Big Cat Rescue's Cats Have Moved to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge

For thirty one years the mission of Big Cat Rescue has been expressed as having three prongs: to give the best life we could to the cats in our care, to stop the abuse, and to avoid extinction of big cats in the wild. For those same thirty years we have always said that our goal was to “put ourselves out of business,” meaning that there would be no big cats in need of rescue and no need for the sanctuary to exist.

With the passage of the BCPSA, we believe we have stopped 90% of the mistreatment of big cats. Without a supply of cubs being discarded from cub petting, and with the population of cats in backyards ending over the next decade or so as those cats pass away, the need for rescues will gradually decline. Because operating a sanctuary involves a significant amount of fixed overhead, as the cat population declines, the cost per cat steadily becomes a less and less efficient use of donor funds.

In order to maximize the degree to which we can fulfill that three-pronged mission, Big Cat Rescue has entered into an agreement with another excellent, GFAS accredited sanctuary, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, in Arkansas.  We helped fund the building of enclosures there and moved all of our cats there. We will now provide financial support for the care of our cats there at lower cost than if we kept them here. 

This will allow us to maximize the degree to which we can fulfill our mission by focusing all of our effort on the third prong of our mission, i.e., donating to in situ projects to save big cats in the wild from extinction. Many of these species are dangerously close to extinction and need help urgently.

In the meantime, 2024 is going to be the most challenging financial year in the history of the sanctuary. The only practical way for us to make this work is for Big Cat Rescue to finish funding and building the enclosures at Turpentine Creek that will house our cats. That is expected to cost in excess of $1.8 million. At the same time that we are funding that construction, we have to fund the normal expenses of operating the sanctuary grounds as we wind everything down. We hope that the donors whose generosity has made it possible for us to accomplish so much over the last thirty one years will help us fund this transition that is a win-win in terms of supporting our cats in larger enclosures at lower cost while allowing us to do more to save big cats in the wild from extinction.