Up Bear Creek without a Paddle (Part 2)

Upon more researching into pictures on his site I noticed a few things that I put behind me while working there, and I notice also how there is a large lack of updating to the site. For example the lack of "good" pictures showing the facility

For Example, the site lists Multiple animals as being at the Center where as the facts are a large Majority have died, or been moved to a new home. Such as the Caracal it was moved along with a Serval to a home on the beach, The original Jaguarundis died, as I stated before, but I think they have managed to get another one, and the "Search For Littlefoot" that his center launched has had no true progress and has not been worked on for a good while.

Some species go misclassified or misspelled, One example is the mislabeling of the Geoffroy's Cats as "Oncifelas Geoffroy" as it's Latin name where in fact it is Leopardus geoffroyi, he also labels the Serval as "Felis Serval" as well as giving it's proper name, Servals are not Classified as Felis Serval anymore if they ever were at all, instead they are  Leptailurus serval. Another mislabeling is of the Caracal, labeled as Felis Caracal, as opposed to Caracal Caracal. The Jaguarundis are labeled as Herpailurus yaguarundi, this is the old Latin name of the animal, it it now Puma yagouaroundi. And the bobcats being labeled as "Felis Rufus" where they are now Lynx Rufus.

I know of one more, there are probably many misclassifications that I don't feel like listing, the final one I'll list is the Old Classification of the Panthers as "Felis Concolor" in a taped interview but now it is Puma Concolor. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that these are old proper names and the site has not been updated aside from adding new posts on the front page or new pages.
His site is not an educational resource, nor are his tours as the same outdated information is given most of the time and Jim needs to realize that adding "Felis" to the names does not make them proper for these cats.

Updated: 7/26/2011 to show a picture containing the labeling of the "Electric Fence"

His site gives images that are outdated, confusing in the sense of direction, and then some of substandard cages that are dangerous or at the very least irresponsible. For example, the image above shows a cage that has since been brought to standards but at the time this image was taken it seems that he was using either barbed wire or an electrical fence system in place of a roof while what seems to be a Bobcat or Lynx (Possibly multiple.). This is not only dangerous to the cat, it is dangerous to the humans around the facility, as barbed wire isn't a real great deterrent. Not to mention the ladder being left on the ground giving the illusion of his center being as Carole Baskin put it "a back yard menagerie", if you can't put away a simple ladder how can we expect you to take care of animals effectively.

He also praises his center as having "clearly marked paths" which according to him are required by law and while in the images he has these paths, they are old images and these "paths" have since been been overgrown, and a large majority lost to the sands of time. The paths have been rocks that he laid out that became overgrown with plants, then he used a tractor to make a path by raking some of the stuff a path that wasn't "clearly marked".

 

Jim has been flirting with the idea of returning to the breeding portion of his "conservation" as I stated before, unfortunately he is currently not licensed as a breeder, and despite him constantly speaking against keeping these animals as pets going as far to have a side bar on his site saying "We do not sell pets" he wishes to sell them. Take my advice if you need to have one of these animals as a pet buy from a Licensed and Proven breeder, not someone who will say one thing and do others.

It is also safe to note Jim nor his "interns" have made any appearances at local (at least for a long while) schools, aside from the one his wife works at, and if I recall, none of their animals were there, I was sent to my mom's work to give a speech on the animals Jim was invited but decided to delegate it due to the aforementioned aversion to disabled people, Here's a tip, if you want to educate the public take the animals to the schools and give your little TV speeches on the stage. As long as the animals are small and well handled there shouldn't be much of a problem, nor would there be an issue showing videos of the others. It is also safe to say more than half of the stuff on his "Education" page didn't happen in my 7 months there. Except the cleaning, "enriching", and giving tours. I did however get to observe the vet a few times come to the center.

Finally, upon requesting him to remove my family's images, videos, and other work from his website, Youtube and other forms of his propaganda using my face, my family's faces and our work. He has not replied to my requests nor has he removed the videos made by my family. I believe that if we are not allowed there we should not be being used to make him more money. I refuse to have my face attached to a place where I'm no longer allowed to be thanks to the immaturity of such a person. I may be seeking legal action against such.

Of course I'm not going to continue to drone on about the Feline Center, despite it having given a massive spike in my views.

Tune in next time for my review on the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Florida.

Have a nice day,
Stephen Swift