

So we're actually training our visit guides the the routine right now starting this weekend.

Yeah.

So that's that's awesome.

You mentioned that you hide.

Camp overs, yeah.

You you mentioned that you hide fruit and I'm curious if you're if you're simulating hunting or how you give these?

Forging for the bears.

So we'll hide the, yeah, hide the food for the bears have to, you know, they're like to dig things up and pick things.

So a lot of times we'll even cut the fruit trees, you know, instead of pulling the fruit, we'll cut a limb off so they can actually, and we'll put it around stuff or in stuff so they can actually pick their own fruit.

And they'll rub on new things and scents and pull it around.

And like Rocky, the bear likes to throw his trees everywhere.

Roll in them, throw them in the pool, you know for us to clean up the.

Next day you have to work to prevent boredom in any of them.

Yeah, that's the whole point of, you know, enrichment.

You don't want them to just go lay down and, you know, you got to keep their brain going.

So we're constantly have volunteers building enrichment or you know, little boxes, puzzles that ways for them to tear and get their food, have to dig a little bit.

We got to be careful like this time of the year because the you know, rattlesnakes, but we do weed whack and mow a lot so that makes them move off.

So we don't really go underneath a lot of things where someone might be sticking their hand and get it.

But we like create things where we can hide things under for them to dig, if that makes sense.

And right now you have 67 animals.

Is that what you said?

19 different species, yeah.

19 different species How do you how do bear sorry you become aware of do you are you flooded with requests for taking in more animals that are abused?

Is there like a we?

We can't take all the animals.

Like I just got a call today for a Mountain Lion and we just don't have a habitat right now because we're building the one for the two that we just brought in right now.

So it's really hard because how we need more habitats, It's our biggest need.

What has been the hardest rescue for you personally?

They're all different.

So, you know, sometimes we go places and you got to figure out how to build something to get the animal out because these people haven't ever thought about getting the animal out.

Like they'll put it in their basement, but they don't think about it.

It might have to get out or you might not be able to dart because the cage is so rickety.

If the animal jumps, the cage will come apart.

So it just depends.

Sometimes we can't get our truck in, so we have to rent something smaller to get in and then get them to the semi and the trailer.

And it just depends.

And dealing with the personalities, a lot of times when they're serving the warrant, the people aren't real nice and they have to restrain the people so we can go in and get the animals or, you know, the threats, the death threats and the, you know, the crazies telling you they're coming to get you.

And like when I was working in Ohio, I would get a lot of that.

And I would be in Ohio working, and my husband would be here, and he'd get all the phone calls and he'd be telling me I was crazy to keep going, but we weren't going to stop, so I'll talk.

Does anyone ever show up saying they want their tiger back or does that not?

Happen well that it, it takes a long time for these cases.

So there's the ones, you know, that they think they're going to fight the case and you know they're going to get their animal back.

But so far nobody's ever, you know, 'cause these animals are coming from deplorable.

I mean, just disgusting.

These people should have never had them in the first place 99.9% of the time.

Are there any stories that stand out to you that were like special to you, that maybe, you know, the animal was maybe in a very bad shape, but then they survived and thrived or anything like that, that like really like touched your heart?

Well, we have a tiger named Callie and there's a guy named Jungle Joe who would breed a lot of animals.

Yeah, I know he would breed a lot of animals for the, I know for the photo opportunities.

And he had a water park and then he had like, a drive through zoo.

So his drive through zoo, of course, wasn't doing very well.

And his drive through zoo is where he would take the animals that got too old for the cub petting or the, you know, to pay to get your picture taken.

So that wasn't doing so well.

So it was a couple 100 acres.

So he would just leave the animals there to die.

He would put them in the cage.

Oh, yeah.

Leave them there to die.

And then he had his reptile barn burned down and they all died.

100 reptiles died and they still couldn't get his place closed down.

But anyway, he had abandoned Cali the tiger in the field.

And so when we took her, we were in like waist high of grass where where it had grown around her cage.

So we had to have like a quad and stuff to take our equipment in there.

And then come to find out the neighbor said he had alligators that he was just turning loose.

So they were out around this cage where we had to get Cali turtles and tortoises and alligators.

He had turned loose so we had to be careful of that.

But anyway, we got her out of there and she had been declawed.

So she was metabolic bone disease and declawed.

So lots and lots of pain.

So she had fractured her front right leg.

So we tried to do surgery on her and install a plate and screws, but two weeks after we put it in, the screws failed.

So we ended up amputating her leg, but she's done like incredible.

But at first we didn't know if she was going to make it.

But she went from being abandoned in the in the field and barely able to walk to she's just doing, she's an amazing cat and all she's been through and she's still happy and plays.

And so she's our three legged, 3 legged tiger.

But a lot of animals on that property died.

So hopefully he's still going to get in trouble because that's been about three years now.

You know.

We've been.

We've been.

Doing this podcast.

For we've been doing this podcast for a long time and every time it never fails to, I guess shock me is probably the right word or, or, you know, dismay.

I don't know what the right word is.

But when you hear all these stories of people that get into the the business of animals in one way or another, you think, well, they're doing this because they must love the animals, right?

But that's so far from the truth.

It's there's so many people that just really don't give a crap about the animals.

And it's just so disheartening, I guess, because you just hear it over and over and over again.

And then people just dismiss them.

They, like you said, just left them, left them in a field to die.

How do you how do you do that?

How like I, I don't understand that.

That's just so unfathomable to me that people could do that, but they do.

I feel what happens because it seems like they start out on the right, you know, like they love the animal and they're just trying to do something.

But then it all becomes about the business and making money.

And like he didn't care.

All he cared about was making that water park work and having animals there to to do the the photos.

Yeah, it was one of his family members that actually helped us get Cali and the other animals out of there.

There was a a lion, there was a lion and two tigers.

And yeah, she helped.

And you know, the only reason she helped is she wanted the property and she wanted the animals gone.

It's so typical this.

Is on his personal property.

Mm, Hmm.

Yes, she knew what was going on before that happened.

She wanted to build a motocross park.

Yeah, I, I don't.

You, you've mentioned declawing.

We have, we have a couple minutes and then I want to I want to give you the floor at the end.

You mentioned declawing a couple of times.

I didn't Obviously declawing cats is a is a big no, no.

My last declawed cat, she came to me declawed.

She just passed six months ago.

It didn't occur to me that exotic cats get declawed.

Is that a bigger?

Again, I'm going into this, you know, being a dummy about the plight of these animals.

I didn't realize that that's a big, that's a big thing, declawing these exotic cats as well.

Yes, and it's really sad because they weigh so much.

They literally cut, you know, behind their knuckles just like they would a cat.

And it's really hard for them to heal, but they do it for the the photo OPS so people can hold the cub for longer, you know, without getting scratched to get their picture taken.

But Arnold Schwarzenegger actually helped us to first one to make it illegal in the state of California and it's gone from there.

So they're really not allowed to decline anymore.

But we're still finding.

Every once in a while you're finding like cat that's been declawed like Cali just recently.

What?

That's always the.

First thing we track when an animal comes in is if they've got all their claws.

What veterinarians would would agree to do this?

Exactly.

It was kind of common practice in the 90s and that, you know, the early 2000s, it was like a normal thing for them to do, like Siegfried and Roy, like lots of people.

But I mean, now it's it's not they're not allowed to do it anymore.

I know that it's.

Amazing what goes on and you can't tell people because they would, you know, in in the 90s, they would go, oh, well, why don't you just give these animals to the zoo or, or that, you know, were a circus.

So the circus in the zoo, these animals originated as surplus animals from the zoo.

And that's how they got into the private sector where anybody can breed anything, that anything, including lions to tigers to make a Liger, which would never happen in the wild.

Yeah.

And the Breeders, they don't care.

Like you saw on Tiger King, they'll breed anything to anything to get animals.

And I've been dealing with that guy since the 90s and trying to tell people, you know, what he's doing and what's going on and, you know, and saying it like, you cannot make this stuff up.

It really is happening.

And they just look at you like you're crazy.

But it's, you know, social media has finally helped a little bit.

But now I'm starting to see it go the opposite way, especially in other countries where you're seeing, you know, full grown men with getting these new lions and tigers and they're just in these disgusting little cages of where they're going to spend their life because they're not going to be allowed to touch them much longer.

And I've been watching in the last year, you know, they're all young cats and none of them are older cats.

And one just ate the guy not too long ago, about three months ago, got eaten by his own lions.

I don't.

That's a shame, not getting good.

It goes back to what you say about the servals and all these cats that you're seeing on social media that are like small breed, large breed cats that are popular and hybrids still very, very dangerous animals that have no business being in your home.

No, this caracal, did I say it right?

This caracal lives and it's obviously not in this country.

You know, it's somewhere not in, in the United States, but he lives in a house.

He looks overweight to me.

I know nothing about them, but you could tell he looks overweight.

He's and every time they come at him with the camera, he'll he'll growl and there's sometimes where he'll lunge at them and that's part of like his, what they call his shtick, his his routine.

You know, he never he's never attacked them that they've mentioned, but sometimes he just looks like get the F away from me and he looks annoyed with the camera, like I get annoyed with a camera.

He just looks it just, it went very quickly for me as, as, as you know, finding him on social media kind of coincided with starting the podcast and talking to people and learning about just what all these cats and dogs and lions and tigers, all these animals are going through because they're not enough.

People like you, Bobby, like you, Sam, like you Steven, you know, Michelle and I want to rescue them all, but you know, we can't.

It's, it's just it just blows my mind.

Last thing I want to do is I want to give you Bobby the floor and we'll be quiet and we just want to give you an opportunity to what do you want it?

The biggest message you want to kind of give people that are those people that are listening and not watching.

I've been shaking my head a lot just from hearing these stories and hearing what these what these animals have gone through.

So those we have more listeners and viewers.

I've been shaking my head a lot.

I know you guys have as well.

So Bobby, the floor is yours.

What's the biggest thing you want to tell people?

Where the biggest message you want people to take away from what these animals are going through?

I think a lot of times people don't know what they're going through and they visit like roadside zoos and these places where you can get your picture taken and then you're actually supporting these people.

The only way we're going to get them to stop is to hurt them in their pocketbook.

So people don't support them, don't get their picture taken.

Only go to accredited sanctuaries, accredited, you know, facilities because I, you know, everyone wants to see the animals and learn about the animals.

But by supporting him, they're not making it any better.

It's just it makes it harder.

Very, very important point.

So how do people find?

Here's Here's where you plug How do people find lions, tigers and bears?

Lionstigersandbears.org Yeah, it's really.

Yeah, and if nearby you can come visit.

Do you have hours?

Everyone, yeah, you can come and visit, can volunteer.

We're on social media.

I saw that you can stay the night.

We have a beautiful, we have a beautiful Airbnb.

It has a couple swimming pools, has a outdoor kitchen where you can cook your your meals and a fire ring.

It's two-bedroom, 1 bathroom.

So there's a king bedroom and a queen bedroom, a little wet bar.

And then you can just, you know, walk around the entire ranch and kind of just see the whole working ranch and what's going on and how it works and go on an educational visit.

It's really, really beautiful here.

It really is nice.

It sounds amazing.

Lions, Tigers and bears.org.

Don't be surprised if we all show up one day and want to move it.

Want to move in?

Obviously we'll help.

We'll do what we'll do what we can.

I'm basically useless except for sarcasm, but I, I learned quickly.

So put me to work doing something, you know, I could fix your laptop or for you or whatever.

Bobby, thank you so much.

Thank you.

I really, I really feel like I, I've learned something about what you do and, and what these animals are going through.

And obviously we appreciate your work and everybody that works with you.

We appreciate what you're doing for these animals as much as cats and dogs need help.

These animals, they're, they're cats.

What I love about these cats is how much they look.

They act like cats.

How you know, I've seen some tik toks of, you know, trainer reunites with tiger years later and the tiger recognizes them and runs up to them and they're rubbing their face like my cat would rub my face.

So they the the connection to like domestic cats is what what always touches me.

So we really appreciate what you do.

So, Bobby, thank you so much for joining us and and making our season finale amazing.

And we'll see you all in the next season.

Bobby, hang up for a minute and thank you all for for joining us.

We'll see you in Season 4.

Thank you.

Thank you.