September 9, 2025 • 45 mins
Season 3 Finale!
Bobbi Brink is the Founder and Director of Lions Tigers & Bears.
Bobbi has been working with and advocating for captive big cats, bears and other exotic animals since the early 90s. She began her personal involvement with these efforts after witnessing the abuses and neglect inflicted on captive exotics victimized by the exotic animal trade. Bobbi made a decision that something must be done, and since then she has made it her personal mission to end the abuses that stem from this heinous industry, one animal at a time.
Bobbi plays an active role in managing all aspects of Lions Tigers & Bears' daily operations, from daily feedings to office management. She is a prolific fundraiser and tireless advocate for abused and displaced big cats, bears and other exotic animals. Bobbi has worked across the country to coordinate the rescue and relocation of hundreds of big cats, bears and exotic animals - providing them an opportunity to live out their lives at reputable sanctuaries, including Lions Tigers & Bears. Bobbi has testified before Congress, helping to advocate for legislation that would regulate the trade of these animals. She is also very active in national-level advocacy groups and committees, including the Big Cat Sanctuary Alliance and the Bear Care Group.
Both she and Lions Tigers & Bears have won multiple awards and recognition for leadership and public service, including the Carol Noon Award for Sanctuary Excellence by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, and numerous accolades from the local Chambers of Commerce, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and the California State Assembly.
Lions Tigers and Bears is an exotic animal sanctuary and educational facility in Alpine, CA. Situated on 142 acres outside of Alpine, California, on the edge of the Cleveland National Forest, Lions Tigers & Bears is an animal sanctuary for rescued big cats, bears and other exotic animals in beautiful San Diego County. Nestled in a scenic landscape of majestic oak trees, meadows, and rolling hills, our sanctuary offers an idyllic, natural habitat for more than 60 animals who have been neglected and abused in captivity across the country.
Learn more about Lions Tigers & Bears at:
https://www.lionstigersandbears.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
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
(00:28):
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?
(00:50):
Bobby Brink of Lions, Tigers andbears.org, which is a nonprofit
exotic animal rescue and sanctuary in Alpine, CA Bobby,
before we get to talk to you, wehave a little commercial.
Michelle, all yours. The Shelter Cats podcast has
joined the Chewy Shelter and Rescue affiliate program.
(01:13):
Chewy's mission is to be the most trusted and convenient
online destination for pet parents and partners everywhere.
Chewy is passionate about supporting animals and making a
positive impact in communities across the country.
Local shelters and rescues oftentimes serve as a first home or
provide continued support to ourpets.
That's why Chewy is committed tosupporting organizations that
(01:34):
benefit the overall health, safety, and well-being of
shelter and rescue animals. So please click the link in the
podcast description. You'll not only be helping your
local shelter, you'll also help support this podcast.
So thanks Chewy. Thank you, Chewy.
We love Chewy. Bobby, thank you so much for
being on the show. Thank.
You for having me? Can I lead off with with like an
(01:58):
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.
(02:19):
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
(02:41):
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
(03:02):
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
(03:23):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:06):
country. Well.
Yeah, it just, it just didn't take long for me to feel really,
you know, this one in particularlives 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
(04:29):
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
(04:49):
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.
(05:14):
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 todayhaving 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
(05:36):
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 thisin the 1st place and how you
became passionate about rescuingthese animals?
(05:57):
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.
(06:18):
I kept seeing lions, tigers, leopards, Cougars for sale and
just out of curiosity I answeredthe 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 catbreeding or puppies, you could
(06:42):
just buy one and take it home. So I need to.
Buy a lion baby out of a trailerand 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 exoticsto sell at the auctions or to
(07:06):
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.
(07:28):
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 wantedto make a difference.
And we had, and I think it was like 1998, we had donated to
(07:50):
help some leopards. And the deal was we would help
build the habitat and the personwould 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
(08:12):
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
(08:33):
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 federalbill and I, Tippy Hedren and
myself were the first ones to walk the walk the halls to try
(08:54):
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
(09:16):
even think about, you know, whata 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 trainedto go get a tiger out of
someone's basement or horse trailer or or kitchen or
wherever they seem to be keepingit.
(09:38):
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 onesanctuary 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.
(10:00):
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?
(10:20):
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 ofwhat people can do in Cancun?
(10:43):
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 insome states like Texas, perfect
example, it can even be parish by parish.
So it can be a county by county.So it's different.
(11:04):
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 Zanesvilleincident.
So we were actually working on the state bill to make it
illegal. And the governor said absolutely
(11:24):
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
(11:45):
tigers and lions and other otheranimals.
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 ofOhio.
I actually went in and taught their Department of Agriculture.
You know how to sedate tigers and you know what to build.
(12:07):
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 gotthat bill passed.
(12:29):
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 werefederal 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
(12:51):
these people are considered businesses to have a USDA
permit. Because in order to have a USDA
permit, you had exhibit or breedor 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
(13:14):
breed like 400 animals in a year.
Tigers for, you know, nothing more than photo OPS because the
tigers will their gestations 105days.
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
(13:35):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:17):
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
(14:40):
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.
(15:02):
They've a lot of times never hadany 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 likezoos 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
(15:24):
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 themwill be here for life.
Anything we take is for life. So we've got to be able to
provide for that animal for lifeand let a tiger will eat about
(15:49):
$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
(16:14):
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 wecan continue to take more
animals. How did you even get this?
How big is the sanctuary now? Like in terms of, I guess acres?
(16:38):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:19):
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.
(17:41):
We do a lot. We let people just, we let
people visit. Of course we have a venue.
I just finished building a venueso 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,
(18:03):
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.
(18:25):
Is that am I? I thought it was before.
So it says this accident thoughtit 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 wasthe location and that's why we,
(18:48):
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.
(19:11):
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.
(19:32):
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.
(19:55):
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 killyou 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 beenraised or, you know, what
they've been through. So we always have a piece of
(20:17):
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 haverolling cages and they all have
(20:37):
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.
(21:01):
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
(21:21):
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.
(21:45):
But we do, you know, talk to them through the fence.
We give them their meds on tongsevery 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
(22:09):
and give them food or or you know, feed them at the rail so
that they're having to come downto 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.
(22:30):
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.
(22:51):
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 tryto eat I.
Was going to say they all eat way better than me.
(23:12):
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 emptyand clean all the clean all the
(23:34):
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
(23:56):
weight and their supplements outof that tip, and then they'll
stack them all up in the refrigerator, and we use the
Expo marker to mark the animal'sname and the day it's for.
Yeah, that takes all day becausethat's quite an undertaking.
I'm just think like just keepingthat all organized is.
I can't even keep my own food organized for myself, just me.
(24:18):
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 atetheir 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
(24:39):
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
(25:02):
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, youknow, 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 ahalf a mile, mile long road.
(25:26):
So we have to keep both sides ofthat road cleared, like 100 feet
on each side and then around allthe 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
(25:46):
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.
(26:09):
So on a normal basis during the week, like the some of the bare
ponds are pumped out and then weuse 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
(26:31):
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 evacuatingthe people and the domestic
animals first. And then everybody's asked to
leave the property, but the oneswho are trained to work with the
exotics. And then we would have them all
(26:54):
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
(27:15):
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,
(27:35):
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.
(27:56):
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 avolunteer.
Just depends on what they can do.
(28:18):
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 thefor 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
(28:39):
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.
(29:00):
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
(29:22):
the fruit trees, you know, instead of pulling the fruit,
we'll cut a limb off so they canactually, and we'll put it
around stuff or in stuff so theycan 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
(29:42):
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
(30:05):
dig a little bit. We got to be careful like this
time of the year because the youknow, rattlesnakes, but we do
weed whack and mow a lot so thatmakes them move off.
So we don't really go underneatha lot of things where someone
might be sticking their hand andget 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.
(30:26):
Is that what you said? 19 different species, yeah. 19
different species How do you howdo 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
(30:48):
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 rescuefor you personally?
They're all different. So, you know, sometimes we go
(31:09):
places and you got to figure outhow 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.
(31:32):
Sometimes we can't get our truckin, 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
(31:53):
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.
(32:18):
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 tofight 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
(32:41):
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 anythinglike 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
(33:02):
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 thenhe 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 payto get your picture taken.
(33:25):
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.
(33:47):
But anyway, he had abandoned Cali the tiger in the field.
And so when we took her, we werein 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.
(34:07):
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 tobe 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
(34:28):
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
(34:50):
and barely able to walk to she'sjust 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, 3legged tiger.
But a lot of animals on that property died.
So hopefully he's still going toget in trouble because that's
been about three years now. You know.
(35:11):
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
(35:32):
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 thatjust 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.
(35:52):
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 theright, 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.
(36:14):
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
(36:36):
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
(36:57):
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.
(37:18):
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 becausethey 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
(37:39):
heal, but they do it for the thephoto 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 fromthere.
So they're really not allowed todecline anymore.
But we're still finding. Every once in a while you're
(38:00):
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
(38:20):
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.
(38:43):
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 canbreed 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
(39:04):
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 mediahas finally helped a little bit.
But now I'm starting to see it go the opposite way, especially
(39:26):
in other countries where you're seeing, you know, full grown men
with getting these new lions andtigers and they're just in these
disgusting little cages of wherethey'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 allyoung cats and none of them are
older cats. And one just ate the guy not too
(39:47):
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 smallbreed, large breed cats that are
popular and hybrids still very, very dangerous animals that have
(40:08):
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 athim with the camera, he'll he'll
(40:31):
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
(40:57):
you know, finding him on social media kind of coincided with
starting the podcast and talkingto 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
(41:19):
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 floorand 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
(41:43):
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
(42:04):
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
(42:27):
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.
(42:47):
Very, very important point. So how do people find?
Here's Here's where you plug Howdo 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 andvisit, can volunteer.
We're on social media. I saw that you can stay the
(43:10):
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
(43:32):
kind of just see the whole working ranch and what's going
on and how it works and go on aneducational 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 moveit.
Want to move in? Obviously we'll help.
(43:52):
We'll do what we'll do what we can.
I'm basically useless except forsarcasm, but I, I learned
quickly. So put me to work doing
something, you know, I could fixyour 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
(44:13):
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.
(44:33):
How you know, I've seen some tiktoks 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 youdo.
(44:54):
So, Bobby, thank you so much forjoining 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.
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
(00:28):
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?
(00:50):
Bobby Brink of Lions, Tigers andbears.org, which is a nonprofit
exotic animal rescue and sanctuary in Alpine, CA Bobby,
before we get to talk to you, wehave a little commercial.
Michelle, all yours. The Shelter Cats podcast has
joined the Chewy Shelter and Rescue affiliate program.
(01:13):
Chewy's mission is to be the most trusted and convenient
online destination for pet parents and partners everywhere.
Chewy is passionate about supporting animals and making a
positive impact in communities across the country.
Local shelters and rescues oftentimes serve as a first home or
provide continued support to ourpets.
That's why Chewy is committed tosupporting organizations that
(01:34):
benefit the overall health, safety, and well-being of
shelter and rescue animals. So please click the link in the
podcast description. You'll not only be helping your
local shelter, you'll also help support this podcast.
So thanks Chewy. Thank you, Chewy.
We love Chewy. Bobby, thank you so much for
being on the show. Thank.
You for having me? Can I lead off with with like an
(01:58):
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.
(02:19):
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
(02:41):
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
(03:02):
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
(03:23):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:06):
country. Well.
Yeah, it just, it just didn't take long for me to feel really,
you know, this one in particularlives 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
(04:29):
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
(04:49):
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.
(05:14):
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 todayhaving 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
(05:36):
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 thisin the 1st place and how you
became passionate about rescuingthese animals?
(05:57):
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.
(06:18):
I kept seeing lions, tigers, leopards, Cougars for sale and
just out of curiosity I answeredthe 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 catbreeding or puppies, you could
(06:42):
just buy one and take it home. So I need to.
Buy a lion baby out of a trailerand 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 exoticsto sell at the auctions or to
(07:06):
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.
(07:28):
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 wantedto make a difference.
And we had, and I think it was like 1998, we had donated to
(07:50):
help some leopards. And the deal was we would help
build the habitat and the personwould 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
(08:12):
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
(08:33):
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 federalbill and I, Tippy Hedren and
myself were the first ones to walk the walk the halls to try
(08:54):
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
(09:16):
even think about, you know, whata 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 trainedto go get a tiger out of
someone's basement or horse trailer or or kitchen or
wherever they seem to be keepingit.
(09:38):
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 onesanctuary 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.
(10:00):
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?
(10:20):
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 ofwhat people can do in Cancun?
(10:43):
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 insome states like Texas, perfect
example, it can even be parish by parish.
So it can be a county by county.So it's different.
(11:04):
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 Zanesvilleincident.
So we were actually working on the state bill to make it
illegal. And the governor said absolutely
(11:24):
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
(11:45):
tigers and lions and other otheranimals.
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 ofOhio.
I actually went in and taught their Department of Agriculture.
You know how to sedate tigers and you know what to build.
(12:07):
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 gotthat bill passed.
(12:29):
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 werefederal 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
(12:51):
these people are considered businesses to have a USDA
permit. Because in order to have a USDA
permit, you had exhibit or breedor 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
(13:14):
breed like 400 animals in a year.
Tigers for, you know, nothing more than photo OPS because the
tigers will their gestations 105days.
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
(13:35):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:17):
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
(14:40):
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.
(15:02):
They've a lot of times never hadany 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 likezoos 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
(15:24):
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 themwill be here for life.
Anything we take is for life. So we've got to be able to
provide for that animal for lifeand let a tiger will eat about
(15:49):
$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
(16:14):
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 wecan continue to take more
animals. How did you even get this?
How big is the sanctuary now? Like in terms of, I guess acres?
(16:38):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:19):
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.
(17:41):
We do a lot. We let people just, we let
people visit. Of course we have a venue.
I just finished building a venueso 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,
(18:03):
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.
(18:25):
Is that am I? I thought it was before.
So it says this accident thoughtit 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 wasthe location and that's why we,
(18:48):
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.
(19:11):
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.
(19:32):
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.
(19:55):
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 killyou 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 beenraised or, you know, what
they've been through. So we always have a piece of
(20:17):
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 haverolling cages and they all have
(20:37):
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.
(21:01):
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
(21:21):
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.
(21:45):
But we do, you know, talk to them through the fence.
We give them their meds on tongsevery 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
(22:09):
and give them food or or you know, feed them at the rail so
that they're having to come downto 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.
(22:30):
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.
(22:51):
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 tryto eat I.
Was going to say they all eat way better than me.
(23:12):
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 emptyand clean all the clean all the
(23:34):
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
(23:56):
weight and their supplements outof that tip, and then they'll
stack them all up in the refrigerator, and we use the
Expo marker to mark the animal'sname and the day it's for.
Yeah, that takes all day becausethat's quite an undertaking.
I'm just think like just keepingthat all organized is.
I can't even keep my own food organized for myself, just me.
(24:18):
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 atetheir 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
(24:39):
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
(25:02):
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, youknow, 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 ahalf a mile, mile long road.
(25:26):
So we have to keep both sides ofthat road cleared, like 100 feet
on each side and then around allthe 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
(25:46):
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.
(26:09):
So on a normal basis during the week, like the some of the bare
ponds are pumped out and then weuse 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
(26:31):
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 evacuatingthe people and the domestic
animals first. And then everybody's asked to
leave the property, but the oneswho are trained to work with the
exotics. And then we would have them all
(26:54):
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
(27:15):
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,
(27:35):
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.
(27:56):
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 avolunteer.
Just depends on what they can do.
(28:18):
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 thefor 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
(28:39):
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.
(29:00):
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
(29:22):
the fruit trees, you know, instead of pulling the fruit,
we'll cut a limb off so they canactually, and we'll put it
around stuff or in stuff so theycan 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
(29:42):
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
(30:05):
dig a little bit. We got to be careful like this
time of the year because the youknow, rattlesnakes, but we do
weed whack and mow a lot so thatmakes them move off.
So we don't really go underneatha lot of things where someone
might be sticking their hand andget 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.
(30:26):
Is that what you said? 19 different species, yeah. 19
different species How do you howdo 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
(30:48):
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 rescuefor you personally?
They're all different. So, you know, sometimes we go
(31:09):
places and you got to figure outhow 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.
(31:32):
Sometimes we can't get our truckin, 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
(31:53):
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.
(32:18):
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 tofight 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
(32:41):
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 anythinglike 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
(33:02):
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 thenhe 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 payto get your picture taken.
(33:25):
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.
(33:47):
But anyway, he had abandoned Cali the tiger in the field.
And so when we took her, we werein 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.
(34:07):
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 tobe 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
(34:28):
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
(34:50):
and barely able to walk to she'sjust 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, 3legged tiger.
But a lot of animals on that property died.
So hopefully he's still going toget in trouble because that's
been about three years now. You know.
(35:11):
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
(35:32):
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 thatjust 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.
(35:52):
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 theright, 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.
(36:14):
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
(36:36):
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
(36:57):
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.
(37:18):
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 becausethey 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
(37:39):
heal, but they do it for the thephoto 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 fromthere.
So they're really not allowed todecline anymore.
But we're still finding. Every once in a while you're
(38:00):
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
(38:20):
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.
(38:43):
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 canbreed 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
(39:04):
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 mediahas finally helped a little bit.
But now I'm starting to see it go the opposite way, especially
(39:26):
in other countries where you're seeing, you know, full grown men
with getting these new lions andtigers and they're just in these
disgusting little cages of wherethey'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 allyoung cats and none of them are
older cats. And one just ate the guy not too
(39:47):
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 smallbreed, large breed cats that are
popular and hybrids still very, very dangerous animals that have
(40:08):
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 athim with the camera, he'll he'll
(40:31):
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
(40:57):
you know, finding him on social media kind of coincided with
starting the podcast and talkingto 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
(41:19):
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 floorand 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
(41:43):
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
(42:04):
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
(42:27):
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.
(42:47):
Very, very important point. So how do people find?
Here's Here's where you plug Howdo 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 andvisit, can volunteer.
We're on social media. I saw that you can stay the
(43:10):
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
(43:32):
kind of just see the whole working ranch and what's going
on and how it works and go on aneducational 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 moveit.
Want to move in? Obviously we'll help.
(43:52):
We'll do what we'll do what we can.
I'm basically useless except forsarcasm, but I, I learned
quickly. So put me to work doing
something, you know, I could fixyour 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
(44:13):
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.
(44:33):
How you know, I've seen some tiktoks 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 youdo.
(44:54):
So, Bobby, thank you so much forjoining 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.
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