Give Day 2024 LIVE with Howard & Carole Baskin

Give Day LIVE with Howard and Carole Baskin

Howard and Carole Baskin went LIVE today to answer all your questions in real time and give you updates from our trip to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, our plans and a special appearance and update from the wild by Jamie and what she and Victor and YOU are doing to save Pallas Cats. Learn more at BigCatRescue.org/giveday

BIG CAT TV is a close look into the wild cat conservation efforts we support, and the exotic feline residents of Big Cat Rescue who we now support at Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. Big Cat Rescue is a registered non-profit 501c3 so your donations are tax deductible.

Subscribe here: http://youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=BigCatRescue

Music from APM Music (https://www.apmmusic.com) and Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) Artlist.io and InVideo app.

Help save wild cats and end big cat abuse at BigCatRescue.org/donate

Thank you for watching and tell a friend!

I swear if we ever do give day again I’m going to call it 20,000 the hard way because man we have worked so hard for this $20,000 we did six different videos of each one of those four conservation partners that were supporting each one will get $5,000 and um we’re hoping that you can help us keep that promise to them so that we get to the $20,000 so that we can um helped fund all of those amazing projects that you heard about in Mexico and Peru and Brazil and Costa Rica hey all you cool cats and kittens it’s Howard Basin and Carol Baskin from Big Cat Rescue having all kinds of technical issues this morning that phrase uh hey all you cool cats and kittens that’s catchy did you just think that up or have you used it [Laughter] before I think we might use it on all of our live videos all right you may be able to tell from Carol’s throat that we uh she’s sick and I’m just at the tail end of being sick so if you hear us coughing we forgive or please forgive so um actually before you get started um this is really shaky and this is going to be horrible with me holding this for an hour and we thought we could do it from the from the computer and that’s not working so I wonder if maybe you could hold this and talk and I’ll run upstairs and grab your your holder oh okay okay all right just be careful not to hit any buttons and don’t cover the camera with your hand great you hold it with the other hand put this down put this hand here now hold that with that hand oh dear okay uh she’s talking about my my my notes for today so that we can cover everything so um uh there’s your first cough anyway the first thing we want to give you a little update on is our recent visit to turpentine which was was really really uh terrific uh you know for the first time seeing the place built out we were there a year ago and it was just poles in the ground and kind of a dream and uh I mean the cats all look content they they look happy you know originally the area was kind of barren now the grass has grown in and and it just it looks spectacular and when you when you drive out to this area which they call the freedom field uh and you um you you kind of come over a hill and then you’re looking down and you can see across the entire well I shouldn’t wave my hand in front of the camera you can see across the entire um uh you know area uh with you know all of the cages the small cat cages closer and then the the the huge tiger enclosures after that um and I I honestly it’s not possible to describe but it it was just overwhelming I I I would I in a good way in a good way and uh it just felt so such such Pride um and you know the the the enclosures are are larger and you know you could just tell as we went around we spent a lot of time walking around talking at the cats and and they’re they’re just all doing great here so um and and one of the things that um had been reported previously was that a couple of the cats Smalls and filmo who you know we knew to be not very social uh seemed to have really come into their own uh out there and become very social and and we got to see Smalls and and she was being quite koi you know poking her head out out of the den looking at us and then you know waiting till we kind of walked away a little bit and coming out and and there were a number of other cats that that we saw why don’t you talk about some of them yeah so um Smalls is just like a whole different cat she is just loving everybody there and is so sociable and filmo I mean the only time I ever saw filmo was when he would chase me on my bicycle and that was not a friendly thing it wasn’t like he wanted to be my friend cuz anytime I was walking around as you guys know from the lives that I did at the sanctuary he just he wasn’t a a social cat and yet there he’s become quite quite social so that’s been really nice to see and then um Sweet Summer she was being absolutely adorable and was being very kooi with Jamie and playing peekaboo in her little den and so that was really nice to be able to see them enjoying a moment there and then Max and MaryAnn Gail had gone up there uh the week before the event at turpentine Creek wildlife refuge and she had said that Max was the only Bob well the only cat there who came running up when she came by and so I was curious you know how would the cats behave When U their Keepers had come up to see them after they settled in there and everybody was just perfectly content it wasn’t oh my God take me home they were just really really relaxed everybody looked to be in super good weight and Mary Anne was up on her swinging hammock and you know her with her little almond eyes she was just blinking in the sun cuz we were out there I think it was probably around 10:00 or so they had already eaten breakfast and everybody was already down for their naps again and the weather was just just Blissful we got to see althia who was out and being alert and so that was nice not to see her under a coolaroo and then of course you know beer was eating grass like beacher’s always eating grass so some things have not changed well what changed for beeer is that he used to insist on sticking his head out through the 4×4 wire to eat the grass like the grass is greener on the other side kind of a thing uh and can’t do that with the smaller wire but seemed perfectly happy now to be eating the grass that he could get to so and he’s got a lot of it um Bailey was still quite feisty and they say that she really enjoys being an indoor cat she has the opportunity to go indoors or Outdoors hey everybody we’re back I am so sorry every time I get an alert on my phone I have to push it out of the way so that I can’t have it obstructing the scene the screen cuz I can’t see you and hey Barbara welcome back sorry about that we got four people I think we had what 50 some odds so I’m going to wait till a few of them come back hi Deb glad you made it back hey Mary Taylor this says comments with 200 stars or more will appear here um I wonder if I’m going to hi Matthew I don’t know if I’m going to see any other stars there dare I touch the screen again oh my catness hey Deborah helloy Patricia Nancy well welcome back everybody now I forgot what I was talking about we were still talking about the cats Bailey being feisty we didn’t talk about the tigers or Shiloh uh yeah they said Bailey is loving living indoors and so she actually because of her age and Moses at the time was so old she was 20 I think he was 22 they had given them the indoor housing which is only available to the African cats and she likes being indoors most of the time she has access to an outdoor yard that she can use whenever she wants but she’s perfectly fine to stay indoors and be a house cat so she can do whatever she wants there and when uh we opened the door she stood up like hey what are you guys doing in my house and so we backed out quietly and all of the Tigers as you guys have seen from the live stream at turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge those live streams they really helped us understand how the cats were adjusting to all of this and it looks like they were loving the snow they’re loving the spring they’re loving all of the new grass we got to see them in person and they all looked very comfortable and content so that was really nice I didn’t get to see Kimba did you see Kimba I think you guys may have gone down and looked over the edge uh I didn’t the terrain was difficult for me I I didn’t get there maybe Jamie was the one that went over the edge um hey Chen and salmon um so they’re all doing great and then as you guys may know Shiloh had had a bit of an incident I think he swallowed like a chicken leg hole or something like that and all of the cats were looking like they were in really good weight so it’s not like he was so starved that he did it it’s just like freak accidents something you you never see happen and all of a sudden the Catt will prove to the yid that they can do it and so he ended up spending about a month in the hospital because he ended up with um pneumonia from that but when we were at turpentine Creek last weekend he was back outside and he had just been out for a day or two and he looked like he was really enjoying that so the cats are doing very very well there and I was really I was so relieved and pleased to see them so enjoying their lives there yeah so and I’m going to try and read these comments and ask him questions as we go I was talking so I wasn’t able to do it but I’ve asked Deb to text me which is probably going to make me touch my my phone which is going to be maybe she should text my phone yeah uh Deb how about texting Ho’s phone we got that here um and that way I can see if there’s any that I missed and Robin fry says she spoke with t about Kimo when she was there and he’s doing very well and has warmed up to her so that’s great news we got to see Robin at the event hey Robert and Christine did she text you no but you need to point that to where you want it to be um we’re well we we we really had this set up we thought in a much more sophisticated way and then we couldn’t get it to go live so sorry so we’re emis are you still going to be able to show the picture or video by turning the phone around on your yeah yeah I don’t know how that’s going to look but yeah uh some are asking about hutch so when you take the tram around and they don’t currently take regular tours up to the freedom field but for the private tours where the people go to the freedom field they’re completely outside of the fences and so Hutch is one of the cats that you actually can see from the drive around Loop and they put him on the outside Loop because he’s so friendly and so um yeah he’s doing fine okay all right so we got an agenda here did we finish with that topic are you through with me talking it’s like if I hear any more of you talking through your nose and I don’t mind being next to him cuz he’s already had this yeah she thinks you can’t get it again I hope he can’t get it again um anyway so so let’s let’s turn to give day for a little bit here um uh you know when when when we rescue one or two or three cats then we get to have an impact on one two or three cats and what we’re trying to do now is is basically have an impact on hundreds of them are are you able to show the picture or no should we not Endeavor to do that for fear of losing everybody again I think I can show you’re wanting to show the picture with the labels that you insisted on having you know show the people look um you know the the the we all know tigers and lions but so many of these small cats um you know I certainly have never even heard of before I got involved here and still have to learn a lot about but you know these are just beautiful uh small cats and you know we they may not necessarily be what’s called apex predators the biggest predator in their area but as predators that they really play the same kind of a role in the ecosystem that the apex predators do and what happens is um if you wipe out a species I mean I have friends who live in the Northeast and the Cougars there got wiped out so there are many many many many deer and as a result people are getting Lyme disease from the deer ticks um and so when you when you decimate these Predators the prey population that they prey on outstrips what the land can support they overg graze and you know entire Landscapes deteriorate and there’s there’s a plenty of history of this are you sure looking at these names uh no you keep holding hold in that um and and um sometimes it gets so bad that the area can no longer support life so you know it these cats are critical to what everybody you know was commonly called the balance of of of nature so that you can if you don’t want to if you don’t want to hold it anymore um people can have the misfortune of looking at me they would much rather look at you sorry anyway I’d rather look at you oh thank you um as as as we approach this give day and I’ve got to refer to a few notes I made because I I started thinking about this um in you know a little bit of a philosoph philosophical way and um and thinking a little more broadly about giving um because we couldn’t do what we used to do on on give day and and I think you know the decision the giving decision that we all make is to some extent a mental decision it’s it’s information it’s the mind but I I think it’s very much a decision we make with our with our hearts so both are involved and I I think the act of giving in a sense should be a little bit of a a selfish thing because you know when when you give when you write the check or when you you know enter the credit card information ideally you feel a sense of satisfaction that you’re accomplishing something with your life by doing that whether it’s $1 or more you know that you’re helping do something um that’s meaningful for your life and um uh and and I think that that feeling is is a feeling largely from the heart not not the mind and know when we did give day in the past we be talking to you about a rescue we’d be talking to you about a a rehab bobcat and we would have an individual to talk about are you kicking me no I’m just snuggling with you but I was wondering if you wanted to talk at all about any of those popcat rehabs [Laughter] no but when we talk about what if I want to you can when I’m done when we talked about those the the you would have an individual to talk about you’d have a name and and and we’d be able to show you know either where they came from or or the condition they arrived in and then what we um uh you know the condition that we were able to improve them to and and so I I think it was very easy to associate that with the emotional part of these decisions and so I got thinking you know uh how how do we make that emotional connection with a species we’re you know we’re talking about ocelots or margay we’re not talking about a specific cat and what came to mind to me may may seem a little bit odd excuse me like this uh again we’re both working on these cods um but what came to my mind was you know when I’m driving around if I see a dead domestic cat that got hit by a car I have an immediate emotional reaction I mean the first reaction is just you know sadness and and I realized that I thought about it a a helplessness you know I couldn’t stop that I I couldn’t be there to chase that cat away from trying to get across that that street and and we all know how they do it they just Dash and it’s it’s is just bad luck um and so I thought well let me think about some of these cats that you just saw the pictures of and let me try to picture them in one of these countries in South America you know out there like these cats on the road dead how dead dead by by being poisoned or being shot because they stole a chicken doing something that to them comes naturally or Worse having had a horrible long death by uh this this distemper disease um and you know by by just closing my eyes and imagining that you know I was able to feel that same sadness but what I realized was what I was not feeling was the helpfulness helplessness because we can do something about this we can enormously reduce the amount of this is happening because the people that Carol’s going to introduce you today these largely young people who are operating on minuscule budgets and making the most of it have put together successful programs that have proven that they can reduce the amount of this killing that happens because the cats eat the kitchen you know steal the the chickens or um or because they catch this disease so I guess what I’m hoping is that by showing you this you know part of it is information that is the mental part I I’m hoping that you can get the kind of emotional connection that we feel to saving not just one two or three but hundreds of them you know for this give day we set a much more modest goal in the pth than in the past and we’re we’re getting there we’re at close to 177,000 we’re trying to get to 20,000 and anything above that will be spent on these projects and someone uh we asked for questions Advance someone said how much of this goes to the projects all of it does and if there’s excess it will go to these or similar projects so so with that I’m going to let Carol attempt to introduce you to these four really amazing people I mean we’ve interviewed them they came highly recommended to us and and she’s got like a just a 30 second video so you can actually see who we’re talking about and hearing them so do you want to give that a try I’m gonna give that a try so these people are working in Mexico and Costa Rica and Peru and Brazil and like how he said it’s just a 30 minute or 30 30 minute a 30 second video clip and then I’m also going to bring Jamie in in a little bit and let her talk about some of the work that they’ve been doing in Mongolia for the palace cats now that’s not any part of gift day I just thought you guys might want to hear from Jamie because even though we’re talking about these four conservation Heroes for give day we have a lot of Partners out there in the field that are working with all kinds of cats all kinds of mostly small cats which need the most help and so I’m going to attempt to turn this around it means I have to touch my my screen but it looks like it’s letting me turn it around which is great so there’s the gift a thermometer where it’s 16974 and the first video I want to show you guys whoops there’s my notes is Dr Cindy herado and Dr Cindy herado is working in Peru my name is Cindy and I am from Peru we in in the Pampas cat working group we work to protect the Pampas cat as well as other co-occurrent species of small wild cats and we focus on threat mitigation and those generally those activities are generally um building chicken Cubs dog vaccination and sterilizations to reduce the spread of disease to Wild Cats we also have road kill programs and Environmental Education activities so what you saw there was a cat stealing a chicken and the issue is that these rural Farmers you know they’re poor and they cannot afford the materials to make those chicken coops what we call Predator proof that the cats can’t get in so when the chicken gets stolen those people want to basically kill the cat and and the you know we think well it’s a chicken well them them stealing that chicken would be like somebody for you stealing your car that you know these people may have six to 12 chickens and they rely on them both for food and for income and and stealing one is a big deal economically to these people so um I I’ve moved into talking about the project I didn’t intend to but I wanted to point out what you just saw there was the chicken coup before the materials are supplied to make it Predator proof and I had an idea it just went right out of my head but what’s new oh God there’s another thing on my screen you don’t dare touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it I’m seeing like thousands of stars you guys are amazing I don’t know how much that is but I think that it’s got to add up to something and it’s asking if I want to have a star party and I don’t know what that is to if it’s a good thing go ahead and do it uh the next one is Dr Flavia trelli and she is working in Brazil my name is Flavia tielli and I’m from SN Brazil our obervation efforts they they Encompass various strategies including for example ning and vaccination of domestic dogs and cats alongside the construction or uh the repair of camels to mitigate the conflicts between the dogs and the wild cats to avoid the disease transmission within the rural communities okay and there’s also Jose Ramirez Fernandez who is working in Costa Rica which other than where I’m living right now is my favorite place in the world well so my name is Jose Ramirez Fernandez and I used to work with small Ms so that’s how I get involved into this project because I get contact by Jim serson with small wild cats I work in in rural communities I work with people and our project is about H repairing a chicken houses or on Chicken cops so they they don’t have problems with with attacks to the chickens and then I this last one is Mariam Weston and she’s working in Mexico she’s the head of the ocelot working group and she sent me a a cool little video if we can play it after her video where we get to actually see some C so you guys will love that this is Mariam Weston hi I’m Mariam I leave the O working group we have projects in Mexico and in El Salvador we work with oselot Marg jaar rundis and popcats buas and Y we work on mitigating threats for these cats by reducing the presence of free ranging dogs in areas where we have cats dogs can transmit disease they can also affect pre a avilability or they can pre on cats so we are offering free neutering and vaccination campaigns to avoid this we’re also fostering coexistence between cats and local farmers by building or repairing Chicken cops where there’s conflict between them and we’re also trying to mitigate the effects of climate change in some areas where drugs are limiting the access h to water ER to cats and we’re back okay um so we we we talked a little bit about the chicken coops but there was one story that one of these folks told us that was really telling because it this this program not only has these people that these Farmers not want to kill the cats but what they do is they put up cameras the camera traps that we use like the with our baby Bob cats that we release and they are able to show the farmers here’s what this cat looks like and here’s how you can live with it it’s still here didn’t go away but now you can survive with it and I’m telling him look at the camera he looks at himself when he talks yeah I uh practicing in the mirror too much yeah I guess so okay um but uh she was telling us a story where we went they went to look at one of the projects after it was done and after to talk to the people with and show them the footage and the people had actually put a picture of one of the cats in the chick in the chicken coup area as a way to to just um show that you know it’s not only that they don’t want to kill them but they they become proud of of supporting them because they educate the people about the role like we talked about earlier of these cats in the environment and and so they they end up doing like a whole one 0 degree from wanting to kill the cats treating them as an enemy um to to actually taking pride in helping save them so you know if we just talk about oh we’re doing chicken coops it doesn’t sound very exciting and but the the effects of this are enormous for the um for the cats the way to to just chicken sorry about that excited okay I was trying to get over here where I could see more of the comments I want to know what you guys are saying but I can’t see it on my little screen here okay so uh this this distemper virus you know why are we neutering and spaying dogs you know what’s that got to do with saving the cats this deer virus virus used to be called canine distemper virus because it was just pretty much known in dogs what they’re now finding is that can can spread and in these countries there are large populations of free roaming dogs some are feral they have no owner others are have owners but they are allowed to run loose and often they’re protected by law there um and you know even if killing them were allowed it wouldn’t be something we would want to be involved with but by doing the neuter and spaying and uh vaccination they can both limit the population of these dogs that then transmit the disease to the wild cats um and make them not transmittable because they’re vaccinated so again you know neutering dogs doesn’t S what what do we do in neutering dogs well it’s because it has a direct impact on the number of these cats that die an absolutely horrible death of of wasting away and not you know basically starving because they become incapable of of of hunting and you know again we’re talking about we’re talking about $5,000 to each of these people that will save thousands of animals the return on investment here is is just enormous uh I think that’s all I want to say about that um except that um we’re we’re hoping that you’ll help um uh we did have a few questions that were sent in in advance let’s check in on the thermometer again refresh that page and see how we’re doing all right we’re so we’re at 16974 out of 20,000 so we’re at the 85% mark turn this back around and Jamie if you’re watching us uh do something in the comments so that I can find you say hello Mom or something so that I can bring you on stage go ahead you can answer question as well Jamie’s trying to figure out oh okay she might not even be here yet cuz I didn’t text her um text her okay um you need my face to open that they say married couples start to look alike after a while I should try it with my face it would be a blessing to me if I started to look more like you um uh I think I already answered that uh all of the funding would go to the conservationists um uh we’re getting this question quite a bit somebody was asking well you know what are the two of us doing or some people ask it is how do you like a retire trust me there there is no retirement here this is why we’re sick we are working harder than ever uh you know in in my case you know all of the administrative duties that you know the boring administrative duties that I have to handle you know doing our audit right now doing our our 990 tax forms all the insurances things like that um you know those things all go on the enjoyable task of dealing with our donors continues to to to go on and the the the sale of the real estate is is a um extensive process where uh you know I’m having weekly meetings and um we can maybe at the end if we have time and if somebody wants we can talk more about that process the you know hopefully the closing would take here in December uh Carol has continued to work on the advocacy work uh she just got back from five grueling days in Colorado where we are part of a group that is trying to do a ballot initiative to um stop the the what’s the trophy hunting the more abusive kinds of hunting where they they put a radio collar on these dogs the dogs chase a cougar up a tree the radio callar tells the hunters where they are it takes you know no skill this is by no means the the um uh uh what what Teddy Roosevelt called Fair Chase hunting and so you’ve got a cougar up in the tree that they’re just shooting out of the tree or there’s even something worse where they actually throw like a lassu around it and what was it called choke and uh something I’ve just heard that phrase today but but and then the Bobcats and lyns are being trapped for their fur to sell their fur to foreign countries um and in these traps where they die a horrible death so it’s it’s the the ballot initiative would stop that the survey show that a majority of of people in Colorado would vote for this a substantial majority but the the nature of their legislature is that they are not going to pass a law about it so we’re trying to gather signatures so Carol was out and the reason she’s sick most likely is she did selfies with a few hundred people um to uh it might have been more than a few hundred people might have been a thousand people over the five days I estimated there was at least 2600 people wow uh all to get signatures because you need 125,000 signatures to get it on the ballot so uh doing that work you know still chasing after the circuses and doing our alerts and that kind of thing and where there’s state laws writing letters in support to try to help one of the letters that we’ done in the past was it for for Colorado on a circus bill um and you know finally getting time to do some better management of these little properties that we rent out that create income uh for the sanctuary so uh spending time that uh Jamie and Victor have been absolutely overwhelmed with the property issues because you know what we are trying to avoid is having these mobile homes there just destroyed when we sell the property and preparing them to to be moved to other locations while Carol searches for other locations is a very timec consuming uh task that you know has been a big part of their focus and doing I mean we we’re certainly not able to do the level of property maintenance that you know historically we have done but there’s certain things you do have to do so in fact coyotes have taken over the place yeah and you know if if if things don’t work you have to fix them and so there’s there’s still that that going on and and we are helping other sanctuaries by having them come and and take down some of the fencing to be able to reuse it and giving them other supplies that that we don’t need and then selling the other things to generate income again for these projects so so you know we’re all still very very busy there there’s no retirement so I I I hope that addresses that question um somebody asked what ever happened to Cota lion and I’m not sure that we know any more than we did then well actually I uh I looked it up so I looked up the they they called it cat Juma and when I looked up Juma lion Florida Apparently after the cat left our facility we were asked to take it to elmyra’s and when the guy figured out that he couldn’t pet cat there either or use it as an attraction to get people to pay attention to him then he decided he wanted it to go to Judy Watson at SOS in Brooksville and on her website she mentions the cat arriving and said the cat would be there through his hearing and that was in 2022 and what’s interesting about that is in 2022 is when the big cat Public Safety Act passed so even though he lost well he did lose his hearing I believe um as far as being able to get a license to have her but you can’t have a pet lion anymore no matter which way you go so um he I don’t think he was ever going to get his USDA license and because it was just a pet and so under the new Big Cat public safety act he would not be able to take the cat from that facility but she’s not mentioning the cat there so I don’t know if he chose to send the cat someplace else after that or if the cat died while if she was there she was not in good Health even when we knew her and for some reason Jamie every time I see your name in the comments here it’s not allowing me to bring you on video it’s that allowing me to bring just about everybody but you on here and so that’s why I’ve asked her to log out and try to log back in and see if maybe Facebook has banned her for all of her bad behavior she’s been selling too much stuff man she is the eBay Queen well keep looking for her to come back while you do that um uh someone asked what was decided about the memorial wall and turpentine has graciously allowed to move the the memorial wall to the freedom field I don’t know exactly where it will be yet but um that is our um the plan um well Don’s saying hello Jamie why can’t I see Jamie oh maybe because she’s a BCR moderator well what how does that work I’m afraid to start pushing buttons here let’s get through your questions and then uh that’ll get risky okay um and I don’t know if we can see any other questions that come up um originally we actually had a a wealthy Tech entrepreneur who had sold his business who showed some interest in actually turning it into a park which would have been lovely but he decided he didn’t want to pursue that so you know the only option is to sell it to developers and so at the North End there will be uh an apartment complex and then the rest of it will be Town Homes um uh but we we have talked with both developers about because it’s two different Developers for the different products um about you know putting together some kind of tribute to the history and they like idea the one was saying that you know they would have sanctuary in the of the development and maybe you know putting together an area where that we could kind of decorate that would um you know be a a recognition of of the history that have been their last 30 years so I we’ll be working with them on that you know one of the nice things I saw that they had a bunch of the donor signs up on the outside perimeter wall so that people that do go by in the trams can see all the donors of the different cats even though they may not be able to see the interior cats yes many of the donor signs that we had around the property here they they took and um had gotten to to hang them so that was nice to see there I’m a Genus sideway she looks like yeah she’s spinning can I hear you I can hear you can you hear me am I right side up because I’m not on my phone turn your speak so we’re good we’re good to go you can hear me wait okay there we go I’m definitely not gonna play like what is that Pictionary with you guys because you’re not good at the hand signals uh so uh good all right so I’m just I’m glad to join you guys today and join everybody that’s been in the comments thank you Marcy because uh I didn’t even know you could request to be uh join alive um pretty much I know how to post things and I know where the like button is above that it’s just not that’s not my pay grade so um it’s really exciting what we’re doing with give day and I hope that you guys can really appreciate the um where your funds are going because those projects are just they’re so important and a lot of the things are just so easy they’re so simple but it just needs a little bit of funding to get up off the ground I mean just building a chicken cage is going to help cats from being killed and putting up signs on the road is going to educate the public about the animals that are in the forest along the sides of the road so I mean just these little tiny simple things that we can do with a very little budget is make makes huge impacts all over the world and you guys are directly responsible for that being able to happen uh one case in particular is our recent trip to Mongolia um I that was our first trip visiting one of these projects and the landscape there was just so different than anything I’ve ever seen I’m more of a tropical person a jungle person and to go see a place like that where the terrain is just absolutely nothing except for piles of rocks and endless endless miles of grasslands short grasslands like Golf Course grasslands um and during our our stay there we saw so many Palace cats in those Rock piles that’s their habitat that’s where you find them and I would get I would pretty much say if you went on that trip which they do um tourist trips there to raise funds for their projects I would say that if you go on that trip you’re guaranteed to see Palace cats every day I mean that’s just because there’s nowhere else really that they live other than these giant rock piles on the this very minimal landscape and while we were there we noticed that there would be areas of large Rock piles lots of Palace cats and then miles and miles miles of open grassland uh until you get to the next set of rocks and we wondered you know Victor and I building ponds building dens for the cats out of the sanctuary our brains just go to like maintenance mode and we said well what if we put Rock piles in the middle of these areas and kind of connected these Rocky areas together making a wildlife Corridor for the palis cats to be able to travel from one place to another and I mean that’s easy just pile up some rocks from one place to another I mean it’s easy but it takes Manpower and it takes you know some trucks and guys to get these big huge heavy boulders to from one place to another but I mean with a very little funding we were able to make five Den sites out in the middle of the Mongolian Wilderness for these Palace cats to be able to travel from one place to another and not only did Palace cats end up using those sites there was all kinds of animals there was foxes there was the step Eagle um you know there’s no trees there so these eagles they literally have their nests on the ground or on a rock pile so these five little sets of rock piles across the step out there became Habitat to so many animals and it we did that with just a small amount of funding and just a small amount of funding is going to go to each of these projects for give day it’s going to make a huge impact for those cats and other animals too I mean cats are the only things that steal chickens you know what I mean there’s foxes and other things out there that steal chickens so we’re not only going to be saving cats we’re going to be saving all kinds of animals it’s like a a ripple effect of what goes into these projects and what kind of benefit it has for all the animals and the landscape and ecosystems so that was just my little piece of uh what I wanted to share with you guys about Mongolia and the connection there is uh how these projects can do so much with so little and you guys just donating even a dollar or two makes a huge impact because it all adds up and I would take questions but I can’t hear anything so peace out if I can only read lips she says wait um nope nope write it on a notepad and hold it up to the screen talk about okay Ecuador uh so one of our next trips that we’ve got I have no idea what saying you can text it’ll come up on my screen uh what of so uh one of our Next Big Adventures is we’re going to Ecuador we’re going to be going to uh join a bunch of conservation leaders in the area yep that’s backwards but I got it um so it’s the pampus cat working group and we’re going to be going to their conference where they all come and show what the projects are that they’ve been working on um the success es they’ve had the trial and error that they share and we’re really excited to get to know all these people and meet them in person it really made a huge difference when we went to Cambodia and the fishing cat conference and we got to see everybody in person and put names to faces it really makes it uh a lot easier when you’re reading over these projects and knowing who the people are that are asking for funds and having a little bit better insight into the projects themselves by seeing these presentations and uh so we hope to gain that same kind of insight with this uh meeting in Ecuador and we’re really excited about it and I’m really excited about it because Carol’s going to be joining us so she will be collecting some video footage which uh is very much needed these presentations they give are so wonderful and it would be really great to be able to share them with all you so I hope to be able to do maybe some lives we’ll see you know I don’t know about the internet in the middle of the Jungle and the cloud forest but um we’ll hopefully try to do some lives and collect a lot of photos and videos to share with you guys yep she’s got her phone ready um and and just to share the the wonderful work that they’re doing and in turn the work that you’re helping to support in all of these countries so that’s coming up towards the end of the month so you have something to look forward to there and we’re really excited about it too I I’m just getting stared at okay that they love me well I’m glad I could join you guys and uh I really appreciate every single one of you guys in the comments that are watching today so thanks to all of you we are at $17,999 of our $20,000 goal we’re 85% there I hope we’ve just been so captivating that you haven’t been able to get to your computer to make a donation but you can do so at Big Cat rescue.org SLG day one word give day yep bigcatrescue.org SLG day and be wonderful if you could get us over that 20,000 I swear if we ever do give day again I’m call to call it 20,000 the hard way cuz man we have worked so so hard for this $20,000 we did six different videos of each one of those four conservation partners that we’re supporting each one will get $5,000 and um we’re hoping that you can help us keep that promise to them so that we get to the $20,000 so that we can U help fund all of those amazing projects that you heard about in Mexico and Peru and Brazil and Costa Rica taking care of cats like the jagari and the Jaguar Jaguar well they benefit from it um the smaller cats the OTS margay the gas the clouded Forest cat which is a new cat in town that was a Gia that lives in the clouded Forest of Costa Rica and what’s the state or the country south of Costa Rica is that Panama I think it’s Panama trying to make me look stupid well I was going to say Nicaragua I remember crossing a border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua back in the 90s and being told to look like a man which was kind of hard for me to do but all these guys on boats had guns it was really scary um but I don’t know which border I was at but anyway In This Cloud Forest is where this little pocket of those WIA live that are very unique so if they die out that’s the end of them and so we need your help in protecting them and give day is a wonderful way to make a lasting Legacy to be able to say to your children and your grandchildren I saved those cats on give day and I made it possible for them to be here so that you can even know about them because otherwise they will be lost to history so looks like we got most of our people back we got 45 people back and um was there anything that you wanted to say no I think that wraps it up thank you so much for everybody who has donated during give day all of the stars that you got guys have donated all of the donations that you’ve made on Facebook Deb will be sending that to Katie so that we can add it to this total and see if we can get over that 20,000 Mark again the URL is bigcatrescue.org give day g i v D- a y all together and we would love it if you could help us get over that $2,000 mark it would be just catastic next time we do this can I say hey all you cool cats and kittens instead of you you have to beat me to it it’s just like like put my hand over your mail all right well listen thank you all for joining us it was uh really appreciate you watching and um we’ll try to do this again at some point if you like please pardon my appearance I just got out of bed long enough to do this and I’m going right back to bed because I feel awful physically but I feel great emotionally because I know that you guys love these cats like we do and that you’re helping us support them so thank you very much for being such cool cats and kittens you could have used it right there good night everyone have a wonderful evening