Had to hire an off duty officer today

because the crazy animal abusers have come to town for a conference called Take the Conversation Back. It’s being run by the Calvary Group, who are considerably better organized and educated than our typical opponent.

Meanwhile, some good news. Tim Van Norman, from the USFWS, set up a call with us and Christina Scaringe of Animal Defenders International to discuss the import of Hoover the tiger from Peru. He wanted to grant it but didn’t want to base it on our meeting the requirements of the law, because he says it’s too easy for the bad guys to make the same claims. He asked us to SAY that we would donate to tiger conservation in the future like we have done in the past.

We did him one better and donated $5000 when he said 1k would be fine. Our import permit should be coming in the next 2 weeks if I got his drift.

Also USDA has a new lead person in APHIS who sent us all (the Big Cat Coalition) a letter saying they would educate the bad guys about why cub handling is bad, but were so vague that it seemed they were just trying to blow us off while being able to answer to Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Blumenthal. Anna Frostic, atty for HSUS and Leigh Henry of WWF both seem to be more optimistic from their respective meetings, than what I feel from this letter. We will see.

Last night we went to a fundraiser, at the Sena’s home on Davis Island, for Patrick Murphy, who is running for Congress. On the way home we stopped at Sandy’s restaurant, Tampa Joe’s, to pick up my credit card that I left behind last Sunday when my mother and I went their for lunch. Howie called my mother, putting her on speaker, to let her know that she could stop looking for it, and to tease me about being so forgetful. Mom said I’ve always been this way.

I know I have been since the amnesia, but don’t know if I was always this way.

Later in the day:

Half way through Denny Mitchell’s tour a backup intern called for coordinator check. Gale and I both went. I stayed with the tour until they left the property.

Gale said they were asking the intern specifics about whether or not Teisha really belonged to us and about the other OH cats and taking photos of things that regular guests never do.

A small, thin, blonde, 20ish woman was the one asking all the questions and her friend, a larger woman, with a long blonde braid, was filming her asking and then filming the answers, but they seemed to be trying to act like they didn't know each other. I glued myself to the thin blonde and she never asked another question, nor did she pull her camera back out, which I had been told she was using for video, but trying to make it look like she wasn't. She was carrying it, awkwardly, and pointing at me initially, from what I saw, and then quit when I was right next to her for the rest of the tour.

She wasn't wearing the vox, but rather had it and the earbud, coiled up in her hand. Everyone else at least had it around their necks, although a number of people weren't wearing the earbud. Denny was talking loud enough that I could hear him in the back and he doesn't play the iPad stories.

I noticed there was one male, tall, bald, middle eastern looking who was engrossed in his cell phone, not wearing the vox, and who kept lingering behind. He wasn't looking at cats when he lingered. Just his phone. A few times I had to leave the blonde just to let him know I was watching him too. He was clearly with a young, dark haired woman of mid 20s and an elderly woman, who appeared to be her mother, who was riding the golf cart. I was able to figure out that Cynthia F paid for the trio and the cart. She also bought stuff at the end and was very polite and interested, according to Denny. The decoy ;-)

At the Kitten Cabana the dark haired woman seemed put off by what we do with the kittens, which you don't see very often, and seemed to exchange glances with the thin blonde, who appeared to agree. She had wanted nothing to do with looking at kittens.

As Denny did his wrap up, shortly after that, the middle eastern guy and the dark haired woman went to the far side of the golf cart, away from Denny and the back up, and the middle eastern guy was clearly agitated and showing the woman his phone. I walked around and got right behind both of them and he stopped talking.

The heavy set friend of the thin blonde took photos of the solar relay up on the post that we just installed, all of the cage signs, all of the donor signs, me and the thin blonde and had a goofy grin on her face like she was at Disney land on her 6th birthday.

I followed them all into the gift shop, where the they had all five huddled together around the photos we sell. They were talking like they all knew each other. When I walked up to join them they acted like they were thinking to buy photos but no one did. Then the three younger women all proceeded to take one of every piece of literature they could find. The man was still mesmerized by his phone. The woman who rode on the cart, and who probably was Cynthia F, bought two magnets, long after all of the rest of them had gone to their cars.

I noticed that once she was in the dark BMW or Mercedes SUV with the middle eastern guy and the dark haired woman, that the red Dodge mini van where the two blondes had gone, closed their doors and led the way out of the parking lot. I took a photo of their tag. The middle eastern guy could clearly see me doing it, as he was one car behind her.

As he pulled out I took a photo of his plate. He saw me in the rear view mirror, because clearly he was watching for me to do it, and backed up, demanding that I delete the photo. I told him I'd delete the photo if he showed me his driver's license. He refused, but said he'd show it to the deputy. The deputy told us that I didn't have to delete the photo, and tried to talk the guy down, but he was having kittens over it.

I told the officer that I'd be happy to delete it, if the man would show the officer his driver's license. The officer said he didn't care to see it and began saying again that I didn't have to delete the plate. The guy then showed his driver’s license to me, and asked if I would delete the photo. I had a hard time reading it, because I was nervous, I have a hard time reading with contacts, and he was all shaky, but it looked like H.

I deleted the image and then he asked me to delete it from trash. I'd never done that before, so he walked me through it, and I deleted it there too. Then he was as happy and nice as anyone you could ever meet. Maybe just a culture thing. AND, it could have just been that he saw me photograph the other car and that made him suspicious. It's possible the two groups weren't connected.

In the time we spent arguing over the photo of his plate, he asked why he would pay money to come here and I would invade his privacy. I told him there are animal abusers in town, pointed to the officer and said that's why he's here, and that by watching him I could tell that he had no interest at all in the tour or the cats. He said he was mad because he had asked the intern where a cat came from and she told him he would have to ask the tour guide.

He claims that is what set him off (and it didn't take much). He couldn't believe we were so rude. I pointed out that the rules video they were shown before the tour specifically told guests that they can't ask our back ups questions and that our back ups aren't allowed to be having their own conversations. He told me he has a thousand dogs back home, and that he's an animal lover and would never harm an animal. He asked why I had singled him out and I told him that he wasn't the only one acting suspicious and that I had taken photos of them and their plates too.

I wanted to be sure the blondes got that message, if he really is with them.

Summary is: I don't know if the two groups were together and no way to know, from the Zerve list, who the blonde ladies were. If it is any indicator Elizabeth D bought her two tickets the same day and both Elizabeth and Cynthia had stated they had been here before. Elizabeth D filled out the release form on 3/2/16 according to Salsa, which would have been at the time of her ticket purchase.

Other than asking about the OH cats and taking odd photos, they weren't much bother, and probably not worth the time I spent documenting this, but I figured better safe than sorry.

Howie pointed out, after watching checkin, that he was surprised how hard it is to tell our guests from the bad guys. I didn't find any of these names in our blocked list from FB, nor in Joe's friends list.

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

You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org

Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue

Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion. Closing graphic with permission from https://youtu.be/F_AtgWMfwrk

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