I have noticed a trend in the exotic feline community that I've dubbed the "Embittered Sanctuary Operator's Syndrome." This is a condition wherein people who started as private owners get involved in rescue or sanctuary work, and eventually end up condemning private ownership of exotic cats.

Even the notorious Tippi Hedren, who now runs a large sanctuary and campaigns viciously against the right to own exotic cats, started out as a private owner. The founder of Wildlife on Easy Street, now known as the anti-ownership Big Cat Rescue, started out to buy a bobcat as a pet from a fur farm and ended up purchasing the farm's entire stock of bobcats to save their lives. If one woman hadn't decided she wanted a pet bobcat, those 56 cats would have died.

These stories are so common that I would venture to say that if we didn't have private owners, we wouldn't even have most of the sanctuaries that operate today. The animal-rightists would probably counter that without private owners, we wouldn't need those sanctuaries. But as Conservator’s Center Inc.’s Mindy Stinner says, "most of our rescues and placement animals come from USDA facilities;" zoos and breeders.

So what causes sanctuary operators to abandon their own roots and ally themselves with those who want to see pet ownership eliminated? Have they “seen the light,” as they would like to think, or have they fallen victim to a form of voluntary brainwashing?

In some cases, a sanctuary may decry private ownership because it's socially and financially popular. FCF placement director Tracy Wilson says, "I know for a fact that many sanctuaries house animals that were not abused or neglected, but the sanctuaries claim a story of abuse about the animal in order to get donations from the public who feel sorry for the animal that was supposedly abused." A sob story about an abused lion cub tends to pull in a lot more donations than that of a beloved bobcat whose owner passed away.

There are other reasons that some sanctuaries hold themselves above private owners. As Tim Stark of Wildlife In Need points out,”sanctuary personnel tend to become more and more self righteous depending on how long they've been doing it, and how large of an operation they're working with.” The very people who condemn private owners as being on an ego trip often boast their own, far greater, sense of delusional self-importance.

Stark’s comment brings to mind my earliest experience with a big cat handler. He was exhibiting two adorable tiger cubs at the county fair, and I wanted to meet them in the worst way. While I understand the legitimate reasons he may have had for preventing contact with the cubs, the arrogance of the way the handler refused my request provided a bitter taste of the holier than thou, “handling a big cat is rocket science” crowd. Living with these animals is challenging, and while it can be tempting to feel that one is part of an elite few, human beings have walked on the moon, invented the computer, and learned how to do laser brain surgery. I think a reasonable number of us are also capable of handling cats!

However, I feel that the biggest contributing factor to the “Embittered Sanctuary Operator’s Syndrome” is the constant exposure to the dark side of man’s treatment of animals. When faced with heart-wrenching situations, it's natural to cry out for a way to end them once and for all; to take some action that will miraculously cause the suffering to simply go away. The animal rights party line claims that these problems would disappear if people couldn’t own exotic pets, and those under the extreme stress of trying to fix a problem with no solution are more likely to abandon critical thinking for a band-aid for the soul.

As I learned volunteering at a domestic animal shelter, animal welfare work inevitably brings one into contact with the worst of owners and the saddest of situations. I’ll never forget the man who walked in and announced that he wanted to buy all of our Rottweilers, revealing to me that he planned to house each one of them in an old car and breed them to sell as guard dogs! There was the man who, when informed that there was no room in the shelter, withdrew a gun to shoot the dog he wanted to get rid of. One dog had spent all of his life on a chain. A cat arrived bleeding from all four feet because its paw pads had been burned off.

I lost count of the number of tiny kittens brought in by people who had found them dying in cardboard boxes, burlap sacks, or simply lying in the woods. Sick kittens, injured kittens, starving kittens, hypothermic kittens, abused kittens, you name it. We were reduced to housing them in endless crates stacked one on top of the other in our medical room. Every available cage would be filled to capacity and then we’d get another litter. One day I called potential foster homes for three hours, begging volunteers to come get kittens and care for them at home until they were old enough to be adopted out or until we had room at the shelter. I was fostering a nursing mother and her sick kittens at home. Staff members arrived at work each day carrying crates containing kittens that they had bottle-fed through the night.

There were the clueless people, too. One of the most memorable incidents occurred on a warm summer day, when the police dropped off a rather damp dog. It turns out that the animal escaped when the woman took her convertible though a drive-in car wash with the top down!

This is the domestic equivalent to what many sanctuary operators see, and frankly if those were extent of my experiences with animal welfare, I'd probably hate pet owners by now too. But through all that there was a saving grace that most sanctuary operators never get the opportunity to experience.

Throughout my time at the shelter, the heartwarming moments and the wonderful people far outweighed the bad. Those kittens stacked in the medical room were cared for by loving volunteers until each and every one of them found a good home. Some families arrived at the shelter intending to adopt one cat, only to fall in love with the tough little mother cat who’d been raising her litter on the streets and end up going home with her and a couple of her kittens. Others would open their hearts to the shy little black kitten hiding in the corner of the cage, knowing he might otherwise be one of the last to find a home.

The cat with the burned paw pads made a full recovery and went to live in a wonderful new home. The dog who’d lived on a chain was introduced to other dogs and the joys of racing through the sand dunes in the humane society’s huge outdoor exercise areas. He lived happily at the shelter until just the right person walked through the door and took him home. We saw people open their homes to elderly animals, animals needing expensive surgery or ongoing medication, shy animals, and aggressive animals.

The operators of many exotic feline sanctuaries fall victim to a skewed perspective. The typical sanctuary takes in animals for life, and sees only the parade of heartbreak. Without the reward of successful adoptions and the joy of seeing the animals you've rescued living in wonderful homes, without meeting the fine people who adopt and cherish them, how could one fail to become bitter?

Servals.org placement coordinator Sara Comstock sees this process beginning in her life. “Slowly, I see myself as countless others do, sway towards opposing "private ownership," not in hopes of banning private ownership, but in hopes of forbidding any new owners taking possession and at a later date, wanting to get rid of the animal. It breaks my heart to learn of an exotic in need of a home, because the "newness" of owning an exotic has diminished, or their exotic laws have changed to banning or regulations, or the exotic can not produce offspring, or the exotic gets too old or becomes ill.”

“Their hearts start in the right place, rescuing unwanted and neglected exotic animals, says Comstock. “However, after a time, the sanctuary owner/operator soon realizes that what they have done is found an easy way out for the exotic owner to "get rid" of their animals.”

So what can be done to prevent this process? It all comes down to maintaining perspective and not letting emotion cloud critical thinking. Wilson has avoided becoming embittered by maintaining contact with responsible private owners. "I find that most owners are interested in ongoing education to learn how to properly care for their cats and provide the very best life for their cats that they can. I also know more spoiled rotten exotic cats than cats in bad situations, and it’s a good feeling to know there are so many happy cats out there in good homes."

Everyone needs to stop and realize that neglect, abuse, and getting rid of pets for unjustifiable reasons are not merely exotic animal issues; they're problems that face those involved in domestic animals every day. As a matter of fact, these aren't even animal issues; we behave just as appallingly towards our own species. There is absolutely no reason to believe that these problems are any more prevalent in exotic animals. Put any pet in the hands of the human population and a percentage of people will treat that pet badly. It has nothing to do with these animals being "harder to handle." There are horses, bulls, and large aggressive dogs out there that are every bit as dangerous and difficult to care for as an exotic feline.

We torture, rape, and murder our own children. Much as one might hate to admit it, we won't see the end of animal abuse, violence, or war until we learn a great deal more about human nature and how to moderate our own behavior. Until that time, those of us who have a calling to make a difference where we can should focus our efforts where they will help the most; on helping the animals in need that we come into contact with. Devoting resources to ending pet ownership is like trying to stop a hurricane by blowing it away with a fan; utterly pointless and ineffective, helpless to alter the forces that caused the storm to form in the first place.

It’s a powerful impulse is to find someone or something to blame. But rarely are things so simple that such a scapegoat can be accurately identified. Let's look at one potential culprit; the breeder. We all know that some breeders are irresponsible and only out to make money. Once again, I want to emphasize that this is not merely an exotic animal problem; we have domestic breeders to thank for such profiteering innovations as puppy mills and pet shops. But let's try to argue that if all breeders were somehow forced in some way to become "responsible," these problems would melt away. Unfortunately, this supposition falls apart when one looks to the domestic animal shelter model.

In good shelters, potential owners are carefully screened and interviewed by caring, smart people with the animal's best interests in mind, and adoptions are declined if they feel the new home is not appropriate. However, I have seen and been part of situations where animals were adopted out to what seemed like the perfect owner, yet we found out days, months, or years later that the animal was gotten rid of, neglected, or abused by that perfect family. THE INDIVIDUAL OWNER who does these things is at fault, fair and square; not the breeder, not the shelter, not the pet owning population, but the individual.

For those who are still convinced that outlawing pet ownership is the answer, let’s look at the actual impact such laws would have on sanctuary operators and on animal welfare. What do you honestly think will happen if private ownership of exotics is truly banned?

Sanctuaries will learn the true meaning of the word "flooded." Comstock says, “It is becoming more common to see owners trying to find new homes for their exotics because a new law banning or regulating ownership is enforced or passed." When people can no longer legally possess their pets, the only places for them to go are the very sanctuaries that are pleading with legislators to pass ban laws because they are overrun with unwanted cats!

As to the welfare of those displaced cats, Stark has found that some sanctuaries are no better than the private owners they criticize. He says “I've seen sanctuaries for animals, both exotic and domestic, that were disgusting.” Wilson notes that “Ban laws will also make it difficult for new sanctuaries to get started.” Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

After all, bans don’t work! That’s right; forbidding private ownership does not end neglect or abuse. The most infamous abuse case in recent history was the discovery of dozens of dead and decaying tiger cubs along with tigers and leopards in various state of neglect at the California facility Tiger Rescue. The operators allegedly failed to acquire required permits and violated animal cruelty laws. If atrocities like this can occur in a state so heavily regulated that one cannot legally own even a ferret, what is the justification for barring responsible exotic pet ownership?

Sanctuary operator Donna Verba remains firmly convinced that responsible ownership should be allowed, noting, "Neglect or abuse is not responsible ownership; this is the product of ignorant, uneducated or cruel owners." As Stinner aptly observes, "Abuse and neglect are illegal even for domestics. More laws on top when they are usually already breaking some don't mean they will suddenly begin to comply."

Next issue, the second half of this article will put forth some suggestions on how the exotic feline community could improve the rescue and placement process, easing the burden on sanctuaries.