A letter from Howie to Leonora LaPeter Anton at the St. Pete Times

 

Dear Leonora,  Carole tells me that your recent questions have been directed at getting more views on exotic pet ownership and about the numbers of cats in the wild. Thank you for taking the time to do that.

 

There is one comment in one of your emails that I would like to address.  You may well have decided at this point the structure of your story and what you are going to include, so nothing I say may matter.  But I would like to make one distinction clear in case it is not.  The distinction is between mentioning Don’s disappearance versus the mentioning the claims of Carole’s involvement.  I believe in one email you suggested Carole might not like your mentioning Don’s disappearance, and you made reference to her denying involvement.

 

Mentioning Don’s disappearance is not really something with which Carole has a problem.  I’m not sure it would be a “big case” other than for the media circus that surrounded it, and I think that media coverage was generated not by the disappearance but by the false claims of Carole’s involvement. I doubt if Don’s disappearance would appear on your radar if it were not for these false claims and the hope of the breeders/owners that you will revive them. Those claims were not made by law enforcement, they were made by individuals who had something to gain.  Law enforcement did their investigation and the result is obvious.  But, it is a true fact that he disappeared, it is part of the history of the sanctuary and of Carole’s personal history.

 

In contrast to mentioning the disappearance as part of the history, repeating ten year old lies like those groundless accusations is different.  It makes titillating reading for the masses.  But I believe it serves no journalistic purpose or public benefit.  It only serves the breeders/owners who make any effort they can to try to cause Carole pain, use up our time on their false complaints, and distract from the meaningful issues of extinction and captive animal ownership.

 

Carole mentioned to you some of the various ways in which the breeder/owners file false complaints with regulatory or accrediting bodies. This week we experienced a new one that I think is one of the best examples of what we are dealing with when it comes to the tactics and ethics of these people.  Carole received a call for “Carole Lewis” from a regulator saying Carole was behind in child support payments for her son.  Carole’s only son was a stepson for whom she was never financially responsible who died in a car accident years ago.  The regulator who called concluded she must have the wrong Carole Lewis, not that uncommon a name, and we would have thought so too except for events later in the day.  Carole got to the sanctuary to learn that our manager’s drivers license had been suspended for his allegedly failing to make child support payments.  Scott has never been married and has no children.  Think this is a coincidence?  I suspect there is some hotline where people can anonymously report child support violators and the breeders/owners used it, like their false anonymous claims to Workers’ Compensation and others.

 

I did not ask you the content of the “tip” you said put this story on your radar.  But I can tell you one thing for sure.  The sole purpose of the tip, like these other actions, is to use you to cause Carole pain, try to discredit her, and use up our time to distract us from the work of changing the laws to protect the animals.  The justifications these people use for their selfish treatment of the animals generally do not find acceptance with the public, who show increasing concern over the treatment of animals.  So instead of intelligent debate on these issues, their primary tactic basically to “fight dirty” by spreading lies to try to discredit Carole since she is prominent in this effort and being effective in the trend toward tougher laws.

 

Whether you print the lies about invo