Today we celebrate Independence and this time next year the big cats will celebrate it too.

So many good things are happening in the world as information is available to the masses.  Every week comes with new announcements such as another state enacting a bullhook ban, to keep circus acts from bringing elephants to town, or another county announces that they will protest the bear hunt in FL.  Our 3 prong approach to ending big cat abuse barrels forward and the end is in sight.

 

Facebook has proven to be a major ally with their recent launch of Facebook LIVE.  I’ve been trying to do at least one a day for Big Cat Rescue and every other day or so for explore.org.  The 15-20 minute ones are getting about 35,000 views and claim a reach of 750,000 to 900,000. Compared to my DailyBigCat YouTube account getting 800-1200 views for video I have to edit, FB is allowing me to reach a lot more people.  Since they can respond in real time, it’s like a conversation where they type and I answer by voice while the camera is showing one of the cats.

 

The one downfall was the sound, so I bought a $500 mic and it is awesome!  The audience has responded enthusiastically.  I am very happy to have these tools.  I weave in the story of the cat being shown, and tell about some issue that is relative to them, and then give a call to action.  Yesterday it was some nitwit running a fair who was allowing Dade City’s Wild Things to bring baby wild animals to the fair to pimp out for photos.  A lot of the viewers said they send her an email.  I’ll be curious to know if it did any good.

 

I had a long talk w/ Max Valverde of FareHarbor yesterday.  Even though I chose his competitor, Peek, he was still trying to help us get our phone line diverted back to us from Zerve.  He had given Zerve over $100,000 to keep the lights on from July 5-8 so that customers could make the moves they needed after the holidays.  He seems to have high integrity; something I don’t feel like I experience at Peek.  I chose Peek because I felt they were more stable, had more staffing, and have better reporting.  

 

Zerve had a  34 million dollar infusion of capitol, according to Max, and burned through it trying to become the next TripAdvisor w/ booking capacity.  FareHarbor was bootstrapped by him and his partner and had refused 20 million in VC $ because what the VC wanted them to do was cannibalize the competition by undercutting prices and then, once they were the only game in town, have them jack the rates up. They didn’t want to treat their customers that way and refused the money.

 

I can’t wait for this holiday to be over so I can get some work done in switching our 888 number from Zerve back to us and so that I can switch Zerve.com/bigcatrescue back to BigCatRescue.org/tickets  I’ve had trouble with my credit card bills not getting to me too, so my card is overdue again, but I can’t get the bank on the phone till Monday to see about setting up autopay from my bank.

 

Meanwhile all of this stress to retain our $900,000 annual tour revenue is a nice problem to have.  Not having the revenue at all would have been much more stressful.

 

Hi, I’m Carole Baskin and I’ve been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.  

 

You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile!

Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile

 

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