#64 Carole Baskin Is A Cool Cat

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:15

Alright, Howard, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 64 of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for another incredible episode. And this one is perfect. That's right. It's gonna be purrrfect. We've got Carole Baskin with us. That's right. Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue. You may be familiar with Carole from Tiger King or Dancing with the Stars. And she's here to talk to us about all the great things she's doing to help save big cats from extinction and all the great things we can do to chip in and help as well. And that conversation is coming up in just a few minutes.

If you're like Jeff, we love saving animals. We love hearing great tales of how people help animals. Well, you're in luck. You're in luck. We've got two other great episodes for you to check out just after this one dive into the archives Episode 50. with Burt Ward talks all about his great dane rescue bird has rescued over 15,000 Great Danes in addition to being Robin from Batman and then also dive way back into the archives Episode 4 Lance Gould was here to talk about World Environment Day and specifically saving the elephants, elephants, dog cats. It's just a matter of time before we cover all the animals here at live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show, but in the meantime, sit back and get ready for the conversation with Carole Baskin. I promised you and that's coming up in just a few minutes.

I do want to take a second to thank everyone who likes subscribes and follows live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show on your favorite podcast platform. It means the world to me It also means the world when you tell your friends when you tweet when you post on Facebook when you Instagram when you do any of those things and say I love live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show everyone should also listen to this amazing podcast. Thank you all for doing that. If you go to Jeff is funny.com you can click on a link that says follow the Jeff Dwoskin show it has links to all the podcast platforms you can choose your favorite one and be notified every time a new episode goes live. You can also sign up for my mailing list as another mailing list every week. Who wants to miss that not me not you believe me? foma you got to get this you got to get it last week. Also, I did a shout out to my fans in India for shooting me up the podcast charts there. I do want to thank Japan, Hungary and Poland for stepping up and putting me on their podcast charts as well come on all you other countries France, UK, Ireland, United States. Come on. I know you're there. Come on. Let's spread the word. Also, don't forget to check out my YouTube channel. Just search the Jeff Dwoskin show on Youtube follow my YouTube channel and you'll be alerted every time I go live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern Time with crossing the streams that's me and a bunch of friends we're talking about shows you should be watching on the streaming channels great shows great movies, things you shouldn't be missing or and sometimes things you should skip. So check that out as well.

And now it's time for the social media tip! All right. This is the fun part of the show where I share a little bit of my social media knowledge with ya. I hear things on the street little 411 on the social medias and I like to share them with you. Today's tip focuses around scheduling posts, whether it be Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, a bunch of cool programs out there for you to choose from buffer and Hootsuite you can schedule across multiple types of platforms and they're real handy buffer if you want to schedule posts down to the minute and Hootsuite is good if you are okay with just on five minute increments for Twitter. There's other options as well. You have Tweet Deck which is actually part of Twitter Tweet Deck dot Twitter dot com if you're on a desktop, you can schedule tweets right from that, or right from Twitter desktop itself, when you're creating a tweet, you have the option, hey, I'm gonna send this later. So you can choose that as well. It's just a really good habit to get into to to think your strategy for the week. And a lot of times you can just post things ahead of time if you know it's fancy sock day coming up and you have a picture of fancy socks. And that day is coming up on Thursday and it's Monday just post it and schedule it on Monday for Thursday. And then on Thursday, when all of a sudden everyone's like you got the best socks in the world. You're like what I don't even know you're Oh, I scheduled that on Monday. That's right. So great things await you with the scheduling tools. And you don't have to pick just one. I use different ones for different things, get to know them, see what works best for you. And that's the social media tip!

I do want to take a quick second thank all of you for your constant support to the sponsors week after week after week. It means the world to me. It really does. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting it And that's how we keep the lights on here at live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show this week's sponsor is Tampa Florida's very own Cool Cat Cafe. feline hungry? Well you're in luck because the cool cat cafes got everything start your day off with a cup full of caffeine needs some stronger How about MBL? teeny shaken not bird ready for lunch dive into some pasta with our special cats up sauce? Perhaps a vegan hamburgers your style or a delicious burrito? Sushi your thing? Well, we've got the freshest choose ROM Tom Yeah, go meow Nagi. Or a cat look for in your role full but ready for dessert where you can finish up with mice Krispies full of marshmallows, and ice cream cone, a chocolate mouse some feline pie and specialty purvey and the cool cat cafes prices are the lowest in town. We're not kidding around here. But don't ask me how we do it. So if you're feeling good and ready to party, check out the cool cat cafe where everything is made from scratch. All right, that sounds amazing. Ah, I wish I was in Tampa right now and check out the Cool Cat Cafe. If you're in the area. Definitely check out our sponsor, show him some support. show him some love. In the meantime, I think that's a great segue to my conversation with Carole Baskin. Enjoy.

Alright, everybody, I'm so excited to introduce you to my next guest, Carole Baskin, American big cat rights activist, CEO of Big Cat Rescue.

Carole baskin: Hey you cool cats and kittens? It's so good to be here with you, Jeff.

Oh, it's so great to have you here, Carole. It's so fun. One thing I just wanted to kind of get out of the way. And then I want to hear all the amazing stuff you're doing with the big cat. But I'm really interested in like how you got sucked into I guess the tiger King show? It's funny normally, like if I'm doing an intro, I would have been like I was I was writing it out. I'm like, why can't say you loved your entire normal credit by but I've been like that. And I'm like, I didn't know how to even frame it. They did You're so wrong. What's the origin of like how you even became part of this show,

Carole Baskin 7:16

we actually started the sanctuary in 1992, rescuing big cats. And from that day forward, anytime any media group came out, or the newspaper wanted to come out, or magazines wanted to come out, or people that were said they were filming shows wanted to come out, we would take them around, show them the cast, we always did it at no cost. And for the people that were really seeming to do working on something that was extensive, where and you can tell from the kind of questions they asked. And so we would work with them as long as they wanted, we invited them back time and time again, anytime they wanted to come out, we would open our doors to them. And we've always done that with pull up the media outlets. And so we've never been betrayed by a producer before. And we were utterly shocked at what they did with what they told us they were working on because we've worked with them for five years. And during that same five year period, we were working with Mike Weber, who just came out with the conservation game. And it just aired at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and one of the social justice award there. And it actually talks about how the big cat crisis got started in America, we were also working with another guy by the name of Michael sanderstead. Again, during that same five year period, he was creating a film called hidden Tiger where he talks about the extinction of the tiger and our role in all of those things are to educate the producers about what the problems are, who the bad guys are who the people that are really trying to save the animals are and to give them a full understanding of how private breeding of big cats is actually causing their extinction in the wild because it's not an easy concept for people to wrap their heads around. And so for the five years that we were working with Rebecca jakelin, and Eric Goode, who created Tiger Kane, they said that this thing was going to be called stolen wildlife. And they showed me a sizzle reel and a pilot that they did and all of it was along the lines of what they told us they were working on which was showing that all of these people are breeding these exotic cats treating them wretchedly and then they disappear or end up being killed at the end of their usefulness when they reach about 12 to 16 weeks where they get dumped into private hands or sent off to the equivalent of puppy mills for tigers. And so that's what we thought the show was going to be about. And when Netflix started doing, you know they do like teasers if this is coming up right but there was a show called Joe exotic What was it called Tiger King murder, mayhem and madness. We contacted him we were like who's working on that show because usually all these people know everybody's working on all the other shows and all of a sudden they don't want to talk to us. We were just shot.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:53

What a train wreck that that show was because it was nothing like it was being portrayed. It was not favorable to you it was episode three, which I had to I know you have a hole on your website, you have a whole minute by minute kind of recap. I rewatched it. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone watched it, it was timing of it to come out during the pandemic, when everyone was home is like, I mean, it's, it's probably one of the top three shows watch during the pandemic of pandemic viewing I rewatched episode three last night, because I knew we were going to talk and after watching some of your commentary on it, and all that kind of stuff, and I was like, everyone was caught up in the show, I gotta admit, I was rewatching it hearing your words on your site and knowing we were going to talk and rewatching and like, just the things were like they talk, they say something bad about you, then they cut to some random shot of you looking kind of stern in a rearview mirror. I realized, Oh, my God, this whole thing was such a manipulation. This is insane. You don't realize I was you know, we're all home, we're worried about a pandemic. I'm not really worried about being controlled by Netflix. But maybe we should be after seeing that.

Carole Baskin 11:00

I'm glad that you did that. Because I really wondered if people when they went back and watched it would actually pick up on this thing. So it's good to know that it works. I think

Jeff Dwoskin 11:09

when you go back and you watch it, you realize, Oh, my God, I ever heard an interview with you. Or maybe it was your husband, Howard, who were talking about how this was pitched to as like a Blackfish which was an amazing 2013 movie about killer whales. And and SeaWorld and I could see where if they came to you and said, we're gonna do Blackfish for tigers, I can see where like, this is something that you'd be like, oh, we're all in because this is your thing. Right?

Carole Baskin 11:37

Yeah, that's exactly what they said. And exactly what we thought we were working on all that time. And wow.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:45

When I rewatch it yesterday, I was like, Whoa, this is about as far as this is more like Desperate Housewives. This is like, I don't know, this is Episode Three, they spend an hour I imagine to this day are still living this down is just painting you as the villain of the series. And for some reason, Joe exotic is this weird hero, because at the end, he's like, I'm coming for you, Carol. I'm coming for, like, Oh, my God, my heart goes out to you. Well, thank you. That's why I'm excited to talk about all the amazing things you do and share that with as many people as I can share it with. I'd love to start with the federal bill that you're trying to get passed. Because I think that's a good kind of thing to kind of bounce all the other things off of it's a good pivot because it's where it's one of the end goals, the big cat Public Safety Act, can you tell me a little bit how how that evolved, how it where we're at with it and what needs to be done to get it passed.

Carole Baskin 12:39

The big cat Public Safety Act is the primary reason that all of these animal exploiters hate me. And it is the reason that they sit around and try to devise ways to kill me to shut me up to silence me to bully me into stopping this, what has been a very, very productive and very fruitful effort. So back end, you know, when we first started in 92 templates before the internet, we didn't know anything about exotic cats. And so we did a lot of stupid things. The only people we could turn to for information were the breeders and dealers, because when I called our local zoo up and said, How do I feed all these Bob cats on links I just rescued from a farm, they just hung up on me once the internet came along. That's when we learned that none of these cats in private pans were ever going to be set free that they don't serve any kind of conservation value. And in fact, they create a legal smokescreen for illegal activity, like poaching. And that's why it's causing the extinction of the Tiger in the wild to have all of these unregulated people running around with big cats. I first started out trying to educate the breeders and dealers who were my husband's friends and people he hung out with. And when I say my husband, I'm talking about Don Lewis, not my current husband, and they didn't want to be educated. They knew that none of these cats could ever go free. And they knew that they were not serving any conservation value. They were just in it for the money. So there was no way to educate them to behave better. And so what I realized was that the only way we were going to fix this problem was through legislation. And do you know who to pay 100 is from the birds. No, there was a film back in the 60s called the birds and Tippi Hedren was the starlet in that and she ended up starting her own sanctuary for big cats after a really stupid idea that she had about making a film using a bunch of lions and tigers. And that and then afterwards, she realized there was nowhere for the lions and tigers to go. So she started at the sanctuary. But she like me over the years learned better and stopped doing the stupid things that she was doing. And I stopped doing the stupid things I was doing in the 90s. And she had petitioned for a federal bill that she called the Shambala act because it was named after her sanctuary. But essentially what it would do is in the private ownership of big cats in America, and it takes several years we have a two year Congress. So it takes a couple of years, many years actually to get a bill through Congress, especially something like that, where it doesn't affect a lot of people. So we started petitioning for that bill in, I think about 1998 99. And it finally passed in 2003. But whenever you get a bill passed through Congress, you have to make a lot of concessions in order to make that happen. And so some of the things that we had to give up were had to give up on private ownership, we had to give up on the cub petting. And so the captive wildlife Safety Act passed in 2003. And we were having to turn away at the end of that year 312 big cats, in addition to the ones that we were actually able to save, and there was nowhere for those cats to go. And every other year, that number was doubling. And so when that law passed in 2003, it actually passed unanimously in a republican controlled house Senate, and it was republican president, which was astonishing, you would expect that their democratic environment but not in a republican one because of the state's rights issues. But at any rate, it passed. And immediately, instead of having to turn away five or 600 cats, the next year, it dropped for the first time ever, and it dropped to like 160. So that was the wake up sign to me though, that's what we had to do. We had to legislate our way out of it, there was no way we could educate our way out of it. We have been trying since 2003, to close that loophole that allows private ownership and that allows the cub petting and it's the cub petting that drives all of the breeding exploitation and then discarding of the cats either into pet homes are killing them for their parts. So the end of last year, we got a for the first time ever, we actually got it before the house for a vote and one with a two thirds majority. And so the only thing we had to do, and this was like December 13, I think was get it before the Senate before the end of the year, and the senate didn't call it up. So we had to start all over again in January. But we're up to I think 198 co sponsors in the house now. And 24, I believe in the Senate. And we're really, really hopeful where we're like, all fingers crossed that in the next week or so we'll get another hearing in the house. And then when they come back from recess in September, we hope to have the senate taken up. So we're really thinking this year is going to be the year we thought it was going to be last year but we had COVID and Tiger King and the election and then the insurrection It was like it just couldn't happen. But this year, it's gonna

Jeff Dwoskin 17:22

happen. Let me ask you a question, Carol. So it stops the petting? does it stop just new ownership? Or would people have to give up their cats? If they already have a cat?

Carole Baskin 17:32

No, any law that I've ever worked on has a grandfathering clause so you can keep the animals you have, you just can't buy or breed more. The one thing that people always object to when these laws passes, you have to register them so that at least the government knows where they are. Because right now they've had no idea how many tigers are in America, or how many lions or leopards or any of those other cats and so they would require that you tell the government I've got six tigers, four lions, three Cheetah, whatever it is, so that they know whether or not you're buying or breeding more. But aside from that, it wouldn't change to them at all. And I saw on

Jeff Dwoskin 18:07

your website, which by the way, everyone has big cat rescue.org I watched a video and it said because America doesn't have any grasp of where our tigers are, or numbers are that we can't really lead in the world because no one will take us seriously. Yeah, a lot of research. Carol, I don't mess around. I'm talking to Carol Baskin

Carole Baskin 18:27

is not very often that I talked to somebody that has done that kind of research. So yeah, that's the biggest problem because China has taken the position that because the tiger is so close to extinction, there's less than 4000 of them are right around 4000 of them known to be left in the wild. China has taken the position that they should be allowed to farm Tigers just like we farm cattle. And the way that they do that in China because of their beliefs about euthanasia is they don't believe in euthanizing animals so they believe it's okay for an animal to die of natural causes. So what they do is they breed the Cubs people come and pay to pet the Cubs to play with the Cubs to see the cute little cubs. And then they put them into these little concrete jail cells where they starve the cats to death. And that way it's natural for them and their belief system and all they want are the teeth and the bones and the penis and the skins and so they don't care about whether or not cats got flesh on them. And I think that if people understood that they they would absolutely be appalled. And even though it's illegal to sell Tiger parts in China, they are trying to legalize it and if they legalize it, it will be the extinction of the Tiger in the wild because it normalizes the idea of being able to buy those products and anybody who can afford to buy Tiger teeth or Tiger penis. They want the most visceral version of that they want the wild product the premium product they don't want some inbred cage raised Tiger. And so that puts even more pressure on the cats in the wild. And China's banking on that. When I say China, it's not just China, it's Thailand and Laos and all of these places. They are banking on the extinction of the Tiger because they have literally 1000s of these tigers in these farms across their different countries. And then they can control the value of those products. So when the US goes to societies and I sent my daughter and her then husband was our fat, I sent them to societies and they did a big event there to raise awareness about Tiger bone wine, which is the primary product that tigers are used for, they take the bones, and then they seep them in rice wine, and then those bottles of wine are then usually given as bribes to to official. So it's the whole system is just so corrupt. And so we went there to try and educate all of these other countries as to why we needed to really crack down on these countries that were mass producing Tigers for this industry. And they just laughed at us and said, You don't even know where your tigers are, at least ours are in the sanctioned farms. So until we clean up our mess in America, we have no ability to influence the international stage or to end the tiger farming practices that are causing the extinction of these big cats. And I was just reading this morning about how they're using lion bones for Tiger products and Jaguar bones. So every country is losing all of their beautiful majestic wild animals for this trade in their parts because you can't tell when it seeped in rice wine. What kind of animal that was, I was gonna ask you about

Jeff Dwoskin 21:35

the tiger bone. But I gotta admit, I think with my head right now is I got to ask what would someone buy a tiger penis for

Carole Baskin 21:42

virility on our website, big cat rescue.org. Under tigers, there's actually a chart that shows like every part of the product, every part of the Tiger is a prized product, eyeballs, the whiskers, everything. But obviously the penis is something that is used as a substitute for Viagra, even though none of these things have any kind of proven value and the traditional Chinese medicine, I want to say industry, but that's not the right word. But they have spoken out against the use of tigers and yet it's not a medicinal thing or even a cultural thing. It's a luxury product that is used to trade to show that you have that kind of power that you have the power over the time.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:22

Wow. Okay, great. Hey, for those running to Amazon right now. Don't I just bought all the tiger penis it's there. So now I'm just getting care. Oh, this is this is incredible. Okay, so let me ask you a question. What is the demographic of someone who would own one of these giant cats and let me preface by saying I watched a video on your website of a seemed like an older guy getting dragged hard by a lion. Like they grab mauled by the lion. And there's a warning. Video said warning man's getting them all. I watched it anyway. And here's another thing that's in the back of my head and why I'm asking this question. I was out west, I'm biking. They're telling you all about bears when you're out biking, right? You know, the bike up, do all this kind of stuff. We're biking on the path. I see a print of a cat probably a lion pie in the in the ground. I said to the guy. Oh, you talked about bears. You didn't mention lions. What happens if you see a lion? He says, oh, Jeff, if you see a lion, it's too late. That's true. here when I tell you that taunted me, that was 11 years ago, they taunted me ever ever hearing that ever,

Carole Baskin 23:29

you would see them coming because they could leave like 20 feet through the air, you just get knocked to the ground. And that's the last thing you ever saw.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:36

is buying in housing these even like you read stories, like yeah, they cuddle and they and I, it's probably not good. I'm sure like when you see the video of variations be free. But like, if you see the video, that guy going into the wild, and the lion gives him a hug. It's like it's kind of like set the wrong tone. Like that's the there's got to be the exception to the rule.

Carole Baskin 23:56

Well, it's not even that it's the lion that he's cuddling with is still a cub. And people see that lion and they think, Wow, that's a huge lion. That thing must be like 400 pounds. Yeah, but it's still under five years old. And so it's still just mentally a kitten. And well, there's two things going on one to answer your question. I think the reason that people are attracted to owning these apex predators is the same reason that people want a tiger penis, they want to be seen as having dominion over the most magnificent animal on the planet. And if they can show that they have dominion, they can force that animal to walk on the leash, they can force that animal to sit in a cage and the whatever they give to them, they can force that animal to let them interact and hugging. went through all of that crap for social media up until the time that the cat becomes an adult anyway, they can get away with that. And that's why there's this constant turnover because they have to keep getting new cubs because they don't want the Cubs to be too little. When they're doing that. They want to look like they're powerful, but they can only use in a very small window and kind of like what you Send about there not being a warning, it's like that doesn't come with a warning either you don't know if your cat is going to be sexually mature at three, four, or five. And I think that's what happened to Roy horn of Siegfried and Roy, that cat had just turned, I think seven. And that was kind of late in life for the cat to finally become who he was. But I think Roy had gotten too accustomed to this cat putting up with him. And then the cat became who he was meant to be, and it was all over. The other aspect of that is the notion that you have some kind of that you're special in some way. And people want to be perceived as being a lion whisperer, Tiger whisperer, and that they have this special bond that nobody else can have, because they understand the psyche of the cat is just utter crap. It's only because it's a kitten that it's allowing them to, it's putting up with them and doing those kinds of things. And as soon as that animal becomes an adult and who they really are, then all of that is just off the table.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:55

So it's just about dominance over an apex predator. Okay, I get it people would, would do that probably pay the price many times. Okay, so part two of the Federal bill is to stop petting. There's a lot of the petting stuff in Tiger King as well. And I was reading other website on all about why not to pet and all that kind of stuff. And can you give us a quick one on one on why Tiger petting is bad.

Carole Baskin 26:20

The people who do it say that the reason they do it is because people have to love and connect with wildlife or they won't protect it. And that's Bs, because that's what zoos have been telling us for 200 years, they say come see the cute little baby on display. And it's gonna make you donate to the zoo and donate to conservation. And that's how we're going to save the animal in the wild. During the 200 years that we've been using that model, we've driven nearly every single cat species to the edge of extinction. So that did not work. And the reason that it's so bad be having these captive born cubs is because USDA did kind of a dumb thing. But what they tried to do was to say that any kitten or cub that is under the age of eight weeks, it needs to be with its mother needs to be raised by its mother, it doesn't have the immunities against all of the different kinds of diseases that they can catch from us or from other animals. And if you wait until it's eight weeks old, and it's had its vaccinations, then you could allow the public to pethica. Well, if you leave a kitten or a cub with their mother for even two weeks, it'll be like trying to pet a feral cat, it is going to tear you up because that mother even though she may have been bottle raised herself, she is going to teach those cubs to fight to bite to scratch to kick to do everything they can to get away. So that's why they pull them as soon as they're born. And then they usually end up handling them and saying, oh, the mother rejected it, we had to bottle feed it, we had to let the public do the bottle feeding and USDA is just not done anything about it. So at the other end of the scale, USDA said no, by the time they're about 12 weeks old, that can take a finger off. So then they're too dangerous to pet. So they created this eight to 12 week window. So these cubs by USDA standards have a one month shelf life, you go to any of those places that were in Tiger King, they've always got a ton of Tigers or lions or Tigers for you to pay to have your picture made with they can only use them for about a one month window maybe two months if they lie at both ends of it as far as how old the cat is because again, there's no requirement that you register a birth or help you know when it was born or anything with anybody. So they lie about how old the cat is, until the point that you look at that cat and you're like I know, it's more than 16 weeks old. And then they get cited for allowing that kind of contact usually because somebody gets really badly hurt. And so if you're constantly every month having to breed new litters of kittens, where are all those other cats going because it costs us $10,000 per year for big cat just for food and vet care, not any of the overhead of the sanctuary. So it goes from being a cat that according to Joe shriberg on a lot of those guys that were in Tiger King, they say they can make at least $100,000 off a cup, but by the time it's about 12 to 16 weeks old now it's a $10,000 a year liability and they got to get rid of it as fast as they can. So they will frequently just give those animals away to people as pets. And it's always the dumbest people. I mean, you can imagine only either there's somebody who wants to be dominating over a cat or they are so incredibly stupid that they never make good life choices. They're like yeah, oh, it's a tiger is a pet. And then those are the people calling us a year later asking us to get this out of their house.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:42

I'm assuming you buy in bulk. How much is it gonna cost me to have a cat? I don't want a cat This is either that but if like I'm one of those people you said I buy this cub on roadside. I'm one of these Nigeria doc or whatever from one of the Tigers. What are the expenses that go with actually maintaining one These type of cats in your house,

Carole Baskin 30:02

you know, probably 20 years ago, I did a page on Big Cat Rescue. org called How much is that Kitty in the window. And it talks about you know, even though you may have gotten this cat for free, here's what it's going to cost you as far as like, do you have a cage that you're going to be able to take that cat to and from the vet in, and you have a fan or a truck with a trailer to take your cat to the vet. And the food alone is just absolutely crazy. Because a tiger mean a tiger can eat as much as 65 pounds at a single setting in the wild because they only eat like once a week or once every 10 days. But in captivity, our cats eat anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds per day. And you can multiply that by the cost of whatever meat prices are in your area and figure out what your daily cost is going to be. But the food that you buy in the grocery store is not sufficient for these animals, they need the entire animal, they need the organs, they need their favorite thing, all of these cats here, it's disgusting as all get out. But twice a week, we get whole prey. So it's whole rats and whole rabbits. And the first thing they want to do is eat the brains. And you're not going to find that at the grocery store. You're not going to get the and there's no Tiger supplements out there that can keep your cat healthy based on what you would be able to buy.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:13

Okay, I'm somebody I've got this cat, what veterinarian is gonna say, Oh, you've got a 700 pound tiger. Yeah, bring it in? Well, I have an opening tomorrow at 11am. Who's doing that I these beds. I can't believe no beds gonna sit there and like, risk his entire staff can eaten by one of these kids.

Carole Baskin 31:33

Yeah, I mean, even with us, we have two onsite hospitals here. But before we had a hospital, we had to take the cats to the vet in a transport cage. There's no vet office I've ever been to that you could get the transport cage through the door, which meant we had this tranquilize the cats out in the parking lot and then carry a sleeping Tiger through the parking lot into the building. And that's just insane that is so out of this world crazy. And yet everybody who's got a pet Tiger is in that kind of position.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:02

I can't I can't wrap my head around. I mean, I get I get upset when my cat or dog like shred the bottom of my blinds I can't even imagine, like what a 500 pound Tiger is doing. It's just like, wow. So when people come to you, Carol, and they want to give you their cats because they realize they've made horrible choice. In what scenario? Will you take it? And what scenario Won't you take these cats,

Carole Baskin 32:26

the only way that we will take cats from people is that they have to contract with us to never own another exotic cat. And we have them sign a written contract. if they have any kind of license, we have them bring that license and either write void on it. And we contact the state saying that they're never going to be issued another permit or license to own these animals. And we actually put in there a caveat saying if I so much is see a picture of you on the internet touching a cat after today's date, you owe me the full lifespan of this cat what it would cost me and so for a tiger we calculate $10,000 per year. And so if I take in a 10 year old tiger, and it's going to live another 10 years, and that's $100,000 that they would owe me just for showing off those pictures they had back when it was a cute cup or if they go someplace else and pose with a cat because it's those images that make people want to go out and buy them and pet them. And so that's for me, the biggest thing that I want to stop is that kind of imagery. In fact, we're filming for a show, and they just recently asked what yesterday they asked me they were like so can we have some pictures of you petting cats? You know, back before he learned I was like No, nobody is ever going to see that. I'm not going to give it to them. I know one Tiger came they had some pictures I have no idea how they got their hands on that they did not get those from me because that sends the worst possible message and it makes stupid people want to go do stupid things. So there was no way even though that would have that would have been eye candy for the show. I'm not gonna do that

Jeff Dwoskin 33:56

Joe exotic or whatever that team they were digging up without we found this VHS tape from nine to nine. Somebody was going through your your garbage. Have you ever had to make good on that meaning like, have you ever found someone who signed your contract and had to go after that? or anything like that? Or has everyone been pretty good about it?

Carole Baskin 34:15

I've never caught anybody doing that. And as you can imagine, we have on our Facebook page alone, we have something like 3.6 million people that follow us and on YouTube, I think we've got like 1.3 million subscribers so people know when they see an image of somebody out there petting a cat to send it to me just because they know it's gonna make me mad. It's all get out. And not once if I caught it being any of the people that I've actually had contract with me

Jeff Dwoskin 34:42

That is good. And probably by the time they get to the point where they're giving up that animal, they're probably relieved enough that they can give it a home and probably never want to make that mistake again.

Carole Baskin 34:51

And there are exceptions to that I should say like when the state goes in and they seize a bunch of animals. I'm not going to be able to contract with the owner to not do That again. So I'm betting on the fact that the state has put an end to that.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:04

Gotcha. So how does the Big Cat Rescue, I know you have a whole team of volunteers to survive on donations and all that kind of stuff, because you have a lot of cats times 10,000 a cat.

Carole Baskin 35:16

Every year, I have to raise between three and a half and $4 million a year. And every single day of my life, I'm looking at what do I have to do in order to raise that money without exploiting the cats. And it's hard I, if you've ever tried to run a business, I mean, most people are happy if they make that kind of money in a year, or in a lifetime, I've got to make that every single year just to take care of the animals that we have and to run the operations that we have. But the good news is that all of our animal care has always been done by volunteers, including most of our vet care has been by volunteers. And so when COVID hit and we had to cut back half of our paid staff, the only thing our paid staff do are things that people won't do for free. So things like donor management, or our PR person or our outreach person, although a lot of our people do outreach for free. But the one person that I had on staff that handled all of that I had to let them go, in order to cut back the million dollars a year we were losing from the loss to our revenue. So to answer your question, as far as where the revenue comes from, about a third of our income comes from tours. And so we've lost over a million dollars a year in that tour revenue, and we're still closed. And so that's why I haven't been able to hire back those 10 people. And the good thing is that the animals still got fed every day, they got cleaned every day, they got fresh water every day, they got enrichment every day, they got people reading books to them and making toys for them and making sure that they're comfortable. So that didn't suffer at all as a result of COVID or the loss of income from that. And then the rest of our income comes primarily through private donations, we don't get any kind of government funding. And we don't get a whole lot of like grants. When we get grants. It's not because I go out and apply for grants. I spent a year doing that and figure it out. I'm really bad at it. It's been a whole year of writing grants, I got a golf cart out of it just wasn't worth my time. If we get grants, it's usually from somebody who has been following us and loves the mission. And they happen to be somebody who's on the board of a grant. So they'll make sure that we get that grant but it's been primarily just private donors that do that.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:20

Cool. And on your behalf big cat rescue.org slash donate if anyone wants to my pleasure. Here's my question about people buying exotic pets. Now if it's not illegal, where do people I don't want to make this sound like it's an advertisement where you can but is it is it from these as backdoor places like, you know, just find people to just sell stuff. You put the word out on my Jeff slipping for a big cat?

Carole Baskin 37:44

Well, there's a number of ways there used to be a publication called the animal finders guide. And it came out once a month and it had a listing. I mean, you could you could look for any kind of animal you want and find it there. And it was probably a year or so ago that they finally went out of business. And my husband and I were like that was a champagne every night. That was finally over. Because you should not be able to go shop in a magazine for a tiger or an emu or whatever they have in their auctions had been a big source of these animals. And I was talking earlier about some of the other producers that we worked with Mike Weber from the conservation game, his whole thing started because he was at an exotic animal auction and they were following the reptile trade. And they found that these guys like jack Hanna and the Irwin's and Dave salmoni, and all of these guys that go on late night TV, they're dealing with these private breeders. And so they were seeing some of these people at the auctions buying and selling animals. And then they were like, wait a minute, they said when they were on TV that that was from the zoo, the Columbus Zoo mostly and that it was going back to the Columbus Zoo or it was going to go to some fabulous sanctuary. So did it and so they the whole premise of that film was to try and track down those animals that all of us saw on TV. And all of us were lied to about where they came from and where they went and expose that in that film. So it's not available for the public yet, but when it comes out, oh my gosh, it's premiering in a few places. We just did a DC premiere and we're going to do another one in LA next month just for a very limited showings but once it gets wide distribution, it's going to blow the lid off of what people have thought all these years versus what the truth was behind it.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:26

Yeah, I read that they're part of the reason your federal bill was stalled was because of jack Hanna. I was mortified. We've all seen him on TV but then he retired and then now the Columbus zoo is all in on on Carole Baskin and a federal bill that hopefully will help now that that's out of the way but that is upsetting to hear that we were duped by Mr. Hanna. I think it's okay that we mentioned how to buy it because you're gonna pass that bill real soon and then they won't be able to buy him anyway. So just more motivation. Hurry before the episode airs.

Carole Baskin 39:58

The biggest place that people buying them now is from these capacitors, because they've just got to get rid of them as fast as they can as soon as they are 12 to 16 weeks. And so like I said before, a lot of times they'll just give them away in order to not have to take care of them.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:12

So these couple these roadside zoos, when I think zoo, I think in my Detroit zoo, those are probably more like roadside cages with animals that you can see. But like you're a sanctuary, though, what's what's the difference between a sanctuary that you do just so everyone understands, and zoo?

Carole Baskin 40:28

I'm glad you asked. I just got through putting together a PowerPoint presentation on that for a event that I'm doing on Friday. But I think that was one of the worst outcomes of Tiger Kane is that people came away from that believing that zoos and sanctuaries were the same. And we are at polar opposite extremes. But philosophically, zoos are in the business of buying, breeding, selling, some of them, like maybe six of them out there that allow public contact, and sometimes they will take them off site, like picking them on to the evening shows or the daytime shows or taking them out to schools or to parties or whatever. So those are the five sins is what we call that, because sanctuaries are not allowed to buy, breed, sell, allow public contact, or take them off site for exhibition. So it's like everything that the zoo is, is the exact opposite of what sanctuaries are. And sadly, there is no requirement that if you are calling yourself a sanctuary, that you really be a sanctuary. So there's been times in the past when Joe called his place of sanctuary. And that apparently was where we first had an interaction. I didn't I wasn't aware of it for years, but he was aware of the fact that I've been quoted in a newspaper article because he had had a lion cub that was born, they're deformed. And so the reporter called me and they said, What do you think about this GW sanctuary having this line Camborne, and I said, Well, sanctuaries don't breed. And so that's what got Joe started on his whole tirade from like, 2006. Forward, I didn't know who he was until 2010. The only thing that we have in common is that we have cats in cages. And that seemed to be where Tiger King tried to put the emphasis is, you know, she has cats in cages, and he has cats in cages, and there's no difference. And it's like, there couldn't be any more difference between the philosophy of a place who is in the business of having animals in cages and somebody like us who's trying to put ourselves out of business, because we shouldn't have to rescue from awful situation, we need to just end the awful situations. And that's going to be the first step to actually saving these cats in the wild. So I can't wait for the day that every single one of our cages is empty, because that means we actually succeeded on this front.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:46

Right. And I think that's an important point is that everything that you do, everything Carole Baskin does is to put herself out of business, make it so that what you do doesn't have to exist? Have you think about like the tiger King having that kind of frame, then Carol Baskin is the hero of Tiger King, if it was framed, how you thought it should have been, and actually taken through this type of path, where it was really about the animals and saving the animals and the good things that good people do, like you're doing to protect them and and help them not go extinct.

Carole Baskin 43:17

I sat through Tiger game, we binge watched it like everybody else did, because we were like, what the heck is this? And at the end, we just looked at each other and said, Well, that was a missed opportunity, because it had all of the opportunity to do exactly what you just said. And it just totally missed the mark. And people don't understand any better now than they did before Tiger king that all of this captive breeding is the problem, not the answer,

Jeff Dwoskin 43:41

right. Like we said earlier, it could have been the Blackfish. Instead, it went with just trash TV. And unfortunately, I think like we said, like with the pandemic, it caught fire because of that. So let me ask you this question. How did you deal with all this? I mean, here you have like an episode that kind of frames. Yeah, you you killed your husband, and you're just you're horrible and you're a hypocrite and you know, everything Joe exotic tried to paint you with and then even after that, the tick tock jingles and the memes and how did you mentally get through that? I mean, that can destroy people like that even just a 100th of what probably you had to go through like how I mean, I know you speak about big cats and conservation and sanctuaries and Zoo as I do, this would be a whole thread that you can sure talk to lots of people about is how to handle this type of hands slot on social media, as if they're treating you like you're not even a person.

Carole Baskin 44:36

I think that that had been Joe's mo from the beginning was to try and D humanize me and so he would go on his YouTube channel every night and post all kinds of images with my head on the bodies of all different kinds of either people or things and just anything that he could do to make it seem like I was subhuman and that I was by The allegations that he made about me and about the disappearance of my husband, that I felt like he was trying to justify his hatred toward me, and to try and instill that kind of hatred in others, because he was constantly pressuring his viewing audience, which I understood later was to be about under 80 people. I wish I didn't know how many people were watching him. But he seemed to be trying so hard to get them to me, he said, to rape me to break my legs to silence me to kill me, kill my family to kill the animals. And I think once he realized that nobody was going to do that, on his behalf is when he started trying to hire people to do it. And so people have been calling me from 2015 forward saying that he had tried to pay them to come and kill me, and that they felt like I needed to know and I turned that over to the FBI, and they just never did anything about it until the last one that you guys heard about it and Tiger game. But as far as how I dealt with all of that hatefulness really came as such a total shock. At first I didn't know what to think. Because my husband and I are sitting there on the couch, we just finished watching this thing. We said, Well, that was an opportunity. And then my phone started ringing. And it rang, like every two minutes for the next three months straight with people just screaming obscenities at me and saying how they wanted to kill me and they want to kill the animals. I'm like, why do you want to kill the animals? And they said, because they don't belong in cages? And I'm like, Did you not get that about me? Did you watch that whole thing. And you don't understand that the reason these people hate me is because I don't believe these animals, ages. And apparently they didn't get it because that was their reality. And I mean, people from all around the world were calling day and night, it was a lot harder on my family than it was on me. Because from my perspective, I know who I am. I know what the truth is. I know what the admission has always been. I know what the relationship was, was done. And people saying those hateful things to me Can't make all of their beliefs, my reality. But for the people who love me, I think it was so hard for them because they felt like they had to protect me. And if you think about, you know, if some show came out tomorrow, and you were that painted villain, and you're like, No, I'm not, it wouldn't affect you. But everybody around you would be like wanting to protect you and have your back and speak up for you. And it just puts so much pressure on them. So I think maybe the best way that somebody could understand that is what if it happened to somebody you loved fit where your mother or your daughter or your spouse, your beloved, you know, if somebody were saying or doing those things, and talking that way about them? How would that affect you. And I think you may have a better understanding of what my family went through,

Jeff Dwoskin 47:45

it's hard to even imagine I what I've come to learn from talking to a lot of different people is whether it be a documentary, a reality show, even America's Got Talent, any of those somebodies a hero, somebody is a villain. It's just the way that producers and people who make TV try to manipulate us, you can't have a hero without a villain, there always has to be all the parts being played. And so I can only imagine thinking what you thought the show was going to be and sitting there with your husband, Howard and watching this and didn't break you. That's what's important, I think, and you're too strong for that. And you're still fighting the good fight, and you're protecting the animals and focused on the important thing. And the other guy that we want to talk about is in jail for a long time. So I wanted to ask you about Dancing with the Stars. What made you do the show,

Carole Baskin 48:37

as you can imagine, after Tiger King, my phone was also exploding with people in the media wanting to talk about Tiger King. And that still is true today. I was so shocked by what had happened. And I felt so betrayed by the producers that I just told everybody No. And I put them in a list because I'm organized like that. So I put them in a spreadsheet. And my daughter saw the spreadsheet and she said, Well, you got to do Jimmy Fallon and you got to do dancing with stars, because I love that show. I don't watch regular TV. So I'd never heard of dancing. Well, I'd heard of it. But I didn't know what the concept was. And so I thought, well, that could be cool, because maybe they could pair me up with a celebrity. And if I had a celebrity that go with me to DC, maybe we get to get more of these members of Congress on our bill, because whenever you have a bill before Congress, stupidly, the first question they want to know is what celebrities are behind this. It's like, what do celebrities know about conservation? Why would you even ask me that. But the reason is, they want those photo ops and they want those selfies and they want to be able to show their constituents that they have celebrity power. And so that's why I thought, well, that'd be a great thing to do if I could go to the show and find a celebrity. And then I found out that I was supposed to be the celebrity. It was like, well, that sucks. But the good thing was that we negotiated for weeks and partly about COVID because I wanted to be really careful about that. But the other thing was that I wanted a platform to talk about what we was important the everything that Tiger King had left out about protecting tigers. And so they said that I'd be able to do that in my packages. And they said, there's a lot of media coverage that they get where I could talk about whatever I want to do, as long as I was willing to talk to the press, I could make it my show, and it would be all about tigers. And so they did that. And they were amazing. I mean, in addition to the packages that they did, they would have me like, I'd be sitting in my car waiting to go in and rehearse. And they'd have like a lineup of 10 or 20 different radio stations that we were doing, like just one right after the other, or magazines or all of those, and I get to talk about the Tigers. So I think that really started getting the discussion out there about the federal bill and why we needed it. And so it was a great opportunity that they gave me and the side benefit is people got to see that you know who I am, as I watched Tiger King, you know, seven times in order to do that page at Big Cat rescue.org slash Netflix that you mentioned that goes minute by minute. I hadn't seen all of that stuff in about a year. So I just went back and watched it. And what I found was amazing is people seem to think that I was so lacking in a personality. And I looked at Tiger Kane. It was like Yeah, when they film that I was like catatonic because I've been in front of this freaking hammer for 16 hours, and I was starving and I needed something to drink. And I was just like nearly comatose and looked at and it's like, No wonder people would think that about me because that's what they saw. And so it gave me the opportunity to show that I'm pretty much game for anything at least once and I think that helped a bit

Jeff Dwoskin 51:34

you dance to what's new Pussycat, no, first it was either tiger, then what's new Pussycat, then circle of life? And then you got eliminated after that. Third one. Did they eliminate you for the dancing? Or did they run out of cat songs? Oh, no, we had a whole bunch of cats. It was because I couldn't do it. One of the reasons are, I refuse to become famous is I don't want to end up on Dancing with the Stars. I can't. I can't, like some people are like, Oh, I would never want to talk in front of people. I was like, being on Dancing with the Stars, to me would be like the worst thing ever. And it looks hard.

Carole Baskin 52:09

It's so hard. Oh my gosh. I mean, I practiced in practice. And they gave me an apartment that had hardwood floors. And so I moved all of the furniture into one bedroom. And then I would film my dance partner, Pasha posh Cove every night with the steps that I needed for the next day. And he would do my steps so that I could play it on the TV. And then I would practice in the apartment. By the time I was scratched, my feet were actually dripping blood and pus from just so much work in those shoes to try and make that happen. And I still couldn't make it happen. So those people are true athletes.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:44

So it's amazing. So is there like one last thought you can leave us with just in terms of anything we can do to help you with the whole big cat initiative, the Federal bill, anything like that

Carole Baskin 52:55

anybody who's in the US, we make it really easy for you to contact your member of Congress. And we have a website at Big Cat act that calm you type in your name and address, it looks at who your member of Congress is it pre fills out an email. So you don't even have to understand what you're saying. You can just read it. It says please ask your boss to co sponsor the big cat Public Safety Act, which bans cub petting and faces out private ownership. And it will send a tweet or an email or if you are really brave, you could make a call and it gives you a little script to say there. And if you call it night or on the weekends, there's no way they're you're talking to an answering machine. So that's the most important thing anybody can do. Because we're really trying to get that before the house in the next few weeks here in July. And that could actually make it happen. And it could end this abuse for these big cats. And if you're not in the US, whenever you see people posing with cubs or petting adult cats and showing off with them, call them out on it. They're just showing off. It's all about ego. It's not at all the words that are coming out of their mouth, look at what they're doing. And then you really know what they're what they're about.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:00

I will put all those links in the show notes so people have access to those. Is there a place you hang out on social media? Is there a place that people can follow you other than big cat rescue.org

Carole Baskin 54:11

we are on all the social channels as Big Cat Rescue. So it's at Big Cat Rescue or Big Cat Rescue anywhere that you want to go. And I don't think we mentioned earlier but we have about 100 to 120 volunteers here at the sanctuary we have over 200 that work with us online. So they are there. They're trained to answer your questions to be nice to you to invite you in and really get to know you if you're an animal lover and so please reach out to us on any of their social channels and you will be surrounded by people who love big cats.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:43

Awesome. And for everyone listening definitely check out bigcatrescue.org Carole Baskin also has a YouTube channel for all the questions you're wondering why I didn't ask during this Carole goes into hours of detail in very short segments of YouTube videos that are enjoyable to Watch answers everything you need to know about Tiger King from her side. That was completely eliminated from the show that we all watched. So I definitely encourage everyone to check that out. Carole, I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me. This was so much fun. Can you call me a cool cat one more time?

Carole baskin: Jeff Dwoskin, You are one cool cat. Thank you.

All right. How amazing was Carole Baskin, everybody. It was such a joy to talk with Carole. I do encourage everyone who wants to help out get that bill passed to go on to big cat rescue.org get the information that we talked about in the interview, you can check out that the donation page the pages on why cub petting is bad and Carole's very extensive discussion on Tiger King. It's all there bigcatrescue.org I'll put all the links in the show notes as well so you have easy access to those and we can all do our part to help save the big cats.

All right, well, can you believe it? We're nearing the end of another episode. Episode 64 has come and almost gone but you know what that means? That means it's time for another hashtag from the family of hashtags. It hashtag roundup follow hashtag roundup on twitter at hashtag roundup and download the free hashtag roundup app at the Apple Store Google Store tweet along with hashtag roundup in the family of games that hashtag roundup in one day, one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. How exciting would that be to tell all your friends and family that your tweets were famous? This week's hashtag is a fun one #IfCatsControlledTheGovernment from crash tags, a weekly game on hashtag Roundup, a fun game that asks its participants what would government be like if cats were in control? And here's some funny ones for you to enjoy. As always, all these are retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter, and they'll be listed in the show notes, retweet them, show them some love. Alright, ladies and gentlemen get ready for #IfCatsControlledTheGovernment: the cat nip would have been legalized A long time ago. The State of the Union address wouldn't be so catastrophic. Their working hours would be between two and 6am so they can get a full 20 hours asleep. These are some great hashtag if cats controlled the government tweets and he is Samoa fish would be currency soft kitty would be our national anthem soft kitty warm kid a little ball of fur. Imagine what a great world that would be. Garfield would run the Department of lasagna culture. If cats controlled the government we'd be in much safer paws yarn would play a greater role in world art. There'd be a lot of dog blaming equal representation regardless of age for color or neutering status. The corners of all federal buildings would be designated grooming stations cardboard boxes for everyone if cats controlled the government Jewish space lasers would they public enemy number one? And finally, #IfCatsControlledTheGovernment fish taco trucks on every corner. Oh, all right. Those are some amazing #IfCatsControlledTheGovernment tweets, the end of the tweets means the end of the episode. Here we are Ladies and gentlemen, the End of Episode 64. I want to thank my special guest, Carole Baskin. I want to thank ck and Dan and Google for helping me with some of the cat puns from earlier. I want to thank all of you for stopping by week after week after week. It means the world to me and I'll see you next week.

Announcer 58:43

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Now Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

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