BIG CAT SANCTUARY STILL FACING LAWSUIT WAR WITH NEIGHBOR GROUP

TIGER HAVEN, big cat sanctuary is still under attack by neighbors. 

A visit some years ago showed the sanctuary to be clean and the big cats receiving good care and veterinary help as needed. The sanctuary is larger now but even then similar complaints were voiced in public venue from a group of residents in the area. Not in the current article (link below) are positive comments from other neighbors reported some few years ago. There may very well be motives more personal than the stated complaints, as earlier legal actions were alleged as “land war” concerned less with the cats than “outsiders” purchasing the land in the first place. Who but the people involved know the real truth?  Likely none of us do!  I have not approached Tiger Haven in an effort to gain photography access for posts such as this one.  See the Tiger Haven website for current operational and rescue information.

Neighbors Sue the Sanctuary

http://bigcatrescue.org/2011/tiger-haven-sued-for-10-million-by-neighbors/

Counter-suit by Tiger Haven

http://www.wate.com/story/15479533/tiger-haven-sues-roane-county-neighbors-over-harassment

Please go to the Tiger Haven website and see what it looks like in a peaceful view:

http://tigerhaven.org/page.asp?page=3&p=About%20Tiger%20Haven

Tiger Haven is simply defined as a sanctuary, a place for rescued large cats to live out the rest of their years in peace. Tiger Haven is private and not a zoo. It is not a breeding facility and in fact, males are provided vasectomies, a method allowing the cats to live more naturally without adding to the cat population. See the Tiger Haven website and be pleased with the rescues done there.  The work is tireless and does come at a price.  Contributions are always needed, including money, particular supplies and veterinary services.

The big cat population consists of many different species including lions, tigers, leopards and cats of rarer types rescued from unhealthy and often illegal ownership situations.

RESCUED AND ADOPTED CATS NEW LIFE HISTORIES

NEW PAGES WILL TELL OF CATS ADOPTED AND RESCUED. The cats came from shelters or "showed up" living on their own in neighborhoods having been dumped or after escape from cruelty.  These animals have lived in a good home for several years since rescue and each has a story to tell. 

Molly is a gray blue cat with very soft fur...adopted 3 years ago after being lost or thrown out.

 Click for a larger view.

Many people make good caretakers for pets. Unfortunately, many who take in pets, whether dogs, cats or other animals simply do not provide the care the animals need.  The animal may have a home but later die because proper  medical attention was not considered needed for an "animal" or the owners were not willing or able to pay for medical care. Females of both cats and dogs are often adopted then become pregnant because the owner cannot afford to spay the animal or simply refuses to pay for spaying.  The female may then be dumped, taken to the shelter or worse.  Babies are given away with little thought of the home awaiting them or are taken to shelters. In a worse case, babies are killed because they are not wanted and the mother is blamed for becoming pregnant.

WILL YOU BE A GOOD PET OWNER/CARETAKER?   Read the short stories of the cats in upcoming pages and ask if you would be as willing to provide for the animals.  Animals bred for pets do not survive well in the wild, regardless of the misconceptions of them being wild animals and capable in wild settings. A feral cat or dog will survive only a few short years and a domestic one dumped into the wild will die in a relatively short time of starvation, predation or disease.

I HOPE YOU ARE OR WILL BE A RESPONSIBLE PET CARETAKER. The situation is one of sharing and those who love domesticated animals will readily tell how much the animal provides in joy, comfort, companionship and simple fun. As this article is continued, short stories of particular rescued animals will be told, simple stories you may find very well worth reading. 

Look for new stories on the tabs in the header of this web page. 

 The stories will tell of funny things, strange events and health issues faced and taken on.  Happy stories are best and most of the upcoming stories will be happy ones.  I will tell of ghostly cats and a cat who was a genius in geometric designs. You will also read of hydration for cats with kidney failure and radio iodine treatment for cats with overactive thyroid glands.  You will also learn how the very, very biggest was the most gentle and quiet of all..with heart of love.

The stories will be published as pages, a method used in blogs to tell continuing and connected articles.  To publish as daily posts always puts the most recent story at the top. That is good for daily postings but for a continued article everything is backwards, last to first. So, to keep it in order, tabs will be in the page header for the cat stories so you may easily choose which to read.

I may solicit your story?  Do you want to tell readers about your rescued pet? Email that to me and I will get back with you about using it. I am still thinking how this might work out. If you want, I can edit and rewrite your story for you. Stories will need to be no longer than the post you are now reading. (My MS Word says this is about 600 words. Do not worry about the exact length but please try to stay close.)

Now, I am off to do other business and hope you will find the upcoming pages on rescued animals to be worth reading and passing on to others.        Sincerely,   Thomas Haynes..

PHOTO EXHIBIT "HOW TO" FOR BEGINNERS IS REMOVED.

I have saved it all including the photos and will provide the info to anyone needing it again in the future. For now, other projects await and the photo exhibit pages need to be revamped and updated prior to republishing.

You want what?  Email me or comment to this post to suggest an article.  I know something of digital photography work and processing. Suggest a photo if you want to do that. I know a lot about jewelry work but am burned out on that now. (In the sidebar  there is a link to a place I help with  jewelry questions...please use that link and not the blog for jewelry subjects.) I do know something of God and Christ in Christianity. 

My Christianity..a point of view for life developed over many years,  thinking I had a handle on the life God wants for me and learning I have much more to learn about what is really happening. I am learning better how to endure tougher times and try to see what that has to do with my growth as a person of God.  That personal trial and journey is on going and vital.  The tabbed pages on "God" are imagination used to paint a story of a search for God.  The method is flawed as thoughts flowed with a stream of consciousness to the keypad; yet, value is there in an "unedited" sort of way.  Those pages are not complete. That is one wall I face:  Trying to complete the "God" pages in a meaningful, telling manner.  It must be done in truth and not so hidden in surreal environments and imaginary places.

In the meantime, let's be off to fun, joy, happiness and...endurance.

Yellow Rose, Red Rose...Anniversary Treasure in an Off Year

Symbols of Memories...

Is it a song, a photograph, a smell or a place?  What stirs your memories to events wonderful and to events you would rather not remember?  I will speak only of good memories today and small treasures in life in the form of an actual thing and the memory it brings to surface in my thoughts.

While serendipitous events of everyday life may evoke pleasing thoughts of happenings long passed, many of us create small boxes of memory joggers for no reason other than holding our memories and for sharing with others. The dried roses in the photo are one small treasure in this home. At other places in the home are discretely displayed vases of dried roses.  Given to celebrate and remember our wedding anniversary,  each year was marked with an additional fresh yellow rose.  The number was up to over two dozen roses when the cut back happened.

Going into the new year of 2011 my employment was cut away. In a couple of months she lost her job, also.  This was a year for a vase of many roses delivered so she could enjoy the blossoms and opening buds during the work week. She might even receive a kind comment from a coworker.  All of that would bring joy to me.  But not this year...no  roses and no office for delivery.

Look at the vase in the photo.  On the left is one dried red rose and with it one yellow one.  This year, there is a yellow rose for the year and a red one to represent all the years before.  These roses have a home in the vase of roses from an earlier year. Next year should bring a new vase very, very full of yellow roses.  And, there is an office to receive the delivery.


I must pray thanksgiving to our God for the many years and now for her new employment.  By next year, I should be re-employed, one way or the other.  I also thank God for creating such beauty as roses.  These flowers do hold significant places in my memories, whether the yellow one of anniversary or the old Welsh roses from an earlier  post.


What you might have of good memories, what you might have of kindness in your heart relived...I pray those thoughts will come to bring you joy.

.

Vultures are Vultures...Vultures are not Buzzards...

"Look at all those buzzards!  There must be a hundred of them up there."  There could very well be a hundred vultures going from horizon to horizon, seeming to glide the full path without a wing beat. To get technical, they are not buzzards except by adapted local language usage.  The term "buzzard" is used in the UK to describe soaring hawks and not vultures.  Like it or not, the Brits are right on this one!  Still, after years of associating the word buzzard with vultures I do not call any hawks "buzzards" and likely never will.  Buzzard does not sound dignified enough for hawks, not to me.   In fact, after being around vultures for a while, I don't call them buzzards, either.

                                                             A Young Black Vulture

My name used as a watermark is added to all on-line photos to help prevent ripping of © material. Sorry it must be that way..

An American definition of buzzard will include the turkey buzzard as a alternative meaning. The term is well accepted in parts of North America, so well accepted that if you should call a soaring hawk a buzzard you will likely be corrected: "Bud, that's a chicken hawk. It sure isn't any buzzard."    Truth again is there is not a hawk named "chicken hawk" but folks love to call any hawk a chicken hawk.  Perhaps the bird hunting Cooper's Hawk is how chicken hawk came to be applied to hawks.  A man I know grew up in Brooklyn, New York City...he spoke of chicken hawks and squirrel hawks. He could take me on a tour of New York City (I would be lost otherwise) but that tour would reveal no squirrel hawks.

As this post is continued, a pint sized box of knowledge about vultures will be opened.  What I know of these neat big birds is a small plate but is truth, solid honest stuff about vultures. For instance, a vulture will prefer a  fresh meal to a road side pancake.  A meal recently placed on the table beats one left there for days and even vultures have a sense of  preference in that.  Vultures are bald headed...true of adults. The young black vulture in the photo has a full feathered "hair line".  As this bird matures, the head will become grayish  white and featherless. Why is that do you think?  This vulture was rescued and eventually went to live in a vulture center with others of its kind unable to live in the wild. (Yes, there are licensed homes for rescued vultures.)
                                 Vultures...are not buzzards will be continued...

The Girl Went For the Vulture.  The Guy in Sunglasses Had Nothing To Say
...a very short and true vulture story

When that turkey vulture came over the second time and this stranger, a man old enough to be her father spoke of vultures, she turned to the stranger then searched the sky for the vultures again. "I had no idea," she said.  A silence covered that place as nature had her time, captivating each of us watching as the vulture became only a dot in the sky then vanished. 

The young lady went back talking with the guy in the sunglasses.  We hiked back to the road and looked for other trails above the gorge.

What had been said that so caught the girl's attention?  I told her we were moving too quickly for a turkey vulture to be interested. When looking for dinner, they choose the slowest possible moving things...dead is slow enough. And if disturbed, they will throw up.   Vultures will throw up and you do not want to be there.  Eating dead things preferably fresh but not always, a vulture must have an incredible defense against infection. Part of that defense is a quite high acidity in the digestive tract.  The expelled material will not only smell terrible but  can irritate the skin from the acid content.  Of course, at the rehab center caretakers clean up the material without touching it.  This is a part of vulture life, eating and throwing up more often than we would after dinner.

Notes about the vultures shown: The young vulture at the top is a Black Vulture and will have a grayish white head as an adult. The adult in the lower photo is a Turkey Vulture and has a red head and face. The wings are marked differently and the tails are shaped differently in these two breeds. 
Here is a link to follow.  Cornell, Black Vulture

Red Tailed Hawk Beak and Eye Close Up

This is the same young bird of prey in the post below. After seeing the photos showing the beak close up, I decided to post today for anyone who wants to see a good look at a red tailed hawk beak.  The eye is clean and clear but is not quite the richer iris color of the mature red tailed hawk...a little more time and the eye will be that of an adult. On the chest there is more "butter scotch" color than when Jesse was younger.  A detailed full shot of this hawk will be posted when I get a really good one.

Click for larger view. Sorry, the watermark across the photo is needed to help prevent unauthorized use of photographic property belonging to me and the raptor center.  For prices of large prints without the watermark please email me from link at top right. I will clear your email from the spam blocker and get back with you, keeping your information private.