FWC Witch Hunt

Public Records Request :: W031112-092915. Lt Loren Lowers called me just now and said the reason the cost is so high ($10,153.35) is that there are 1,142 emails and over 12,000 trackers with my search terms in it during that year and a half span.

 

Trackers are what they call each interaction on a subject.

 

He said they have to redact everything that is sensitive information, so that's why the fee is so high.  He says they can only charge based upon the hourly rate of the lowest paid person in the agency, which is 10.00 an hour.

 

I'm inclined to make them do it, just so they think twice before discussing us again.

 

Clearly, they don't want us to have the information.

 

I asked him how the bad guys managed to get their hands on the "wrong" version of their witch hunt (I didn't call it that) and he said that it was on their sharepoint as both the original and the corrected version so when someone asked for that report specifically, they got both.  He further explained that because they got it by email, there are now 4 copies of it that would come up in a search.  2 copies of the original and 2 copies of the corrected one.

 

Future Note:  12/16/2021 

 

It occurs to me as I’m reading this that I never wrote about what it was the bad guys got their hands on from 11/7/2014.  This was our rebuttal to the FWC and they corrected their report to accurately report that we were NOT in violation despite them having characterized us as being so in their first report.  I would also like to point out that the FWC has figured out who the bad guys really are and has stopped harassing us on their behalf. 

 

“The exotic animal exploiters who attack Big Cat Rescue online due to our efforts to end the mistreatment of exotic animals in private hands have posted an inspection by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) conducted on November 7, 2014.  This was a very unusual inspection in which three officials went in different directions and spent 6 hours each examining the sanctuary in extraordinary detail.

 

The version of the report the attackers have reported was the initial report which erroneously characterized their observations as violations.  The final report, which the attackers also have but of course chose not to publish, clearly stated that none of the findings were violations.  They were recommendations for maintenance which, if they were not attended to, at some point could become violations.  See the final language below:

 

 

 

The recommendations were primarily items that are dealt with in our normal ongoing maintenance of the sanctuary.  All were addressed in a timely fashion. A USDA inspection, as usual, no violations, and the next FWC inspection, as usual, found no violations.  Big Cat Rescue has a near perfect inspection record over the years and never had any comment by any official that related to care of the animals.

 

The report noted some areas that showed signs of rust.  We live in humid Florida, and some rust is a fact of life.  We deter rust using brown Rustoleum paint and we repaint cages on an ongoing regular maintenance program.

 

The attackers, who have no regard at all for the truth, falsely post repeatedly that the brown color of the Rustoleum on the cage wire is all rust. One refers to BCR as a “jungle of rust.” If all the cages were totally rust like the lies of the attackers claim, don’t you think FWC would have noted that?

 

Rust is, in fact, not a violation of any rule.  The relevant rule is that the cages must meet certain strength requirements.  This makes perfect sense – the cages have to be strong enough to contain powerful animals.  The concern with rust is that if you use the minimum gauge wire and it rusts, the strength could diminish below the minimum requirement.  That is why Big Cat Rescue uses cage wire that is FAR in excess of the minimum.  Even with minimal amount of rust that may appear before the next painting cycle, our cages far exceed the requir