100 Things Howie Brought Into My World or The First 12 Years

Howie Anniversary 100 things I didn't have before you.

 

The day I met you:

 

1. Some of our cats still lived in small runs in the parking lot and on concrete.

2. We had 10,000 visitors and were down 12% from the year before due to 9/11. 2002

3. We had never created an annual report.  2002

4. Our name was Wildlife on Easy Street and didn't say what we did.  2003

5. There was no prohibition on selling and transporting big cats across state lines. 2003

6. We had no audited statements and could not qualify for larger grants.  Our largest outside gift had been $10,000.  2003

7. Our gift shop was a single room in a 1970's trailer and our register was a tool box in a metal cage.  2003

8. Our front gate was a chain link panel that kept falling off the tracks.  2003

9. We had never had radio ads.  2003

10. No retailer had ever proudly announced they would cease to carry fur.  2004

11. People still defanged and declawed big cats to make them more pliable for cub handling.  2004

12. We didn't have proper zoning and were in danger of developers running us off.  2004

13. We didn't have an Admin branch of the Volunteer Program.  2004

14. We didn't have an Intern Program.  2004

15. We didn't have an Operant Conditioning Program.  2004

16. We didn't have an Education Director.  2004

17. We didn't have a Point of Sale program.  2004

18. We didn't have a way to connect our supporters to their lawmakers.  2004

19. Food prep was a truck body with one row of sinks, one row of tables, and 6 people slinging machetes.  We could only store a couple days' food.  2004

20. We didn't have a dumpster, so we had to carry hundreds of pounds of trash each day to the end of the street and clean up the mess made by people and animals.  2004

21. We had not yet been reviewed by Charity Navigator, but achieved their highest rating right out of the gate.  2004

22. There was no national conference for animal advocacy.  2005

23. We had never had a golf tournament.  2005

24. We needed to increase our budget for whole prey so we could rehab our first baby bobcat, named Faith.  2005

25. We didn't have a recycling program.  2005

26. We had never had a $10,000 in tours.  2005

27. We had no rear entrance and were trapped if a tree fell across Easy Street.  2005

28. We had never created and sold a Big Cat Calendar.  2005

29. We had never had a corporate giving campaign.  2005

30. We had never been able to qualify for the Federal Combined Federal Campaign.  2006

31. Ringling had never attempted a season without tiger acts.  2006

32. We had never been listed in Charity Guide's List of Volunteer Opportunities.  2006

33. YouTube didn't exist.  We had no regular video presence online.  2006

34. People were petting, hand feeding, swimming with and having their photos made with adult lions and tigers.  2007

35. It was still legal to walk lions, tigers, leopards and cougars on leashes in public.  2007

36. Federal rules were finally written to enforce the 2003 Captive Wildlife Safety Act.  2007

37. There had never been an online resource that showed where big cats were kept.  2007

38. The USDI had never defined a sanctuary as a place that did not buy, breed, sell, trade nor allow public contact.  2007

39. Florida did not require any sort of liability insurance or bond for Class I owners.  2007

40. We had never been able to rally advocates enough to halt a big cat exhibit at a fair.  2007

41. We had never been in U.S. News and World Report.  2007

42. We could not afford a proper cemetery nor memorial plaques for our cats.  2007

43. We had not been able to provide meaningful conservation funding for snow leopards, African wildlife nor South American ecosystems.  2007

44. We had never had our PSA's run on T.V.  2007

45. We didn’t have a rehab cage that was state of the art.  2007

46. We didn't have worker's comp, so we only had 3 employees.  2008

47. No country had yet banned the use of big cats in circus act