In her seven months working as a volunteer at Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary, Deb Urmann followed pretty much the same routine every Saturday.
She’d get to the Tarentum facility in the early morning, check the food and water bowls. She’d empty the litter boxes.
Then she’d make the rounds, picking up corpses.
Urmann says she’d find dead cats everywhere on the 29-acre site — in buildings, on the grounds, in the litter boxes themselves. She’d put the cats on top of one of the ranch’s four freezer units until the ranch’s owner, Linda Bruno, would stuff them inside. There the bodies would sit until the backhoe service would come, when Urmann would join other volunteers and Bruno in the backyard.
The backhoe would “open up the ground, and Lin would stand at the top with big welder’s gloves on and toss the dead cats into the hole, while the live cats would stand around or run across the pile of dead animals,” says Urmann. “It was surreal.”
But at least the suffering for the cats inside the pit had ended.
Urmann, of Butler County, had worked as an animal-control officer since 2004. But even she can’t help tearing up when she talks about watching a cat die before her eyes.
“That cat was so fucking hungry,” she says. “He is barely able to get himself to the food bowl, and when he gets there he just collapses into it, but he can’t eat. He then drags himself to the water, and falls into the water bowl, but he can’t drink.”
The cat then began wailing a “death cry.” Urmann picked up her cell phone and called her friends Carolyn DeForest and Rebecca Reid. Together, they listened to the cat moan for several minutes before he died.
The three women had special reason for feeling helpless. Urmann wasn’t just an ordinary volunteer, and it was no coincidence that Reid and DeForest were sitting together in a car parked a little farther down Miller Road. Along with a veterinarian named Becky Morrow, the four women were working undercover to shut Tiger Ranch down.
They weren’t cops. They weren’t humane agents. They were just angry.
“The conditions at Tiger Ranch were deplorable, and there are a lot of people out there who are culpable for that,” says DeForest, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
Tiger Ranch made headlines last spring, when it was raided March 13 by humane agents from Philadelphia and the Allegheny County sheriff’s department. Agents rescued nearly 400 cats from the facility; today fewer than 250 of those cats survive, according to Howard Nelson, the executive director for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who helped lead the raid. Nelson called Tiger Ranch a scene “like we’ve never seen before and hope to never see again.”
Much of the outrage has been directed at Bruno, also known as Lin Marie, who is scheduled to go on trial early next year. She faces almost 600 misdemeanor and summary charges for animal cruelty. On Oct. 23, prosecutors filed 17 more charges against Bruno, including seven felonies for allegedly tampering with public rabies-vaccination records. She was also charged with 10 more misdemeanors alleging that she forged a veterinarian’s signature and ran an unlicensed vet practice.
Neither Bruno nor her lawyer, Ron Valasek of New Kensington, responded to interview requests. But no matter what the outcome of her case, questions will remain. Why didn’t animal-welfare officials act earlier? And what’s to prevent such things from happening again?
“A lot of people thought of [Tiger Ranch] as Kitty Disneyland,” says Urmann. “There is no such thing.”
It’s hard to say how many cats were brought to Tiger Ranch since Bruno purchased the property in 2000. Nelson publicly estimated that “thousands and thousands” ended up there. According to testimony at Bruno’s preliminary hearing, 700 cats were taken there in the first three months of 2008 alone.
A copy of the listings from the Tiger Ranch address book, viewed by City Paper, notes more than a dozen shelters that apparently brought animals in. Cats were apparently brought from shelters as far away as New Jersey and the state of Georgia.
Tiger Ranch was, after all, a rare facility: It billed itself as a shelter where animals were free to roam, and were cared for until they were either adopted or died natural deaths. (It also offered low-cost spay and neuter programs through local veterinarians.)
Urmann worked for three years as a humane agent, during which time she thought she’d gotten to know the place pretty well. She’d begun bringing cats to the facility in 2004 while working with the Butler County Humane Society. In the months that followed, Urmann estimates that she “unfortunately took hundreds there.”
She wasn’t alone. Urmann says that Bruno was popular with humane officers because “[t]hey could bring cats there at almost any time and not get turned away.”
Nor was there much reason to do so. There is little regulation of such cat sanctuaries. By state law, any facility housing more than 25 dogs must be licensed, and the state’s Department of Agriculture has a Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement to monitor their treatment. But there are no such protections for cats — and while some animal-welfare agencies conduct their own inspections, no law requires regular visits.
Even if Urmann had suspected something was wrong, enforcement isn’t uniform across all jurisdictions. Agents receive certification from the state, but have jurisdiction only within the counties where they work. Since Tiger Ranch was outside Butler County, Urmann only stopped by briefly to drop off cats. She acknowledges that she “took the word of all the humane officers [who said] it was a good place.”
In 2007, Urmann was laid off for budgetary reasons, but she missed working with animals. Her brief interactions with Bruno had always been “friendly” and “professional,” so Tiger Ranch seemed like a great place to volunteer.
It was certainly popular. “It would get crazy there on Saturdays with the sheer volume of people waiting to bring cats in,” Urmann recalls. “They were coming from everywhere.”
But as a volunteer, Urmann says, she saw a different side of Tiger Ranch.
“I started to notice things, like the conditions weren’t that sanitary and a lot of the cats seemed to be sick,” Urmann says. Any animal-care facility has a certain number of deaths, and when Urmann had first visited the ranch, she’d thought nothing of its lone freezer unit. But “now [Bruno] had four; that told me that a lot of cats were dying. … [T]he need for four freezers just isn’t normal.
“Then I saw the death room, and I was appalled.”
The “sick” or “isolation” room was tucked in the corner of the garage. Inside were the facility’s sickest felines.
“I remember seeing a little orange paw reaching out from under the door,” Urmann says. “I asked Lin about it and she said, ‘My room, my business.’
Urmann wasn’t the first to have doubts about the facility. Some clients had already reported it to animal-welfare officials.
Former Somerset County resident Karen McCalpin, who now resides in North Carolina, was one of them. In September 2006, she had just accepted a new job, and on the advice of the local humane society, she took seven cats from her farm to Bruno.
“I had a bad feeling about the place as soon as I got there,” says McCalpin, who talks about the cats through tears. “I saw some sick cats. … But because we felt we didn’t have any other choice, we left them. I have never forgiven myself for that.”
The decision weighed on her all week. The following Saturday, she returned to the ranch to reclaim her cats. When she arrived, she says, there was a line of cars waiting to get in — including a van from West Virginia that offloaded several cages of cats as McCalpin watched.
Of the seven cats McCalpin had left, only three were still at the facility. One, Foo Foo Kitty, was sick, lying in feces. That cat would have a toe amputated, but survive. One would be euthanized that day. The other was euthanized two weeks later.
“These were all fat, happy, adoptable cats,” says McCalpin. “She claimed my other cats were in foster care or adopted, but I don’t believe that.”
McCalpin, who says she is likely to testify at Bruno’s trial, filed a complaint with the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society that day.
McCalpin’s complaint was investigated by Ron Smith, a humane officer with 35 years of experience who says he knows Tiger Ranch well. Up until 2002, the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society took cats there, and he has inspected it repeatedly.
Smith says he talked to McCalpin’s vet, and to people who were at the facility the day she tried to retrieve her cats. The vet, Smith says, told him that one of the euthanized cats had died of kidney failure and had wounds from fighting, but that it couldn’t be linked to conditions at Tiger Ranch.
Humane officers “are looking for clear signs of mistreatment, neglect or malicious cruelty to animals,” Smith says. The vet “couldn’t say those cats had been neglected,” and “[b]ased on my investigation, I couldn’t prove that a criminal offense had been committed.” What’s more, “overall I had always been impressed with the facility, and I always thought the conditions sanitary. I never saw filth or smelled strong odors.”
McCalpin finds that hard to believe: “I’m astounded that three days later, all was well at Tiger Ranch,” she says. But Smith wasn’t the only humane agent to give the facility his approval.
In 2006, the Humane Society and another local animal-welfare group, Animal Friends, conducted a joint inspection. “Each building had cat doors where the cats can go in and out the building at will, all the buildings were neatly kept, clean, and well ventilated,” wrote the inspectors. “The cats had access to plenty of food and fresh water. … All of the cats we saw were well cared for.”
Smith says he did have one misgiving about Tiger Ranch: “We’d always told Lin that we thought she had too many cats.” And concerns about overcrowding were what led the agency to stop taking its own cats there.
Animal Friends says it had similar misgivings. Despite giving Tiger Ranch a clean bill of health in its 2006 joint inspection, Assistant Director Kathleen Beaver said Animal Friends stopped sending cats the same year — again because of overcrowding.
“All the officers were concerned that Bruno was taking in too many cats,” Beaver says. “While it appeared her veterinary care, space and volunteer help was adequate, officers continued to urge Bruno not to take cats from out of state and to reduce the total number in her care.”
Over eight years, Beaver says, Animal Friends received 11 complaints about Tiger Ranch, most concerning people who wanted to get their cats back. There were complaints about sick cats not getting treatment, but those were “put to rest by the veterinarians who treated the sick cats,” she says.
In any case, state law does not limit the number of cats a person can care for. “It is not against the law to house numerous animals as long as clean, sanitary conditions are provided,” Beaver says. “It is not against the law to house sick animals as long as proper veterinary care is provided.”
“If you’re dealing with dogs, there are a lot of extra ordinances that vary by municipality,” adds Smith. “But when you deal with cats, all you’ve got are the cruelty laws.”
“Cats are oftentimes treated like second-class citizens,” says Daniel Musher, development director of the Animal Rescue League, in Pittsburgh’s East End.
But Smith kept getting called back, and in October 2007, complaints brought him to Tiger Ranch again. This time, though, he says he saw a volunteer he recognized as a former animal-welfare officer. That officer, he says, “told me everything was fine and that all the animals were being cared for. I respect her opinion. She reassured me that everything was fine, and after hearing that, I was even more encouraged.”
Smith would not identify the officer. (Because the incident will likely be brought up at Bruno’s trial, neither Smith nor his boss, Humane Society Director Lee Nessler, were willing to discuss details.) But Urmann says she had to have been the person Smith saw on that visit — and that she never spoke to him.
“That day Ron Smith showed up, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s finally over. He’s going to see what’s going on and close this place down.’ But it never happened.”
And by then, Urmann and her friends were convinced that unless they did something, it never would.
Bruno still has supporters. There have been pro-Bruno rallies and Web sites like Support Tiger Ranch (www.freewebs.com/tigerranch/), which offers buttons, hats and T-shirts for sale.
“Lin Marie is the most caring, compassionate and loving women I know,” writes one fan — “Barbie” — on the site. “She has put the love and welfare of the animals before anything else. Tiger Ranch will become bigger and better after all of this.”
In fact, Bruno’s backers contend, if conditions were so bad, wouldn’t someone have noticed sooner?
“All of a sudden people are finding things wrong,” says Chris DeRose, president of Last Chance for Animals, a California-based animal-welfare agency who has emerged as one of Bruno’s chief allies. But “Tiger Ranch has been operating for years without problems.”
“That’s the point,” says DeForest, the veterinarian. “There have been complaints at Tiger Ranch for years, but no one did anything. … That’s why we decided to do this ourselves.”
DeForest first began hearing about Tiger Ranch while volunteering for a spay/neuter program. “I began to regularly hear of complaints about Tiger Ranch and that nothing ever came of ‘official’ complaints made,” she says. And while she heard a lot about cats being taken to the Ranch, she rarely heard of any cats being taken out. We “always heard that cats were going there rather than coming out adopted,” she says. “That didn’t make sense.”
Urmann met DeForest, Morrow and Reid through a friend at Voices for Animals, a local animal-rights group. With Urmann working as a Ranch volunteer, they decided, they had an undercover agent who could find out what was really going on.
They went online and bought a buttonhole spy camera for Urmann to wear while volunteering. They conducted surveillance of the property, monitoring who came and went.
In September and October 2007, the women collected their evidence. Urmann shot video, which was released after the raid, showing freezers full of cats, as well as sick and dying animals staggering around the facility.
As they gathered their evidence, they got in touch with Last Chance for Animals, which had investigated claims of animal abuse and neglect around the country. LCA assigned investigator Mike Winikoff to begin a preliminary investigation. In a statement issued last April, Winikoff said, “I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved but then abruptly withdrawn. I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation.”
Winikoff no longer works for LCA. He gave a follow-up interview to CP about the case, though he would do so only via e-mail, citing a “legal threat” stemming from the controversy. “As a 20-year veteran of the animal-rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed,” he says.
His boss, DeRose, didn’t see it that way.
After Winikoff presented him with photos and other evidence, DeRose says he contacted a niece who worked in animal rescue in New York state. She put him in touch with three people who had taken animals to Tiger Ranch, and “they were telling me a different story altogether,” DeRose says. “I had to go to New Jersey, so I rented a car and zipped over to Tiger Ranch unannounced. I eyeballed the property, looked in some buildings — they were very clean — and saw animals frolicking and happy on the grounds.
“She wasn’t harming the animals, and everything she was doing there was up to snuff. And I’ve staked my reputation on that.”
Indeed, after the March 13 raid, DeRose issued a statement defending Bruno: “I have dozens of pictures from people who have visited this place … and couldn’t rave enough about its operation.” If the allegations were true, he added, LCA would have “put them out of business as we have done many times before!”
DeRose’s support for Tiger Ranch knocked the women back. “We were all messed up after that,” says Reid.
In the end, the group turned to Philadelphia for aid. After reading about how the Pennsylvania Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals closed down a puppy mill in January 2008, the women headed eastward. Fearful they’d be left hanging again, they made an anonymous appointment — refusing to give names or the precise reason for their visit — and flew to Philadelphia to present the evidence to Nelson.
“[W]e decided it was sufficient enough to make us take the case,” Nelson says now. And when the raid took place, Nelson says, he was glad they did: “This was one of the most horrific cases we had ever seen.”
But as PSPCA officials planned to descend on Tiger Ranch, Urmann says, Bruno got a call from a local humane officer warning her that a raid would take place in the next two days.
“Lin got off the phone and told me about the raid and I asked, ‘What did [the agent] tell you to do?'” Urmann recalls. Bruno, she says, had been instructed not to let the agents on the property because they were from outside the county and didn’t have jurisdiction. “She was supposed to call the agent, [who] would come down there and help,” Urmann says.
Bruno didn’t get the chance, though. Urmann says she warned investigators of the leak, and they raided the compound that evening instead.
“We moved up the raid to March 13th as we were concerned that Bruno would be tipped off,” says Nelson. “It turns out she was aware that something might happen, but did not have all the facts.”
Not everyone was impressed with the way the raid was conducted with out-of-county agents: Ron Smith, of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, says he was angered when he heard about the raid. “At any time these folks could have come to us” with evidence, he says, “but they never did.”
But by that point, the women had decided that local agencies had conflicting interests. The very people who were supposed to monitor Tiger Ranch, they surmised, depended on it to help take care of surplus cats.
“It was a cozy little club between [Bruno] and humane officers,” says Reid.
Adds Urmann: “It was the easiest way for a lot of shelters to get rid of a lot of cats.”
Most animal shelters fall into one of two categories: “open door” and “no kill.” In a no-kill shelter, pets are kept alive for their natural life spans, but that usually limits the number of animals they can take in.
Animal Friends, for example, operates a no-kill facility on Camp Horn Road, in the North Hills. “We value the life of each animal in our care and are committed to giving each a second chance,” Beaver says. Animals there are euthanized sometimes — if they pose a safety risk, or if their health deteriorates so much that keeping them alive would be cruel — but the agency won’t euthanize one animal to make room for another. Since the facility can hold only about 250 animals, that means animals are sometimes turned away.
By contrast, open-door shelters — like the one operated by the Animal Rescue League in the East End — accept all dogs and cats that come in. But there’s a downside.
“To help as many animals as we can, unfortunately, some animals are euthanized,” says Daniel Musher of the ARL. “We keep the animals absolutely as long as we can, especially if the animal is adoptable.” But he says the homeless-pet population numbers roughly 22,000 — and that’s just the locals. Both Musher and Nessler say they gets calls all the time from out-of-staters looking for a place to bring their animals.
Tiger Ranch, meanwhile, was an unusual hybrid. It billed itself as “no kill,” but like an open-door shelter, it seemingly never turned cats away. That made it popular with those who were unwilling, or unable, to either house or euthanize cats themselves.
One of those shelters was the Animal Shelter Society of Zanesville, Ohio. Executive Director Larry Hostetler says his group’s volunteers drove vanloads of feral cats — numbering about 50 animals each — to Tiger Ranch nearly every week for several years.
Hostetler’s shelter is open-door, and transporting animals elsewhere is nothing new, he says. Now that Bruno has been shut down, he’s shipping animals to far-flung sites in Connecticut, New York, Michigan and Canada.
Taking cats to Bruno could be cost-effective as well. Hostetler says that for the first two years his agency brought cats to Bruno, she charged nothing for taking care of them. Later, he says, she charged a rate of $50 per vanload — roughly $1 per animal.
By some reckonings, that wouldn’t cover the cost of housing a cat for a single day. According to the Web site catworld.com, caring for a single cat costs $21.84 each week. The ARL’s Musher says that while it’s hard to be precise, since the length of stay and health of an animal can vary widely, a $21 per-week rate is probably pretty accurate for cats.
In any case, a shelter like Hostetler’s had little reason not to trust Bruno, since the facility was used by local agencies too. “I always thought Lin was doing a wonderful thing for those animals,” says Hostetler. While he acknowledges being “surprised to learn just how many had been on the property,” he adds that “we’re taking a neutral position on this, and we’re going to let the courts decide what happened. Sometimes people have good intentions and things can very quickly get out of hand.”
Indeed, disease can strike a large population of cats quickly, and one high-ranking animal-shelter official — who would not be quoted because of the pending legal action — told City Paper that “[w]hen you’re dealing with a cat colony that large, things can turn on you in a second.” Humane officers may well have not seen conditions earlier for that reason, he says.
But the official adds that in some cases, Bruno may have been “used by shelters and other people so they could dump their cats off of their books and onto someone else’s.”
Winikoff, the former LCA investigator, thinks that’s precisely what happened. “I found animals being dumped [at Tiger Ranch], and kept alive, just so people could say ‘at least we’re not killing them,'” he wrote to CP. “I found an incredible amount of suffering being caused simply to relieve people of the guilt of euthanasia.”
In fact, the whole no-kill approach is hotly debated. Even a reputedly extremist group like PETA — the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — opposes the no-kill concept as it is currently practiced.
“There are between 6 and 8 million animals going to shelters every year,” says Teresa Chagrin, PETA animal care and control specialist — and “you can’t build cages to the moon.
“Most people live in a child’s fantasy world,” she adds. “There are no big farms to keep the animals happy and healthy until they quietly and painlessly die. … I have enough to take care of my two cats and a dog. For anyone to care for 100 or 200 animals properly is pretty much impossible.” (Bruno reportedly had no full-time staff; Urmann says she never saw more than a half-dozen volunteers and that was on a weekend.)
While stressing that she was not commenting on Tiger Ranch per se, Chagrin says that in some cases, no-kill shelters rely on animal “hoarders” who “call themselves sanctuaries or rescues. The no-kill movement legitimizes them and, as always, it’s the animal who pays the highest price. … We have people loading unwanted animals into trucks and dumping them somewhere else because nobody wants to euthanize their own animals. Well, guess what? Nobody else wants to do it either. So transporting them out of your jurisdiction isn’t helping the situation. It’s just making it someone else’s problem.”
“I think it’s unfair to accuse no-kill shelters of creating issues like what happened at Tiger Ranch,” cautions Beaver. Animal Friends and other responsible groups “understand that simply warehousing pets — whether in our own shelter or at other locations — is not a humane solution.” Such groups focus on “aggressive and creative adoption” programs instead.
In fact, Bruno’s lawyers and supporters say the Tiger Ranch raid might have been a politically motivated attack on the no-kill system.
Bruno, DeRose says, has been made into a villain because she believes animals should die natural deaths — even when those deaths are painful.
DeRose acknowledges that while he personally would probably euthanize animals sooner, “Those are [Bruno’s] beliefs. She’s making the animals comfortable and she caring for them until the end. It’s not exactly how I would do it, but she is a very compassionate, caring person doing what she believes is God’s plan.”
DeRose charges the PSPCA with getting involved in the dispute to score points against the no-kill system, and because it would make a good episode for the group’s cable-TV show, Animal Cops. As for the video evidence against Tiger Ranch, “You can take a video and edit it any way you like to get any result that you want.”
Nelson rejects that charge. Animal Planet, which hosts the Animal Cops show, is “not part of any decision about our casework,” he says. “I think anyone who has actually seen the evidence we uncovered at Tiger Ranch … understands that we were there to help the cats and nothing else.”
And the no-kill debate, he says, is a red herring. The PSPCA itself operates no-kill facilities, he points out, and is building a no-kill sanctuary outside Philadelphia, Nelson says.
“There is a place for these kinds of facilities if they’re done right and provide a terrific environment that will actually save animals and not hasten their deaths,” Nelson says. “The raid on Tiger Ranch wasn’t about the no-kill movement. It was about stopping the unconscionable suffering of the hundreds of animals that were there. … We saw animals suffering with disease, their feet were bleeding, their eyes were falling out of their heads, and there were large number of cats buried in pits.”
“People accuse me of trying to get 15 minutes of fame through this,” says Urmann, whom Tiger Ranch supporters have labeled “Urmann the Vermin” in online message boards. “I’ve been threatened and cursed for what we’ve done. But those people didn’t see the things that I saw, and I’ll live with those sights and smells for as long as I live.”
As Beaver points out, until Bruno’s trial, “Only Ms. Bruno can provide an answer to what happened at Tiger Ranch. We can speculate that it was simply a compassionate, well-intentioned person becoming overwhelmed — or perhaps there was more going on.”
The larger question, she and others agree, is how to prevent such cases in the future.
“The raid and media coverage that accompanied the raid focused on some of the sickest cats in Bruno’s care,” Beaver says. “But certainly, we were dismayed by what we saw in these reports. But we believe that this case can also be a strong educational tool for our community about the realities of feral cats and cat overpopulation.”
Chagrin says the problem will never go away as long as the pet population continues to boom out of control.
Says Beaver, “What is clear is that the problem of stray and feral cat overpopulation is not a problem that one person can hope to solve alone. The solution lies in a collaborative effort between private individuals, communities, local governments and animal-welfare organizations.” Local agencies have already begun work on a stepped-up program to spay and neuter feral cats and return them to their colonies, she points out. Other, smaller animal-welfare groups have already been doing that for years.
In the meantime, though, the PSPCA’s Nelson says shelters have to take more responsibility to monitor facilities like the Tiger Ranch. “We as an animal-welfare community must ensure that we understand, check and verify where our cats are being sent to.
“If it is too good to be true, it just may be.”
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2008.
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I notice Chris DeRose didn’t name his niece or what capacity she “worked in animal rescue in New York state”
I know why…
Do you?
If you want to see the undercover videos and pictures that were made public go to the following website:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/
I am sure there will eventually be more to come.
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Notice the statement from her lawyer “so she wasn’t constantly burying them.”
Sounds like he already has an idea of what was going on there.
Public information—–Deb Urmann took a Tiger Ranch cat named “Twiggy” to Dr. Becky Morrow in October of 2007—-the cat was diagnosed with Calicivirus, and euthanized—Did either of these 2 wonderful women bother to inform Tiger Ranch of this potentially serious illness? NO—I hope Becky Morrow in enjoying that vet’s license she has now. As for Urmann—-Butler County Humane Officer—–for how long?????? What happened there??????? Hey Allegheny County Taxpayers——-how much money do you think the D.A.’s office has spent so far on this case—–WAKE UP PENNSYLVANIA!!!!!!!
Well, you would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* so “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
“DeRose charges the PSPCA with getting involved in the dispute to score points against the no-kill system, and because it would make a good episode for the group’s cable-TV show, Animal Cops….
Nelson rejects that charge. Animal Planet, which hosts the Animal Cops show, is “not part of any decision about our casework,” he says. “I think anyone who has actually seen the evidence we uncovered at Tiger Ranch … understands that we were there to help the cats and nothing else.”
PSPCA has a novel definition of “helping” – one that may be difficult to explain to all the cats that were killed w/in days because they made the call that these animals were w/o hope. So much for care and treatment. How many more died when tested positive for Felv – a highly manageable chronic condition?
Howard Nelson’s commitment to no-kill? Easy to do when you send animals away (to places that will euthanise by proxy) when you are at capacity. Easy to do when you fudge the numbers by only including “adoptable” animals in your no-kill stats as Howard insists. BTW – Howard’s has tried to define “adoptable” to excludes cats with fleas, or ear mites, or needing dental care, or pregnant, – not to mention FIV/Felv positives. Of course, Howard, brought on as a successful FUNDRAISER, heard the ka-ching ka-ching that is now associated with the no-kill movement (imagine, people will actually write checks when they think it means saving animals) and will purse his facial sphincter and bray “we’re going no-kill” to any one that cares to listen.
Tiger Ranch has many vocal supporters who have raised uncomfortable questions about this investigation and the conduct of the PSPCA:
http://tortiball.com/wp/category/tiger-ranch/
http://www.freepowerboards.com/SOTR
http://www.defendtigerranch.org
The PSPCA has also recently lost several Humane Officers and some Board members over ethical concerns regarding the mis-management of the organization. (You can find related articles and links on the Tortiball site.)
Read. Learn. Act.
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Well, you would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* so “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
Chris DeRose just buzzed on over from New Jersey to Tiger Ranch in western PA according to the article. Does Chris DeRose even know where Tiger Ranch is? It is no short drive from NJ to TR, probably at least 7 hours. Chris DeRose was very flippant with his comments. I thought he was supposed to be an investigator. The women that went undercover investigated, but he calls his niece (a convicted animal abuser). This is what he considers investigation? What a complete idiot!!! Apparently, he is only good at talking to the camera. If DeRose continues to support Tiger Ranch, he is only destroying his own reputation and the reputation of Last Chance for Animals.
Things that make you go hmmmm:
Is DeRose putting his reputation on the line to protect his niece?
Was his niece sending animals to Tiger Ranch?
See http://www.pet-abuse.com and search:
Animals abandoned in apartment, two die
Garfield, NJ (US)
to find out more about DeRose’s niece.
One last thought. If DeRose did show up at Tiger Ranch, wouldn’t Lin Marie have been bragging to everyone about it afterward like she brags about everything else?
The only cats who were euthanized after the raid were the cats who were suffering terribly from chronic disease and sickness and were not going to make it anyway. Any of the other cats who died fell victim at the end to the horrible diseases they obtained at Tiger Ranch. No cat at the shelter where the cats are being cared for was euthanized for any other reason than that, especially not because a cat might have FIV. That is ridiculous.
First of all, the PSPCA would not even be allowed to kill any of the cats for such superfluous reasons because the cats are public evidence-they are legally responsible for them and cannot touch them. That is exactly why the cats are not allowed to be adopted out yet. Second, I personally know that some of the people who work and volunteer at that shelter have made great personal sacrifices, dedicating all their time and energy, to treat, care for, and save those cats. The first few weeks after the raid, that shelter was run as a 24-hour intensive care animal hospital-people would work all day and into the night to monitor and treat extremely sick cats. Each one of the cats is a unique individual to the shelter workers and when any one of them dies, suffering horribly from sickness, it is a great personal failure, loss, and tragedy for them. Cats have been on the brink of death, convulsing, and these shelter workers fought just as fiercely to save them as any ER team of doctors do when their patient goes into cardiac arrest. All of the cats who are still alive there today are only so because of those shelter workers who gave them intense medical care and saved them. So I find it offensive, infuriating, and sickening that anyone would say the cats are being killed if they are diagnosed with FIV or any other stupid reason, other than to relieve a cat of great suffering he/she is enduring and is already dying.
One only needs to take a good hard look at those pictures and video footage just before the raid and after, or take a look at pictures of the cats in the shelter, to know Tiger Ranch needed to be shut down. What was occurring there was abominable and the 4 investigators who struggled so hard to shut it down are heroes.
If you want to see the undercover videos and pictures that were made public go to the following website:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/
I am sure there will eventually be more to come.
Here’s another interesting *fact* of this case…
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*… Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of LCA stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made in the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
As for Cleopatra’s comments about Dr. Morrow and Deb Urmann – misinformation. Dr. Morrow was never asked if she reported her results to Lin Marie in court.
Maybe she did.
And maybe Lin Marie ignored her warnings.
Or, most likely, Lin Marie already knew.
Here is the exact testimony of Dr. Morrow (Public Record):
Dr. Becky Morrow’s Testimony regarding “Twiggy”
Direct Examination – ADA Jugan
Q: Doctor was a cat named Twiggy from Tiger Ranch presented to you for treatment?
A: Yes
Q: When was that?
A: October 20, 2007
Q: Is this Twiggy
A: Yes
Q: What happened to Twiggy?
A: She was brought to me because she was very painful.
Q: Who brought her to you?
A: Deborah Urmann. She was painful and vocalizing in pain, that’s why she was brought to me. I found the lesions, you can see, on the left carpus. She had a swollen left carpus with wounds. She also had wounds on the left tarsus, or hock joint, as well as severe pain when I palpated down her spine.
Q: What was wrong with her?
A: The lesions are consistent with the cats that we’re seeing with the Virulent Systemic Calicivirus.
Q: What happened?
A: She had to be euthanized.
Q: Why couldn’t you save her?
A: Severely emaciated, she had severe pain. This virus debilitated her so much that her prognosis was grave. She also had flea feces found on her as well.
Cross Examination – Mr. Valasek
Q: Let’s talk about Twiggy. Who brought Twiggy to you?
A: Deborah Urmann
Q: Was that in October?
A: Correct.
Q: Was he euthanized?
A: She was euthanized.
Q: When?
A: Shortly after I examined her.
Q: On October 20th?
A: Correct
Transcript number: T208-639 Allegheny County Department of Court Records.
Not to mention that even a three year old could look at the pictures of the cats in this article and know that something was horribly wrong. Lin Marie (or whatever she is calling herself this week) had to know there was a serious problem and should have dealt with it appropriately.
Hmmm… strike a chord? The women you call heroes have done little more than instigate an action that resulted in the kidnapping and untimely death of hundreds of animals. One need only look at the pictures of the raid and the transports to see how careless workers were with their “rescues”. They suspected a highly contagious virus was weaving its way through the colony so they chased them down, stressed them out, and then piled them – cage on top of cage – on top of cage and transported in an unventilated van to a facility that had no ventilation system or adequate capacity for segregation. The resulting deaths – about 100 or so – are laid on Lin’s doorstop? These “rescuers” were so unprepared that they begged for basic supplies (of course, it was only a problem cause they had to move the raid up two days)
Don’t forget to check out the pictures and video at http://www.defendtigerranch.org. See for yourself what kind of home these cats were taken from.
Might also want to check out some of the statements made by volunteers at Tiger Ranch, people who had placed cats there, adopted there, had animals spayed/neutered there.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tell-pspca-to-drop-all-charges-against-of-animal-abuse-against-linn-marie-tiger-ranch-ranch2nd#signatures
I seriously have to wonder about the psychological stability of the small collection of individuals who are so intent on Complete Annihilation of Tiger Ranch.
Do you people not have lives?
Do you not understand that this woman was providing a refuge and respite for cats that were utterly unwanted and discarded by society?
Cats get sick. Veterinary science has yet to evolve to the point where all illnesses can be cured.
Ask Dr. Murarka about the 100+ cats that PSPCA “had” to euthanize after they kidnapped those poor creatures from their home at Tiger Ranch.
Therein lies the rub.
PSPCA couldn’t save those cats. Why? Either because they didn’t care enough to try… or because there WAS NO CURE for their conditions.
Now, what makes it all right for PSPCA to kill cats that are “uncurable”… but wrong for Lin Marie to try to treat them and allow them to live out their natural lives?
If and when it can be proven in a court of law that Lin Marie was purposely and willfully harming the cats in her care, I’ll jump on your bandwagon.
When. Pigs. Fly.
People who want to play God make me physically ill.
“kidnapping and untimely death of hundreds of animals.”
A refuge for cats?
Unfortunately, for many they did not “live out their natural lives”… they suffered horribly to death
1,000’s suffered & died at this refuge … let’s look at the suffering & death that was really going on at this refuge for unwanted cats:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* so “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
Don’t forget to check out the pictures and video at http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8 See for yourself what kind of home these cats were taken from.
Also Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening Again:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Just in case you haven’t read:
Tiger Ranch Owner Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie Now Faces Felony Charges
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/news/s_595180.html
Tiger Ranch lawyer calls new charges ‘overkill’
By Celanie Polanick
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Prosecutors have issued more charges against Linda Bruno, the embattled owner of the now-defunct cat sanctuary known as Tiger Ranch in Frazer.
On March 13, police and humane officers from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raided the ranch to reveal more than 600 diseased, dying and dead felines, which resulted in previous charges including 604 counts of cruelty to animals.
Those included misdemeanor counts of willfully and maliciously killing, maiming, mutilating, torturing or disfiguring a cat, as well as summary counts of cruelly ill-treating, beating, or otherwise abusing an animal, or neglecting the animal from care, food, water, clean shelter and veterinary care.
More charges were filed separately Thursday against Bruno, 45, who also goes by Lin Marie.
The new charges include seven felony counts of tampering with public records — namely rabies vaccination certificates for cats. There also are 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
Bruno did not return a phone call placed to her home late Friday. Her home answering machine still greets callers with “Hello! Thank you for calling Tiger Ranch.”
Her attorney, Ron Valasek, referred to the charges as “overkill,” and said they won’t change his client’s all-encompassing plea of not guilty.
“Our response will be to vehemently deny any wrongdoing on the behalf of Lin Marie Bruno,” he said. “It’s very simple. We’ve maintained that from the beginning. At this point, it just seems the district attorney is just trying to overwhelm her with complaints.”
The new criminal complaint identifies the veterinarian whose signature was forged as James Davidson, and alleges that while he was previously involved with Tiger Ranch, he stopped frequenting the place — and signing its documents — sometime before the forgery was committed.
Davidson told investigators he had held a vaccinating fundraiser at the Allegheny Township municipal building for Tiger Ranch, and that after the clinic was over, Bruno took the rest of the vaccination supplies home with her, since she had paid for them.
He also visited the place several times to give Bruno advice, but had never treated or vaccinated any animals for Tiger Ranch there or off-site.
Davidson could not be reached for comment late Friday.
The complaint implies Davidson’s association with Bruno and her animals was limited and temporary, but her attorney said, “I don’t think that’s the case. I think his association has been from almost the beginning of Tiger Ranch through the raid. I’m not sure there’s been any degradation of his services.”
Bruno did not give inappropriate vaccinations to her cats, her lawyer said.
“I can tell you, (my client) has no certifications for the administration of any drugs to felines — none of which I’m aware, but we haven’t really had an opportunity to discuss it,” Valasek said. “She has administered distemper shots, for example, which require no other certification.”
As for the alleged forgeries, they didn’t happen by Bruno’s hand, Valasek said.
According to the complaint, Davidson told police that except for the signatures from one date, June 24, 2007, the “James Davidson” signatures in Bruno’s records were not his.
Investigators also interviewed one of Tiger Ranch’s customers, Holly Wood, who told them Bruno vaccinated her cats against rabies.
Wood brought her four cats to Bruno to be spayed, neutered and given their shots in August 2007. When she came back that night, Bruno told her they’d been treated off site, and later gave her records that bore what investigators say is Davidson’s forged signature.
Six months later, the complaint states, she brought three cats back for rabies vaccinations — and Bruno administered the shots to the cats there in her waiting room, while Wood held them.
According to the complaint, “Davidson was asked if he ever told (Bruno) that she was able to administer rabies vaccinations. He said that he never did that and that he would have assumed that she knew better.”
Bruno’s trial for the first set of charges is scheduled for Jan. 20 before Allegheny County Judge Jill E. Rangos in Pittsburgh.
Tiger Ranch A Wonderful Place providing a refuge and respite for cats that were utterly unwanted and discarded by society… Really?:
Murarka said he has had nightmares — from when
an eyeball in one of the cats he was treating fell out into his hand.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtri…
Cat shelter rife with disease, vets say
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
PITTSBURGH — Hours of gruesome testimony ran overtime Tuesday in the preliminary hearing of Linda Bruno, the owner and operator of Tiger Ranch, a cat sanctuary in Frazer that officials say was run amok.
The hearing was continued until Tuesday after a five-hour slide show of dozens of cats who were found diseased, sickly and dead on Bruno’s property last month.
Expert witness veterinarians Dr. Ravindra Murarka and Dr. Becky L. Morrow listed conditions and descriptions to match the images of the sickest cats on the ranch.
There were cats whose limbs and joints were covered with bursting abcesses; cats with ulcerated and jaundiced mouths; cats with glaucoma and conjunctivitis so bad their eyes looked like dollops of burnt cherry pie; cats with severe infections that covered or destroyed their eyes and left their faces bathed in slime or molded over like old bread.
There were cats found dead in litter boxes and pregnant cats whose kittens didn’t survive exposure to the rampant, infectious viruses that contaminated the ranch.
There were so cats many that each one had to have a number and a letter so the doctors could keep track.
Many of the cats were already comatose or couldn’t move, Murarka said.
“They were sluggish, depressed,” he said. “Even from a distance you could see that they weren’t able to move, and they were just sitting around.”
Some walls were covered with a crust of unknown biological material, one of the factors doctors say helped spread the viruses and germs — including to Murarka, who developed bronchitis after the raid, he testified.
During a break, Murarka said he has had nightmares — from when an eyeball in one of the cats he was treating fell out into his hand.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch… just look at the pictures in the article & Here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=3
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/15645331/index.html
Playing God?
If you could imagine your wrist and ankle joints double to quadrupled in size, swelling from the pus collecting around your joints, your skin literally peeling off of your body to expose the muscle tissue underneath…
If you’re lucky enough to be able to smell, you can smell food yet are unable to move yourself to eat. Otherwise there is mucous covering your eyes to the point you cannot see, covering your nose to the point you cannot breathe, and with one of the only senses you have left, you hear your sick and dying friends surrounding you. You hear more of your brethren being added to your area, you hear doors open and shut and the occasional food and water dishes being filled, but you still cannot muster the energy to move yourself to them.
Finally, you lose claim of your body and exit from this world, only to have your remains thrashed into a pit with thousands of gravemates just like you.
I personally would not wish to wait on a god, and neither should the cats.
Of course not all medical conditions are curable, but what many of the cats were suffering from would have been very treatable and not fatal if they were not denied the veterinary medical care they so desperately needed, a kind hand to wipe their faces off and to administer potentially lifesaving medicine to their tiny bodies in hopes of survival.
Veterinary care is not playing god, medicines are not playing god, and most importantly, having mercy for fellow creatures on this planet and the ability to recognize when they are beyond all hopes of survival, beyond all quality of life, beyond anything more you could possibly do for them, and being able to humanely put an end to their pain and suffering is to be selfless and humane, not god.
If you want to talk about relatives—-One of the Tiger Ranch neighbors brags about how when the Tiger Ranch cats would wonder into his yard he would “put them out of their misery”—yet his own daughter is a vet tech—-check out the WPXI story—Tiger Ranch Cats—Months later–how they are doing—you will see “Blondie” taking care of the cats—can you figure out what vet she works for? This neighbor also has been bragging around town that HE made the phone calls to Philly—he shut Tiger Ranch down—why isn’t he included in the photo with the “Flab Four”? Talk about hypocrites!
Infoman—if you want to talk about relatives—-One of the Tiger Ranch neighbors bragged about putting the Tiger Ranch cats “out of their misery” when they would wander into his yard—yet his own daighter is a vet tech——talk about HYPOCRITES!!!!—-Guess which Vet she works for? This same neighbor has been heard bragging around town that “HE” was responsible for shutting Tiger Ranch down—he made phone calls to Philly—I thought for sure I would see his photo included with the “Flab Four”.
NOT Playing God????
“If you could imagine your wrist and ankle joints double to quadrupled in size, swelling from the pus collecting around your joints, your skin literally peeling off of your body to expose the muscle tissue underneath…” Hell, lets kill all the burn victims and lepers. Not the ones here that get all the high end medical care – no, just the ones in third world countries where they will suffer through their pain horribly until they either die or (here’s the amazing part) they recover and carry out their scarred, disfigured lives where people have to look at them and it makes hem uncomfortable. Nope, bigger favor to just kill them.
“If you’re lucky enough to be able to smell, you can smell food yet are unable to move yourself to eat… yada yada” Yes, I remember the last time I had the flu – the real deal, not the nambly pambly stomach virus that your average Joe the Plumber (any relation?) might whine about, but the virulent, dehydration, severe abdominal cramps, overwhelming fatigue, disorienting kind. I distinctly remember just begging for someone to put me out of my misery. If I only had friends or family that cared as much about me as you do these cats…
“Finally, you lose claim of your body and exit from this world, only to have your remains thrashed into a pit with thousands of gravemates just like you.” Yes, I’m sure their true wish would’ve been that, when they died, they be placed in a trash bag with everyone else that died (or, may have been euthanized to make space for the newer, cuter folk)and tossed into a dumpster. That’s the dignified route, right?
“I personally would not wish to wait on a god, and neither should the cats.” So, you’ve been delegated the responsibility of determining the when and why a cats life should end? NOT playing God???
“Of course not all medical conditions are curable, but what many of the cats were suffering from would have been very treatable and not fatal if they were not denied the veterinary medical care they so desperately needed, a kind hand to wipe their faces off and to administer potentially lifesaving medicine to their tiny bodies in hopes of survival.” You should look at some of the FCV sites – they have really disgusting pictures of cats who looked just like the TR cats. Of course, with treatment, many actually pull through but, ON THE DAY THEY TOOK THAT PICTURE they looked hideous beyond belief. The PSPCA and their drones want you to look at these pictures and leap to the conclusion that they had no care, they were the result of neglect and abuse. The truth, as witnessed by other Humane Agents, veterinarians, and hundreds of volunteers and supporters over the years is that these cats did receive treatment and care. That you would go into a sanctuary that accepted sick and dying animals and then be aghast because you actually see sick and dying animals is an inanity that can be easily cured by placing your hands squarely on either side of your butt and pushing firmly until your head is released.
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
*
Grisly Discoveries at Pa. Cat ‘Death Camp’
By Joey Wahler
In 2008, Bruno’s records show her ranch took in 786 cats while adopting out nine, according to Rodgers, who says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.zootoo.com/petnews/grislydiscoveriesatpennsylvani
*
Sick Cats Came To Tiger Ranch From Several States
Animal Rescuers Thought Cats Were Being Adopted
In fact, Tiger Ranch’s own records show it took in nearly 6,500 cats in 2007, but adopted out only 14.
Dasenbrock said, “We assumed that our animals, our cats were going up and being adopted out on the weekends to homes because we had heard there was a shortage of animals to be adopted up there. We sent beautiful cats up there, very adoptable, very healthy cats up there.”
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/news/16264107/detail.html
*
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
+
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* , “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/northampton-pa/TOM0L0GH0BVMF1N72/p2#
Expert witness veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow choked back tears as she
testified that painful illnesses ultimately led to the cats either
dying on their own or having to be euthanized.
She used words such as “emaciated” and “agonal.”
“Any cat I had to euthanize was in poor to grave condition and I
couldn’t save it,” Morrow said. “They were too far gone.”
Photos showed cats with mucus covering their faces, ulcerative
tongues, swollen limbs, and exposed muscle.
Morrow testified that many of the conditions the cats had were
indications of a highly contagious form of calicivirus.
She testified that Bruno was aware of the virus because Bruno has a
section in a cat care book she wrote dedicated to it.
A slide show of thawed, cat carcasses that were found in a deep
freezer in the garage at Tiger Ranch brought many people in the
courtroom to tears as Morrow described the condition of each cat.
Almost each cat was described as emaciated, and they had mucus coming
from their eyes and noses.
Bruno’s attorney, Ron Valasek of Lower Burrell, argued that the cats
in the freezer were never proven to be Bruno’s.
However, Morrow said that necropsies — examinations of animals’
bodies after death — on 50 of the cats had conditions similar, if not
the same, as those that had to be euthanized.
“Most deaths have resulted from the calicivirus, secondary infections
such as upper respiratory infections and pneumonia, and emaciation
from not receiving proper nutrition,” Morrow said.
She testified that a necropsy on the cat found dead behind one of the
four freezers used to store cat carcasses indicated it had a twisted
lung lobe. That, she said, indicates the lung was not functional, and
the cat had no food in its stomach.
“During the necropsy, I remember pulling eight round worms from its
intestine,” she said. “It appears as if the cat died of starvation,
secondary to an upper respiratory infection and from the roundworms.”
Following testimony, Valasek asked the court to dismiss the case due
to the woman sitting beside him not being Linda Bruno, but Lin Marie.
“This is not Linda Bruno,” he said. “This is Lin Marie. On Dec. 17,
1998, she changed her legal name from Linda Stover to Lin Marie after
a divorce. Lin Marie is the name on the deed at Tiger Ranch.”
Blaschak said she had no problem with the alias name. All court
documents refer to her as Linda Bruno.
For the second time during the preliminary hearing, Valasek asked the
court to dismiss the misdemeanor charges claiming Bruno had not done
anything to willfully and maliciously cause the death of the cats.
“How is it that a cat is permitted to complete its final stage of
life?” he asked. “(Bruno) maintained critical care until their
passing. At least a third of the cats had nothing wrong with them. The
other two-thirds were in various shapes of disarray.”
Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence
of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for
nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
To See 2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
I am sure there will eventually be more to come.
The truth comes out Madras (Kirsten). I knew all along you were supporting this animal abuser but publicly trying to sit on the fence.
You, Kirsten, would rather have animals suffer and die than do the humane thing.
You are a hypocrite.
The reason so many animals had to be euthanized was because of all of the DISEASES these poor animals CAUGHT at Tiger Ranch and the LACK OF TREATMENT THEY RECEIVED at Tiger Ranch. These animals would have died anyway if they were left at Tiger Ranch. Except they would have SUFFERED longer.
So blame their deaths on the people that helped them get so sick. Lin Marie and all of her supporters including yourself.
And Cleopatra (Val), at least the neighbor was humane enough to end their suffering. More than I can say about all of you flakes that support Tiger Ranch. Did you also talk to the neighbors who saw cats whither away to nothing? Did you also talk to the neighbors who had to pick up corpses of dead cats from their yards? I didn’t talk to one neighbor (on Miller Drive) that supports Lin Marie. ALL OF THEM WERE THANKFUL FOR TIGER RANCH BEING SHUT DOWN!!!
The people that are LUNATICS are the BLIND FOLLOWERS OF LIN MARIE.
How many lies must Lin Marie tell and laws must she break before you realize that you are siding with a criminal mind.
I guarantee you that if Chris DeRose’s niece was not in some way involved with Tiger Ranch, he would have come in and shut the place down immediately. Then you flakes would all be saying what a horrible organization Last Chance for Animals is instead of the PSPCA.
Flakes!!! All of you. You give cat rescuers everywhere a bad name.
So, Kirsten, don’t come over to our side when this is all over and Lin Marie is convicted of ANIMAL ABUSE AND NEGLECT, FORGERY, TAMPERING WITH GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, and whatever else she was doing that was illegal. Just stay there in Philadelphia, and continue to annoy the PSPCA, your real agenda.
By the way, the charges filed against Lin Marie are by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, not the PSPCA. The PSPCA didn’t have anything to do with the newest charges and won’t have anything to do with future charges that will most likely be filed against Lin Marie. So you can’t blame the PSPCA for this. Who will you blame? You will say it is a “Witch Hunt.” And I will say “Thank God, they caught the witch.”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
Who Is “Blaschak”?:
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak ruled Bruno will face trial in Allegheny County Court on 593 counts of cruelty to animals.
*
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
As Opposed To:
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
For The Cats—If you talked to the people on Miller Drive—apparently you missed my house—my name is not “Val”.
And since we are playing a guessing game as to who is who—-For The Cats (Becky)– wait until the info gets out on how much money the Allegheny County D.A.’s office has wasted on this case—the taxpayers of Allegheny County will find this very interesting.
“The truth comes out Madras (Kirsten). I knew all along you were supporting this animal abuser but publicly trying to sit on the fence.
You, Kirsten, would rather have animals suffer and die than do the humane thing.
You are a hypocrite.”
REALLY? I’ve followed posts on several boards that Madras has appeared on. I’ve seen legitimate questions posed on both sides of the issue – it’s called gathering all the information before making a decision or taking a position. Some people can even recognize that, occasionally, bad people do good things, and good people do bad. Had you read through the complete postings you’d see examples of the PSPCA being given props for the things that truly are positive. It seems the rabid anti-TR posters are simply incapable of having more than one idea in their mind at a time. Must be frustrating to be so low on the evolutionary ladder. Take InformationMan for example – he obviously took a “cut and paste” elective course whilst he was in basket weaving school. So sad to be so limited.
Just in case anyone missed the most recent pictures released by the PSPCA…
These are extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking…
Copy & Paste The Following Link:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
Photos
The graphic nature of the content of these photos may be disturbing for some viewers. Please proceed with caution.
Cassidy Before
Cassidy After
Victoria Before
Victoria After
Patches Before
Patches After
Kiki Before 1
Kiki Before 2
Kiki After
Cat 1
Cat 2
Cat 3
Cat 4
Cat 5
Cat 6
Cat 7
Cat 8
Cat 9
Cat 10
Cat 11
Cat 12
Cat 13
Cat 14
Cat 15
Cat 16
Cat 17
Cat 18
Cat 19
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Once again, the Insane Klown Posse goes on a rant. Allegations are not proof positive of a crime, yet certain posters here and on other forums, have already convicted Lin Marie. The newest charges of forged veterinary records could also backfire once handwriting analysis has been done. One must ask key questions here. WHO had access to all of the records in question? Some of us already know the answer to that one. Why is the PSPCA NOT updating the conditions of the remaining cats at Clarion? What is actually happening to those cats in the hands of just the people responsible for the raid in the first place? Talk about improprieties in a case, THIS shrieks of them. Since when is evidence in a case handled by JUST those who were responsible for the charges? One must ask, who are the real hypocrites here? Those of us that believe in due process know the answer to that one too.
Copy/Paste/Copy/Paste—–Get a life INFOMAN!
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Well, you would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* so “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Most recent pics released by the pspca.org
These are *Extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking*…
Copy and Paste the Following Link to see the pictures:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
No, my name is not Becky. You would never in your wildest dreams guess who I am.
I saw the conditions of the animals and I was at the Clarion shelter after the rescue.
The sights and smells of those poor sick cats that were neglected at Tiger Ranch will stay burned into my memory forever.
I have volunteered at many cat rescue organizations, and yes there are sick cats that are getting medical treatment, but I have never seen suffering like what occurred at Tiger Ranch. There is absolutely no question in my mind of whether or not Lin Marie is guilty. The answer is obvious. I have seen the suffering. Lin Marie owns Tiger Ranch and was responsible for those cats. She didn’t live up to her end of the bargain and the cats suffered because of it.
Let me pose this question. If you watched a man kill another person in cold blood, wouldn’t you know that the man is guilty, whether or not it was proven in a court of law?
As to the comment you made about taxpayers: You are saying that these cats aren’t important enough to have tax money spent on them – shame on you. There has been a lot more tax money spent on much less important things.
If Lin Marie had given up these animals, like most hoarders do, maybe the county wouldn’t have to spend so much money prosecuting her. Maybe if she was smart enough to plea bargain, she could have had the charges reduced.
By the way, ever heard of aiding and abetting?
What happens if those felony charges stick?
Do you think that the DA’s office just randomly makes up charges without any evidence to back them up?
How many flakes thought that the charges would be dismissed at the preliminary hearing? They weren’t.
The thing you have to ask yourself is “Is it worth going to jail for Lin Marie?”
witness
Re: Pet Cause 10/31/2008 – 8:38pm
“The only cats who were euthanized after the raid were the cats who were suffering terribly from chronic disease and sickness and were not going to make it anyway. Any of the other cats who died fell victim at the end to the horrible diseases they obtained at Tiger Ranch. No cat at the shelter where the cats are being cared for was euthanized for any other reason than that, especially not because a cat might have FIV. That is ridiculous.
First of all, the PSPCA would not even be allowed to kill any of the cats for such superfluous reasons because the cats are public evidence-they are legally responsible for them and cannot touch them. That is exactly why the cats are not allowed to be adopted out yet. Second, I personally know that some of the people who work and volunteer at that shelter have made great personal sacrifices, dedicating all their time and energy, to treat, care for, and save those cats. The first few weeks after the raid, that shelter was run as a 24-hour intensive care animal hospital-people would work all day and into the night to monitor and treat extremely sick cats. Each one of the cats is a unique individual to the shelter workers and when any one of them dies, suffering horribly from sickness, it is a great personal failure, loss, and tragedy for them. Cats have been on the brink of death, convulsing, and these shelter workers fought just as fiercely to save them as any ER team of doctors do when their patient goes into cardiac arrest. All of the cats who are still alive there today are only so because of those shelter workers who gave them intense medical care and saved them. So I find it offensive, infuriating, and sickening that anyone would say the cats are being killed if they are diagnosed with FIV or any other stupid reason, other than to relieve a cat of great suffering he/she is enduring and is already dying.
One only needs to take a good hard look at those pictures and video footage just before the raid and after, or take a look at pictures of the cats in the shelter, to know Tiger Ranch needed to be shut down. What was occurring there was abominable and the 4 investigators who struggled so hard to shut it down are heroes.”
Great post witness. I agree 100%. Thank you. I, and many, many others appreciate all the work that you have done to help the cats.
God Bless You!
quote “First of all, the PSPCA would not even be allowed to kill any of the cats for such superfluous reasons because the cats are public evidence-they are legally responsible for them and cannot touch them. That is exactly why the cats are not allowed to be adopted out yet.” end quote
And just exactly WHO is monitoring the cats at Clarion? NO ONE but the people directly involved in the raid and THEIR handpicked volunteers. Not ONE independent or unbiased interested party has been allowed to enter and report the conditions at Clarion. The keyword here is EVIDENCE. There is absolutely NOTHING to stop those at Clarion from euthanizing, adopting out or tampering with said ‘evidence’. This is a red flag to anyone interested in seeing proper protocol followed and justice served. Need I say more?
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
As Opposed To:
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
Hey RainMan – the repetitive posting is starting to actually get soothing. If all the asshats involved with this case are the same caliber as you I can expect to see the cats returned to their rightful homes soon.
The PSPCA link really grabs me too – same old pictures, same old story, and then we shamelessly pass the hat for donations. Gots to wonder how much of those expenses are medical and how much are legal? and of the legal – wonder how much is for criminal offense and how much is for civil court defense? That Howie sure is a busy boy these days.
Reply to FORTHECATS “By the way, ever heard of aiding and abetting?”
Yes, and I have also heard of innocent until proven quilty.
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Well, you would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits* “so she wasn’t constantly burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Most recent pics released by the pspca.org
These are *Extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking*…
Copy and Paste the Following Link to see the pictures:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
Infoman—-the repetative posts are getting boring—-
copy/paste/copy/paste/copy/paste
What a waste of space on this forum.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
Who Is “Blaschak”?:
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak ruled Bruno will face trial in Allegheny County Court on 593 counts of cruelty to animals.
*
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
As Opposed To:
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
AFTER REVIEWING THE ARTICLE I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A FEW COMMENTS, MY COMMENTS ARE IN CAPS:
In her seven months working as a volunteer at Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary, Deb Urmann followed pretty much the same routine every Saturday.
She’d get to the Tarentum facility in the early morning, check the food and water bowls. She’d empty the litter boxes.Urmann, of Butler County, had worked as an animal-control officer since 2004. But even she can’t help tearing up when she talks about watching a cat die before her eyes.”That cat was so fucking hungry,” she says. “He is barely able to get himself to the food bowl, and when he gets there he just collapses into it, but he can’t eat. He then drags himself to the water, and falls into the water bowl, but he can’t drink.” The cat then began wailing a “death cry.” Urmann picked up her cell phone and called her friends Carolyn DeForest and Rebecca Reid. Together, they listened to the cat moan for several minutes before he died.
IT IS A SHAME THAT YOU DID NOTHING TO HELP THIS CAT BEFORE IT DIED—DID NOT TRY TO GIVE IT FLUIDS—DID NOT NOTIFY THE STEWARD OF THIS CATS CONDITION—JUST DIALED THE PHONE AND LISTENED TO THE CAT MOAN???
The three women had special reason for feeling helpless. Urmann wasn’t just an ordinary volunteer, and it was no coincidence that Reid and DeForest were sitting together in a car parked a little farther down Miller Road. Along with a veterinarian named Becky Morrow, the four women were working undercover to shut Tiger Ranch down.
REID, DEFOREST, AND MORROW SAT IN A CAR ALONG MILLER ROAD–WHY DIDN’T THEY GO INSIDE TIGER RANCH–IF THEY WERE WORKING UNDERCOVER THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN A LOT MORE INFORMATION AND PHOTOS HAD THEY GONE INSIDE THE FACILITY. WERE THEY NOT ON FRIENDLY TERMS WITH TIGER RANCH?
It’s hard to say how many cats were brought to Tiger Ranch since Bruno purchased the property in 2000.
I BELIEVE THE PROPERTY WAS PURCHASED IN 1994.
Urmann worked for three years as a humane agent, during which time she thought she’d gotten to know the place pretty well. She’d begun bringing cats to the facility in 2004 while working with the Butler County Humane Society. In the months that followed, Urmann estimates that she “unfortunately took hundreds there.”
YOU FOUND NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS FACILITY IN 2004?
In 2007, Urmann was laid off for budgetary reasons, but she missed working with animals. Her brief interactions with Bruno had always been “friendly” and “professional,” so Tiger Ranch seemed like a great place to volunteer.
HOW MANY HOURS PER WEEK DID YOU VOLUNTEER?
AS A RESIDENT OF BUTLER COUNTY, I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE YOU WERE LAID OFF FOR “BUDGETARY REASONS”.
“Then I saw the death room, and I was appalled.”
The “sick” or “isolation” room was tucked in the corner of the garage. Inside were the facility’s sickest felines.
“I remember seeing a little orange paw reaching out from under the door,” Urmann says. “I asked Lin about it and she said, ‘My room, my business.’
DID YOU SEE THE DEATH ROOM—-DID YOU GO INSIDE IT? ISN’T THAT WHERE MOST OF THE UNDERCOVER VIDEOS WERE SHOT? DID YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO ENTER THIS ROOM?
Urmann wasn’t the first to have doubts about the facility. Some clients had already reported it to animal-welfare officials.
Former Somerset County resident Karen McCalpin, who now resides in North Carolina, was one of them. In September 2006, she had just accepted a new job, and on the advice of the local humane society, she took seven cats from her farm to Bruno.
“I had a bad feeling about the place as soon as I got there,” says McCalpin, who talks about the cats through tears. “I saw some sick cats. … But because we felt we didn’t have any other choice, we left them. I have never forgiven myself for that.”
The decision weighed on her all week. The following Saturday, she returned to the ranch to reclaim her cats. When she arrived, she says, there was a line of cars waiting to get in — including a van from West Virginia that offloaded several cages of cats as McCalpin watched.
“These were all fat, happy, adoptable cats,” says McCalpin. “She claimed my other cats were in foster care or adopted, but I don’t believe that.”
McCalpin, who says she is likely to testify at Bruno’s trial, filed a complaint with the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society that day.
IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBTS ABOUT THE FACILITY—WHY IN GODS NAME WOULD YOU LEAVE YOUR CATS THERE? WHY WERE YOU UNABLE TO TAKE THEM TO YOUR NEW RESIDENCE?
McCalpin’s complaint was investigated by Ron Smith, a humane officer with 35 years of experience who says he knows Tiger Ranch well. Up until 2002, the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society took cats there, and he has inspected it repeatedly.
Smith says he talked to McCalpin’s vet, and to people who were at the facility the day she tried to retrieve her cats. The vet, Smith says, told him that one of the euthanized cats had died of kidney failure and had wounds from fighting, but that it couldn’t be linked to conditions at Tiger Ranch.
Humane officers “are looking for clear signs of mistreatment, neglect or malicious cruelty to animals,” Smith says. The vet “couldn’t say those cats had been neglected,” and “[b]ased on my investigation, I couldn’t prove that a criminal offense had been committed.” What’s more, “overall I had always been impressed with the facility, and I always thought the conditions sanitary. I never saw filth or smelled strong odors.”
McCalpin finds that hard to believe: “I’m astounded that three days later, all was well at Tiger Ranch,” she says. But Smith wasn’t the only humane agent to give the facility his approval.
In 2006, the Humane Society and another local animal-welfare group, Animal Friends, conducted a joint inspection. “Each building had cat doors where the cats can go in and out the building at will, all the buildings were neatly kept, clean, and well ventilated,” wrote the inspectors. “The cats had access to plenty of food and fresh water. … All of the cats we saw were well cared for.”
Over eight years, Beaver says, Animal Friends received 11 complaints about Tiger Ranch, most concerning people who wanted to get their cats back. There were complaints about sick cats not getting treatment, but those were “put to rest by the veterinarians who treated the sick cats,” she says.
I JUST CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD SURRENDER YOUR CAT, AND THEN WANT IT BACK.
But Smith kept getting called back, and in October 2007, complaints brought him to Tiger Ranch again. This time, though, he says he saw a volunteer he recognized as a former animal-welfare officer. That officer, he says, “told me everything was fine and that all the animals were being cared for. I respect her opinion. She reassured me that everything was fine, and after hearing that, I was even more encouraged.”
Smith would not identify the officer. (Because the incident will likely be brought up at Bruno’s trial, neither Smith nor his boss, Humane Society Director Lee Nessler, were willing to discuss details.) But Urmann says she had to have been the person Smith saw on that visit — and that she never spoke to him.
THIS IS VERY INTERESTING.
“That day Ron Smith showed up, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s finally over. He’s going to see what’s going on and close this place down.’ But it never happened.”
Bruno still has supporters.
In fact, Bruno’s backers contend, if conditions were so bad, wouldn’t someone have noticed sooner?
Winikoff no longer works for LCA.
WHY?
DeRose’s support for Tiger Ranch knocked the women back. “We were all messed up after that,” says Reid.
PLEASE EXPLAIN “ALL MESSED UP”—CAN MS. DEFOREST EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN—SHE HAS A DEGREE IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
But as PSPCA officials planned to descend on Tiger Ranch, Urmann says, Bruno got a call from a local humane officer warning her that a raid would take place in the next two days.
“Lin got off the phone and told me about the raid and I asked, ‘What did [the agent] tell you to do?'” Urmann recalls. Bruno, she says, had been instructed not to let the agents on the property because they were from outside the county and didn’t have jurisdiction. “She was supposed to call the agent, [who] would come down there and help,” Urmann says.
Bruno didn’t get the chance, though. Urmann says she warned investigators of the leak, and they raided the compound that evening instead.
“We moved up the raid to March 13th as we were concerned that Bruno would be tipped off,” says Nelson. “It turns out she was aware that something might happen, but did not have all the facts.”
I HOPE ALL THE PAPERWORK WAS IN ORDER.
Not everyone was impressed with the way the raid was conducted with out-of-county agents: Ron Smith, of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, says he was angered when he heard about the raid. “At any time these folks could have come to us” with evidence, he says, “but they never did.”
VERY GOOD POINT
Indeed, disease can strike a large population of cats quickly, and one high-ranking animal-shelter official — who would not be quoted because of the pending legal action — told City Paper that “[w]hen you’re dealing with a cat colony that large, things can turn on you in a second.” Humane officers may well have not seen conditions earlier for that reason, he says.
In fact, Bruno’s lawyers and supporters say the Tiger Ranch raid might have been a politically motivated attack on the no-kill system.
Bruno, DeRose says, has been made into a villain because she believes animals should die natural deaths — even when those deaths are painful.
DeRose charges the PSPCA with getting involved in the dispute to score points against the no-kill system, and because it would make a good episode for the group’s cable-TV show, Animal Cops. As for the video evidence against Tiger Ranch, “You can take a video and edit it any way you like to get any result that you want.”
Nelson rejects that charge. Animal Planet, which hosts the Animal Cops show, is “not part of any decision about our casework,” he says. “I think anyone who has actually seen the evidence we uncovered at Tiger Ranch … understands that we were there to help the cats and nothing else.”
I FIND HOWARD NELSONS COMMENTS APPAULING. WHY WAS ANIMAL PLANET THERE? MONEY? I SAW PHOTOS OF THE PSPCA TRUCKS WITH TIGER RANCH CATS–THE CATS I SAW IN THE PHOTO LOOKED HEALTHY—DID THE PSPCA COMBINE ALL THE TIGER RANCH CATS TOGETHER IN THESE TRUCKS? SICK AND HEALTHY CATS? HOW LONG WERE THEY IN THESE TRUCKS BEFORE THEY WERE EXAMINED? I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THE PSPCA CAN RAID A FACILITY AND NOT HAVE THE SUPPLIES TO TAKE CARE OF THESE ANIMALS. THERE WERE MANY REQUESTS MADE TO THE PUBLIC FOR DONATIONS. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF CATS TAKEN FROM TIGER RANCH HAS BEEN REPORTED AS: BETWEEN 700 AND 1,000—DEPENDING ON WHICH ARTICLES YOU READ, OR WHICH NEWS REPORT YOU WATCH–THIS ARTICLE STATES NEARLY 400. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE OTHER ANIMALS THAT WERE TAKEN FROM TIGER RANCH—ARE THERE CHARGES AGAINST THEM? SEEMS LIKE ONLY THE CATS ARE BEING MENTIONED. CAN WE GET AN UPDATE ON THESE OTHER ANIMALS?
quote from the PSPCA website:
“The PSPCA received $99,675 in donations following the Tiger Ranch raid, a sum that covers just a small portion of the investigation’s cost to date. “The Tiger Ranch raid has impacted us financially, however, we know that we needed to go to Tarentum to save those cats – cats that had been taken to the Sanctuary by owners who hoped they would be adopted or able to live peacefully,” said PSPCA CEO Howard Nelson. “Other humane societies and animal welfare organizations were made aware of the conditions at Tiger Ranch and refused to intervene. We had to step in because others would not. The PSPCA could not, as a humane organization, ignore the plight of those animals.” END QUOTE.
Very telling comment and mirroring the prior comments at their site regarding the priorities of how the donations have been spent. Costs of investigations (meaning their legal costs????) and paying the people who helped raid the facility (prior comments from their site). Makes those of us serious rescuers wonder just what the PSPCA’s real priorities are regarding this case……Carpe diem, right, Howard?
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Most recent pics released by the pspca.org
These are *Extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking*…
Copy and Paste the Following Link to see the pictures:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
Another issue I’ve been thinking about myself is this:
Here’s another interesting *fact* of this case…
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*… Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of LCA stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made in the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
Hypocrite? Interesting choice of words.
Fail, and fail, and fail again.
My opinions with respect to the Tiger Ranch case have evolved over time. At the beginning, I was 90% “Thank heaven they saved those cats” and 10% “But did PSPCA really have to go THAT far overboard”?
Then for quite a long time, my position was 60% leaning toward “I think TR was probably a good thing”, but I just wasn’t sure what was really going on.
After many months of researching and discussing the TR situation – and the backstory at PSPCA – with a number of people whose opinions I value highly, I am now in a position where I lean 80% toward unequivocal support of Tiger Ranch, but most importantly, I am now 100% sure that PSPCA handled the situation in an entirely inappropriate manner.
I have not, and will never, state anything other than my true opinion. I don’t have time for manipulation and games.
If, after the trial, it turns out I was wrong about TR, I will stand up and admit my failure in judgment with respect to that, but I will never stop fighting to ensure that the rights of all animals – and their caretakers – are protected under the law in PA.
That is all.
As far as the death of the cat in the little box that was being filmed by a person doing undercover work… I am sure Chris DeRose of LCA can tell you why:
Copy & Paste:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_DeRose
One of DeRose’s most controversial actions was arranging for two undercover operatives to pay Wisconsin animal dealer Erving Stebane $50 to kill and butcher a dog while DeRose secretly videotaped the action. Felony charges were filed against the dealer, but in June 1993 Calumet County circuit judge Donald Poppy ruled that the case constituted illegal entrapment and ordered the return of 143 dogs which had been seized.[citation needed] In an interview with Kit Pavarenti,[3]DeRose grimaces at the words. “I made a painful decision,� he admits, “and a dog died.� The memory of that night still carries more than its share of remorse. To fend it off, he reminds us and himself that the dog’s death was imminent, with or without the presence of a camera, and that the camera brought at least some degree of meaning to its sacrifice. Indeed, the public outrage precipitated by the case galvanized not only the community, but drew the attention of U.S. Representative Toy Roth (D-WI), who introduced the Stebane Bill,� legislation designed to strengthen penalties for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Roth also wrote a letter to Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, voicing his deep concerns with unlawful Class B vendor activities. His sentiments are echoed by U.S. Senator Fiengold (R-WI).
*
With that folks I am also hoping that the Tiger Ranch case
will bring change not only in the US but Worldwide…
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the world:
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*,
No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Infoman—Are you a one-man show?
Whre have all your friends gone?????
Looking at the photos—-Are you sure Rutu is the same cat in both photos? In one picture he looks like a gray cat and in the other photo he looks like a black cat? The markings on his face are different also. There are 2 different photographers for the photos(Goldbloom and Mull). One of your photos showing a cat with a severe eye infection is dated 03/19/08—the raid occured 03/13—did it take the PSPCA 6 days to evaluate the condition of this cat? That is 6 days for disease and sickness to spread. Please explain.
Wow! It took the PSPCA 6 whole days to get around to taking some photos!. There is a huge difference between evaluating the cats and taking their photos. I’m actually impressed that, with hundreds of cats needing so much immediate medical treatment, they actually got around to taking some photos as soon as they did.
Good Comment animalsneedlovetoo
I am sure once the following evidence is made public things will get even more fired up:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Hmmm… more videos, eh?
*
Since we don’t have the other videos right now we can always have a look at these:
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
As Opposed To:
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*,
No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
People have to realize that hoarders lie to everyone, even their friends (I used to be one of Lin Marie’s friends). A hoarder will tell you they only have 10 cats when you can see and count 50 cats that are surrounding them.
When Lin Marie was asked on the recording that was played in court how many cats she had, the number she gave was 292.
How many cats did they find at Tiger Ranch? Over 400. Over 500 if you count the dead cats in the freezer.
When Lin Marie was asked how many cats she took in in 2007, she said around 1500.
How many cats did her own records indicate? 6482!!!!
This is not normal behavior.
Even no-kill shelters have to close their doors when they are filled.
It is impossible to keep taking in cats for 14 years, never turning any away, and not have a huge problem. This would be a problem if you were taking in cats just from local farms. But she was taking in cats from other states as well. AND ASKING FOR MORE!
Don’t any of the Tiger Ranch supporters see a problem with this?
You have to draw the line somewhere. As painful as it may be.
How many cats did they find at Tiger Ranch? Over 400. Over 500 if you count the dead cats in the freezer.
I believe the total given at the preliminary hearing was 380 (alive) can you double check that?
Pittsburgh City Paper article states: Urmann says she’d find dead cats everywhere on the 29-acre site — in buildings, on the grounds, in the litter boxes themselves. She’d put the cats on top of one of the ranch’s four freezer units until the ranch’s owner, Linda Bruno, would stuff them inside.
ForTheCats: Over 500 if you count the dead cats in the freezer.
OK–is is FREEZER or FREEZERS? Was there one or four?
Saturday, March 15, 2008
By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
She (Deb Urmann) said she witnessed cats being taken to the “death” room, as the isolation room was known, and placed in freezers after they died. Once the freezers were full, the carcasses were placed in the bucket of a backhoe and buried on the property.
Pittsburgh City Paper: The backhoe would “open up the ground, and Lin would stand at the top with big welder’s gloves on and toss the dead cats into the hole, while the live cats would stand around or run across the pile of dead animals,” says Urmann. “It was surreal.”
So Deb please tell us—Were the cats put in a bucket of a backhoe as you told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or where they thrown into a hole by Lin wearing welders gloves as you told the Pittsburgh City Paper?
As quoted in the PIttsburgh City Paper: “I’ve been threatened and cursed for what we’ve done. But those people didn’t see the things that I saw, and I’ll live with those sights and smells for as long as I live.”
If you are living with the sights for the rest of your life—you can’t even remenber how burials took place.
How many dead were cats found at Tiger Ranch?
I guess that would depend if you want a skull count from the burial pits:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Most recent pics released by the pspca.org
These are *Extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking*…
Copy and Paste the Following Link to see the pictures:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
How many of these were found?
Do you want them counted too?:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/08075/865440-52.stm
Residents said the neighborhood had been overrun with Tiger Ranch cats.
One woman said they often returned cats who had camped out on their porches begging for food. Sometimes dead cats were found in their yards.
*
Great Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Stop Places Like Tiger Ranch:
No More Tiger Ranches
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Help Say No More To This::
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
RE:
So Deb please tell us—Were the cats put in a bucket of a backhoe as you told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or where they thrown into a hole by Lin wearing welders gloves as you told the Pittsburgh City Paper?
*
Can You Just Visualize This One?…
Do you really think “each cat was individually carried from the freezer to the burial pit” that was made by a backhoe?
All of those frozen dead kitties had to get to the pit some way… wouldn’t ya think?
With the sheer volume of the dead one only has to use common sense & realize whichever way they made it into the pit “that day”…
They Were Still Dead & Suffered Horribly To Death:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Well, Infoman, at least you TRIED to answer one question—-now, how about all the others I have asked?
Questions?…Like this one … that so many of the Tiger Ranch Supporters have tried to make an issue out of:
As far as the death of the cat in the little box that was being filmed by a person doing undercover work… I am sure Chris DeRose of LCA can tell you why videos such as these must be made and brought to the public’s attention:
Copy & Paste:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_DeRose
One of DeRose’s most controversial actions was arranging for two undercover operatives to pay Wisconsin animal dealer Erving Stebane $50 to kill and butcher a dog while DeRose secretly videotaped the action.
Felony charges were filed against the dealer, but in June 1993 Calumet County circuit judge Donald Poppy ruled that the case constituted illegal entrapment and ordered the return of 143 dogs which had been seized.
In an interview with Kit Pavarenti,[3]DeRose grimaces at the words. “I made a painful decision,” he admits, “and a dog died.” The memory of that night still carries more than its share of remorse. To fend it off, he reminds us and himself that the dog’s death was imminent, with or without the presence of a camera, and that the camera brought at least some degree of meaning to its sacrifice.
Indeed, the public outrage precipitated by the case galvanized not only the community, but drew the attention of U.S. Representative Toy Roth (D-WI), who introduced the Stebane Bill,” legislation designed to
strengthen penalties for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Roth also wrote a letter to Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, voicing his deep concerns with unlawful Class B vendor activities. His sentiments are echoed by U.S. Senator Fiengold (R-WI).
With that folks I am also hoping that the Tiger Ranch case will bring change not only in the US but Worldwide…
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the world:
Let’s Not Allow The Long Suffering Deaths Of These Poor
Creatures Be In Vain:
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*,
No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Help Say No More To This::
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
I did not ask you about the cat in the litter box—-read the posts by Black Cat, and try to answer the questions I am asking. Thank you.
Your most recent post, Infoman–do you mean “litter” box, not “little” box?
The following questions have yet to be answered:
Well, you would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Yup, Wonderful Place That Tiger Ranch…
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*, No More *constantly burying them*, No More *suffering to death*:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Say No More To The Following:
Most recent pics released by the pspca.org
These are *Extremely Graphic & Heartbreaking*…
Copy and Paste the Following Links to see the pictures:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
Another question that has not been answered…
Why was Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA warned …”that there was an informant amongst her”…:
Here’s another interesting *fact* of this case…
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*… Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of LCA stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made in the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Infoman, I hope you do better in court when you are asked the questions that I am asking you. All you do is talk in circles, and constantly repeat your same posts. Have a good day.
How many dead cats do you think it took to fill these Burial Pits?:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://www.nppmwatch.com/NEWS/April08News.html
McDonald also testified that she found an unused burial pit 32 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two other filled pits of similar size were also found, she said.
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on at Tiger Ranch… Look at these Videos & Pictures of the Tiger Ranch Cats… Graphic:
Copy & Paste The Links:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
I know first hand that Debbie could NOT have seen what she is saying she saw at Tiger Ranch.. I was ALWAYS there first on Saturday mornings and she wouldnt show up until around 10:00 or 11:00am and I had all the animals fed and water and there was NEVER dead cats laying all around.. this is NOT true and I am here to tell you first hand its all garbage.
Well, Somebody Saw Something:
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on Tiger Ranch watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
I love u black cat.. keep up the great comments
I love you black cat.. keep up the great comments. 🙂
Well Infoman, I do believe you are “Dave”.
Copy/paste this: “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY”
*Issue Switching* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
2 Undercover Videos That Were Released For Public Viewing:
Copy & Paste this link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Infoman—I really don’t think anyone is doing the copy/paste/copy/paste thing—I believe they are finding my questions and comments very interesting.
Where have you been InfoMan, or is it Rainman, or is it Dave?
I have one more question for you—-How many times have you visited Tiger Ranch? Do not count DURING OR AFTER the raid—I want to know how many times you visited Tiger Ranch before the raid?
“If you are living with the sights for the rest of your life—you can’t even remenber how burials took place.”
So, black cat, you admit that they were buried there.
So tell me, black cat, how DID Lin Marie bury hundreds of dead cats every month?
This, I have to hear.
Here are some answers to some of your questions, black cat. I put quotes around your comments and questions.
“I believe the total given at the preliminary hearing was 380 (alive) can you double check that?”
I will check on that the next time I am at the courthouse and can pull the records. I thought that some cats were euthanized because they were so ill the night of the rescue.
“Winikoff no longer works for LCA.
WHY?”
He quit BECAUSE CHRIS DEROSE STOPPED THE INVESTIGATION and Winikoff felt there was great suffering at Tiger Ranch. HE MUST HAVE FELT VERY STRONGLY ABOUT THE SUFFERING OCCURRING AT TIGER RANCH TO QUIT HIS JOB WITH LCA!!!
“AS A RESIDENT OF BUTLER COUNTY, I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE YOU WERE LAID OFF FOR “BUDGETARY REASONS”.”
Didn’t the Butler County Humane Society close its Humane Investigations Department? If you live in Butler County, you should know this.
“IT IS A SHAME THAT YOU DID NOTHING TO HELP THIS CAT BEFORE IT DIED—DID NOT TRY TO GIVE IT FLUIDS—DID NOT NOTIFY THE STEWARD OF THIS CATS CONDITION—JUST DIALED THE PHONE AND LISTENED TO THE CAT MOAN???”
Correction, Lin Marie LET ALL THE CATS DIE THIS WAY!!! She didn’t believe in euthanasia, remember.
RE:
Where have you been InfoMan, or is it Rainman, or is it Dave?
You forgot Carl S. isn’t that another name Tiger Ranch Supporters believe I go by?:
http://www.care2.com/news/member/414880878/724755
Carl S. (0) Friday May 2, 2008, 3:42 pm
Being I really am a nice guy, I’ll return the favor and provide YOU with info I found:
Isn’t it strange that Chris DeRose’s Niece, Kim Marie Kopf, told him
that Tiger Ranch was a WONDERFUL place and she herself was convicted
of animal cruelty in 1989. She left 3 cats and a dog in an apartment
for 3 WEEKS with no food or water and 2 of the cats DIED!
Chris DeRose’s organization, “Last Chance for Animals”, gave her
organization, “Just Cats Sanctuary”, $3500 as reported on their 990
from 2006. This was Last Chance’s second largest grant for the year.
Second only to $7500 to the “Guardians of Animals” in North Carolina
in support of a cockfighting campaign.
There is a link to Last Chance on her website. I wonder if Last Chance
contributors would be happy to know that of the $1,233,206 that was
listed on their tax form some of it was funneled to support another
possible hoarder. Supposedly Kim Marie and Linda Bruno were friends.
Isn’t that weird, Bruno changed her name to Linn Marie and DeRose’s
niece is Kim Marie? Too creepy. Birds of a feather?
Derose should have gone to Tiger Ranch himself instead of taking the
word of someone who has similar problems.
Here is the Article on Chris Derose’s niece from 1989:
The Record (New Jersey)
December 27, 1989
Edition: Four Star B
SOUTH BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD
Page 5
WOMAN GUILTY OF NEGLECTING 3 CATS, DOG
Author: By Caroline Herzfeld, Record Staff Writer; The Record
Article Text:
A woman who rented an apartment in Garfield was found guilty of animal
cruelty in Municipal Court last week for leaving three cats and a dog
without water and food for several weeks, according to a Bergen County
animal cruelty prevention officer.
Two of the cats died, and the surviving cat and dog were emaciated and
dehydrated when the Bergen County Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals found them Dec. 7, animal cruelty prevention
officer Lt. Robert Arms said. The remaining animals are available for
adoption; anyone who is interested can call Larry Wilke of Bergen
County Animal Control at 646-3200.
The woman, Kim Kopf, who had rented an apartment at 99 Division Ave.,
was fined $300. She also was sentenced to two years of supervised
probation, which will be reduced to six months probation if all
requirements are met then, according to Garfield Municipal Court
records.
Kopf could not be reached for comment; she told authorities that she
moves frequently, Arms said.
The Owner of the Division Avenue home where Kopf lived, Anna Sinka,
told Authorities Kopf had not been there to feed the animals for about
three weeks, Arms said. Kopf had lived at the apartment for about
three months
Copyright 1989 Bergen record Corp.
Record Number: 2600133
Reply to ForTheCats: So Deb please tell us—Were the cats put in a bucket of a backhoe as you told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or where they thrown into a hole by Lin wearing welders gloves as you told the Pittsburgh City Paper?
Black Cat NEVER said cats were buried at Tiger Ranch—I am questioning Deb Urmann’s statement.
Your reply I have to hear…………
Rainman – honestly, have you replaced ALL your grey matter with fecal matter? The 20 year old article was damn near as refreshing and informative as all the rest of your cut-paste-and repeat posts. Since I doubt you ever came within stone’s throw of Tiger Ranch I wonder how you’ve become so convinced that the sputum driveled out by the PSPCA is the god’s honest truth?
And hey, since you seem to be stuck on questioning the dignity of burial mounds, maybe you’d prefer to be left with the imagery of animals stuffed in garbage bags and thrown in dumpsters after being heart sticked as part of capacity management practices? I’ve heard that from the mouths of both current and past PSPCA staff, some of whom will likely be repeating that under oath. One thing nice about court trials – they shine a lot of light. I don’t think Howie can find a big enough rock to slither under.
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “suffered horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
.
Fact Is…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Fact is…
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
Facts is…
There was “Horrible Suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
With that folks I am also hoping that the Tiger Ranch case
will bring change …
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the
world:
Let Us Not Allow the “horrible suffering” among the cats
at Tiger Ranch Be In Vain:
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *backhoes*,
No More *horrible suffering*:
Copy & Paste The Link Below & Sign the Petition To Let
Your Voices Be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
InfoMan asked: Didn’t the Butler County Humane Society close its Humane Investigations Department? If you live in Butler County, you should know this.
Black Cat’s reply: Animal Control Officer
(Domestic Animals only)
724-352-4732
Serving: Adams, Buffalo, Clinton, Jefferson, Middlesex, Penn, Summit, Winfield Townships. East Butler, Harmony, Saxonburg, and Zelienople Boroughs. Picking up stray dogs and cats and enforcing PA dog laws.
If Deb Urmann was such a wonderful employee-I believe they could have created a position for her.
I don’t ask people to copy/paste/copy/paste—I provide the information and get right to the point.
Nope, I didn’t ask:
InfoMan asked: Didn’t the Butler County Humane Society close its Humane Investigations Department? If you live in Butler County, you should know this.
I asked the following:
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
With The Following Included:
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
Fact Is…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Fact is…
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Facts is…
There was “Horrible Suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
With that folks I am also hoping that the Tiger Ranch case
will bring change …
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the
world:
Let Us Not Allow the “Horrible Suffering” among the cats
at Tiger Ranch Be In Vain:
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *Backhoes*,
No More *Horrible Suffering*:
Copy & Paste The Link Below & Sign the Petition To Let
Your Voices Be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Ran across this and thought maybe I’d just plaster a version of it on the comment board every few hours or so. Got an extra helmet there Rainman?
“Tiger Ranch was raided by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) on March 13, 2008. Three hundred and eighty (380) cats were seized during the raid… many were killed on the spot by the PSPCA and over one hundred were killed within days of the raid.
The PSPCA justified their actions by sharing “undercover” video showing cats that looked ill and/or dying. Some people are uncomfortable seeing ill cats or for that matter, ill people. Why, they wonder, don’t they see ill cats at the other shelters? In fact, at most shelters ill cats are not allowed a chance to recover. Most shelters reach kill decisions which are speedily enacted due to limited money and limited space. Most shelters see the sad truth as “they can house several cats for the cost of one ill cat and NOBODY is going to want to adopt an ill cat anyway and we are going to get a bad name if people see ill cats here.” Most shelters see sick as a snapshot in time. Most shelters, including the PSPCA, routinely kill ill cats (and for that matter, healthy cats too)… calling them “unadoptable”. In reality, MOST ill cats, given TIME and treatment, will turn the corner and recover.
Tiger Ranch is a no kill no cage sanctuary. Their mission is to provide a safe haven for abandoned, abused, neglected, unwanted friendly and feral cats, a viable alternative to euthanasia. Tiger Ranch’s steward, Lin Marie, believes that all cats, regardless of age, disability, health, socialization and temperament deserve a chance at life.
Tiger Ranch had a continuum of care. From kittens, to teenagers, to seniors to supportive care for ill cats. Tiger Ranch also provided for approximately 1000 low cost cat sterilizations for the community.
In the 14.5 years of operation, Tiger Ranch was inspected and/or visited by at least 20 different humane officers. Most of the inspections were unannounced. We are proud to say that Tiger Ranch has never received a single citation from any of the humane officers.
Visitors to Tiger Ranch found a large, well-maintained facility with many different buildings and outdoor playgrounds, where cats were free to live out their natural lives. The supporters of Tiger Ranch would come back year after year to visit the cats. The cat rescuers who have worked with Tiger Ranch, know that it was a place where cats were given a second or third chance at life.
If the PSPCA had not killed the hundred or so Tiger Ranch cats, chances are they would have gotten better and lived out their lives contentedly. Everyone understands that seeing an ill cat in no way denotes the care they are receiving or where they are at in the recovery process. The Tiger Ranch cats were not without hope. The Tiger Ranch cats’ lives were not without value. We ask that you join us in taking a stand for a true NO KILL REVOLUTION.
To learn more about this precedent-setting case and how you can help, please visit http://www.defendtigerranch.org“
Sorry InfoMan–I’m getting you ASSHATS confused——
This response is for ForTheCats:
Black Cat asked of Deb Urmann: “AS A RESIDENT OF BUTLER COUNTY, I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE YOU WERE LAID OFF FOR “BUDGETARY REASONS”.”
ForTheCats replied: Didn’t the Butler County Humane Society close its Humane Investigations Department? If you live in Butler County, you should know this.
Black Cat’s response:
(Domestic Animals only)
724-352-4732
Serving: Adams, Buffalo, Clinton, Jefferson, Middlesex, Penn, Summit, Winfield Townships. East Butler, Harmony, Saxonburg, and Zelienople Boroughs. Picking up stray dogs and cats and enforcing PA dog laws.
Looks like Butler County to me!
RE:
In the 14.5 years of operation, Tiger Ranch was inspected and/or visited by at least 20 different humane officers. Most of the inspections were unannounced. We are proud to say that Tiger Ranch has never received a single citation from any of the humane officers.
Fact is…
Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno has been brought up on charges now:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_595180.html
On March 13, police and humane officers from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raided the ranch to reveal more than 600 diseased, dying and dead felines, which resulted in previous charges including 604 counts of cruelty to animals.
Those included misdemeanor counts of willfully and maliciously killing, maiming, mutilating, torturing or disfiguring a cat, as well as summary counts of cruelly ill-treating, beating, or otherwise abusing an animal, or neglecting the animal from care, food, water, clean shelter and veterinary care.
More charges were filed separately Thursday against Bruno, 45, who also goes by Lin Marie.
The new charges include seven felony counts of tampering with public records — namely rabies vaccination certificates for cats. There also are 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
Fact Is…
This is part of why this happened:
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/15633707/index.html
More Pics of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Infoman posted: The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
Infoman, ForThe Cats is confused as to who is claiming there were burial pits at Tiger Ranch–I do believe this post answers that question. Looks like SPCA to me………
Confusion about burial pits?
Nah, no confusion about burial pits…
Even Lin Mare AKA Linda Bruno’s Defense Attorney Ron E. Valasek knows about the backhoe Lin had to wait for:
Remember?
Notice the word *constantly*…
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Here’s something fresh for you Rainman. Won’t even double space:
THE PENNSYLVANIA SPCA misrepresented the number of humane officers it had available for a 24-hour hot line it announced in January; it used unqualified staffers to euthanize animals, and it broke a state law by ordering agents into counties where they had no legal authority.
These allegations come mainly from the DFEs, as they satirically call themselves – Disgruntled Former Employees of the SPCA, headquartered in Philadelphia at 350 E. Erie Ave., with five SPCA branches around the state.
As DFEs, they may have a score to settle. So may Richard Elliott, a PSPCA board member for 20 years who resigned under pressure earlier this year with parting shots at CEO Howard Nelson. An attorney who has represented PSPCA in the past, Elliott served the organization as president from 1994-99, but was on the outs with Nelson, who took the reins in March 2007.
Also forced out was Suzanne Super, a board member for more than 30 years who echoed Elliott’s complaints that the board was the pet poodle of an imperial Nelson.
“Howard was livid that anyone should question his authority,” she said.
In a story in the Jan. 22 Inquirer, Nelson claimed to have 14 Humane Society police officers to handle calls coming in on a just-launched, 24/7, statewide anti-cruelty hotline.
But there weren’t 14 agents, Elliott said.
“We had 14 agents and agent trainees,” Nelson told me. “We count the agent trainees.” In January, there were only six agents and eight trainees.
In fact, almost a year later, there are only 13 agents, plus trainees.
Nelson inflated the numbers for PR pop, say his critics. To not distinguish between agents, who have legal authority, and trainees, who do not, is not a small matter, although Nelson minimized the discrepancy during an 90-minute interview Thursday.
I reported another discrepancy earlier this year, when Nelson told me PSPCA had submitted a proposal for the city’s animal-control contract “at the request of the city.” Health Department Executive Deputy Commissioner Joseph Cronauer said the PSPCA proposal was unsolicited.
In talking to about a dozen of Nelson’s critics, some of whom declined to be named because they signed nondisclosure agreements, there were repeated assertions that Nelson falls short on veracity.
In his resignation letter, Elliot raised suggestions of “inaccuracy” in some “public statements.” In a later interview with me, he said, “Howard is not the God-head many on the board think he is.”
Because he was hired to make changes, Nelson said he is a “lightning rod” for those who don’t like the changes.
The majority of the board still backs and admires Nelson. Richard Sperry, a member for 25 years, said he finds Nelson to be “100 percent” truthful.
Of wider importance is that PSPCA staffers illegally worked as agents outside their jurisdiction.
What does that mean? After training and appointment by a humane society, each agent must be sworn by the court in each county in which he or she will operate. With 67 counties in Pennsylvania, it’s a cumbersome process.
Former PSPCA humane agents Chris Martin, Pennell Hopkins, Reba McDonald and Tammy Kerr all told me their PSPCA bosses routinely ordered them to work outside their jurisdiction. If they didn’t, they said, they’d be gone. Another, who requested anonymity, said: “I’m going out, every day, basically breaking the law.”
Nelson said, “That is a totally false statement.”
Operating outside jurisdiction is a misdemeanor that can result in a $1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail.
“I could have been fined $57,000 and given 9.1 years in jail, that’s how many times I went outside my jurisdiction,” said Kerr, adding that Nelson would explain it away, but “he is a big, horrible liar.”
Nelson said PSPCA would not “ask an employee to do anything illegal.” No one could force them to do it, he said, adding the allegation is a “misunderstanding of the law.”
In a July 28 staff memo, Nelson instructed agents to not wear badges in counties where they were not sworn and not to leave any paperwork. Critics say the “paperwork” ban was to eliminate evidence.
Nelson said the memo was just a “clarification” of proper procedures.
For a professional opinion, I turned to Anne Irwin, who coordinates the mandatory training for Pennsylvania’s Humane Society police officers.
Even without a badge, she said, “If they are wearing a uniform that looks like an enforcement officer . . . they are giving the impression that they have enforcement authority.”
When former board member Super requested formerly available information about personnel hiring and firing, she was told it was “confidential.” Nelson told me the information is shared only with the executive committee.
That’s not a good practice, said Laura Otten, director of the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s School of Business. That kind of “general data, about how many, the length of service, absolutely” should be made available to the board.
“When boards don’t get involved,” said Elliott, “you get Lehman Brothers.”
I asked Nelson about deception in the fall 2008 issue of The Scoop, the PSPCA’s members’ newsletter. A photo showed six agents being sworn in in Philadelphia. Eight agents were actually sworn in. The picture was manipulated to remove two later-fired agents.
Nelson didn’t see the harm in that. It smacks of the old Soviet Union, I said, where out-of-favor people were removed from photos and documents and turned into nonpersons.
He said it wouldn’t happen again.
There was another error in The Scoop last year. PSPCA claimed it “takes in and cares for all sick and injured stray animals” in Philadelphia.
That’s not true. Nelson said he was new on the job, it was a mistake and a correction was sent out.
Critics say the false claim was made to bolster fundraising, which led, for example, to current construction of a large dog park next to the shelter to be used by homeless dogs confined there.
Saving the worst for last, Antonio Belen, who worked as a driver for PSPCA until last March, on several occasions was ordered to euthanize animals, although he was not qualified.
State law, unbelievably, doesn’t require medical training to administer the lethal dose. It requires that a person have “proper training.”
Nelson said euthanasia is performed “by a veterinarian, a vet tech and technicians certified by a vet.”
No certification is required and vet tech Kathy Krause said her only training was on-the-job.
She, Belen and Wilfredo Delgado all told me they had been ordered to put down animals and none felt confident in their skills. Delgado, a kennel attendant, didn’t want to kill animals and said poor performance by him and others caused animals to suffer.
“Their claims are false,” Nelson said. “They are not a credible source. “
Another disturbing allegation – of animal cruelty within the shelter – came from a former employee who requested anonymity.
In late spring, a Chihuahua was abused during a “catch pole” training session at the shelter, he said. The animal-control device is a pole with a lasso-type loop on one end. The loop snags the animal’s neck, while the pole keeps the animal at a distance, to prevent biting.
Agent Wayne Smith led the training, giving each of five or six trainees a chance to snare the frightened brown dog in a stacked cage about five feet high, pull him out by the loop around his neck and lower him into a carrier on the floor. Capture practice, then using a leash, was repeated on the tiny dog by all trainees.
“The dog was scared to death, flipping out, going nuts. Each time it was more traumatic on this poor animal. I would classify this as torture,” said the former agent.
It went on for 40 minutes, he said. Then Smith euthanized the tiny dog.
Smith denied the allegation, saying that “a catch pole is never used on a dog that size.”
The Chihuahua was “very aggressive,” he said, and had been marked for euthanasia earlier because he was too wild to be adopted.
Trainee Greg Jordan was there. He first agreed a catch pole was used, then became unsure and said he didn’t remember seeing the dog euthanized. Smith said Jordan was in the room.
The former agent said Smith made a point of telling trainees they might have to deal with neighbors’ complaints when they see a catch pole used and Smith actually shouted as neighbors might when the former agent used the catch pole.
Even Nelson’s critics praise his prowess as a fundraiser. That’s one of the reasons he was hired. His fans, such as longtime board member Sperry, say “he has brought new energy, expanded our contacts, raised our profile” to the benefit of Pennsylvania’s animals. Under Nelson, the staff has grown from about 100 to 142 statewide, including 85 in Philadelphia.
Critics concede Nelson’s ability to get coverage of PSPCA by actively courting the press, but say he spends too much time on that. [Disclosure: Last year, I received a Media All-Star Award from PSPCA. This year, two Inquirer reporters were so honored. TV reporters also have been recognized.]
The Animal Planet cable channel approached Nelson and got the OK to bring its “Animal Cops” show to Philly in January. That has brought both good exposure and bad accusations.
Some staffers said animals in the shelter were put down to make room for animals brought in from the “Animal Cops” raids. “Ridiculous,” Nelson fumed. Two sources told me treatment of injured animals was sometimes withheld until “Animal Cops” cameras arrived.
Delgado, who worked 4 p.m.-midnight, told me that he witnessed Nelson ordering treatment be withheld for a pregnant horse that had been struck by a car until cameras arrived.
“That’s false, defamatory,” Nelson said. “I was here, he was not.” Delgado insists he was there.
In Elliott’s resignation letter, he wrote that prior to Nelson, the board “was the epitome of complacency (of which I was as guilty as any).” The board must be a “watchdog and is neither a bridge club or a garden society,” he wrote.
It’s impossible for any outsider to determine the accuracy of the charges made by the DFEs. They are true, partly true, or false. It’s the business of the adoring board to find out.
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20081110_Stu_Bykofsky__SPCA_claims__Real_deal__or_the_work_of_DFEs_.html?page=1&c=y
Hi Ted,
RE:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20081110_Stu_Bykofsky__SPCA_claims__Real_deal__or_the_work_of_DFEs_.html?viewAll=y
Posted on Mon, Nov. 10, 2008
Stu Bykofsky: SPCA claims: Real deal, or the work of DFEs?
*
Have any of these people been charged with animal cruelty?
Do you think the article you presented here will get Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno off the hook?
The Article You Posted Still Does Not Change The Evidence of the Tiger Ranch Case…
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
With The Following Included:
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
Fact Is…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Fact is…
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Facts is…
There was “Horrible Suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
With that folks I am also hoping that the Tiger Ranch case
will bring change …
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the
world:
Let Us Not Allow the “Horrible Suffering” among the cats
at Tiger Ranch Be In Vain:
Let’s Work Together To Keep This From Happening, Again…
No More *Backhoes*,
No More *Horrible Suffering*:
Copy & Paste The Link Below & Sign the Petition To Let
Your Voices Be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Ah Rainman, I see the same damn kernel of corn bubbling up over and over through the fecal matter in your head. Had you checked the world outside your rectal walls you’d find many, many discrepancies in the case presented for TR. Perhaps you’d like to review some of them here:
http://www.tortiball.com or here http://www.freepowerboards.com/SOTR
The problem with the Tiger Ranch raid is that there are way too many witnesses to the good works Lin performed there. I doubt you’ll find any hoarder or abuser that can claim the continued support by so many in the animal rescue world. You see, hundreds of rescuers passed through Tiger Ranch every one of the 14+ years of operation and they know that the hype cooked up by Howie and his poodle posse is in direct contradiction to what they saw and experienced for themselves. Guess the current investigation’s into PSPCA practices just illustrates the extent that they’re willing to go to in order to rake in a few bucks and grab a little power.
Now, I won’t simply cut and paste the entire article again – you’d have to be a festering turd of a human being to be that intellectually lazy – but I will share some of my favorite comments. Enjoy.
“I work with a rescue in Lansdale and we pull cats from PACCA. This year they had SO MANY MORE cats because Howard Nelson was transporting cats in from all over PA! Why would you bring more cats into Philadelphia! Unless you were trying to tank PACCAs numbers by killing hundreds of CATS!”
“Gee Guys! This is all too much for me!!! I live in Philadelphia and was very happy when Animal Cops was all the rage! Now, I gotta think about this one… I usually donate around the holidays, now I’m thinking about it. Only thing I worry about are the animals. The Utley’s seem to be big donors of the PSPCA. I hope they don’t read this.”
“Howard Nelson should resign. All he does is lie and try to make other animal agencies look worse to make himself look better. Try researching how many animals Nelson took from Pacca in 2007 and then how many he took in 2008. The difference is astounding. He simply wants to make Pacca’s euth numbers worse so he can make his own euth numbers, comparatively, higher. It is unfortunate that the PSPCA isn’t run by someone who is concerned for all of Philly’s animals. Wouldn’t it be nice to have such a wealthy organization using their resources for good? With ALL of the money they solicit why aren’t there more low cost spay/neuter programs and city-wide animal welfare education? The PSPCA Board should recognize these lies and force him to resign before they embarrass themselves even more.”
“Hello everyone! It brings me great joy and it is an honor to know that wrongs may be righted! Now, feel free to ask ANY questions you want, I welcome them all. For the record, this is Tammy Kerr. And I’d like to clarify that Chris Martin is not blogging, he doesn’t quite have the patience to blog. Yes, let’s leave it at that… Now for those who doubt the truth to the story, all claims have been checked not only once, but twice. And do you REALLY think that Stu, I, or anyone else would risk printing something untrue? Not in this day and age. I walked away from a $17 an hour job, with benefits to do the right thing. Come on people!! It’s not an opinion, it’s the truth. An incredible man always tells me, he calls a spade a spade. And those who are sticking up for the animals and for what is right, have more integrity than those in charge of PSPCA. I fully expect to be attacked, but as long as I continue to tell the truth, I cannot be hurt. I am a big girl, bring it!”
“If you want a NEW DIRECTION for the PSPCA please email us: newdirectionpspca@gmail.com“
“Be aware, dear readers, that Nelson & co. monitor these articles and make sure to toss their own brand of “spin” into the comment section. The house of cards is falling. The truth will come out… I hope for the sake of Philly’s animals – and animals all across PA – it is sooner rather than later.”
“The “DFE’s” speak the truth. Howard Nelson is evil. He NEVER thought about swearings in anywhere, until Tammy was sued. When the notorious board gets the truth on Howie, they will be appalled that they ever believed him. Richard Elliot deserves no less than individually hand written apologies from each member of the board. I WILL see this happen! Each of the DFE’s has a life and a reputation, which has been besmirched by Nelson. Each of them was driven by the need to protect aminals and improve their lives. Nelson’s only concern is money. He is a dishonest, decietful, paranoid person, whose deeds will be vindicated. This is only the beginning. Patience is a virtue!”
“Nelsons’ save rates in DC were abysmal for a shelter of relatively low volume. They went down even further AFTER his good home guarantee went into effect.”
“Consider that this info came primarily from trained, investigative agents of up to 25 years experience. They deal in facts; facts are what win cases, not disgruntled venting as Howie characterizes it. When they win a case it is because they presented facts backed up by evidence. Animals across PA are suffering onto death in greater and greater numbers since Howie came to office. He worked 2 years with Wash. D.C. Humane Society. Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner came from D.C. Ever heard the Commissioner endorsing Howie? Prior to his 2 years with D.C. H.S., barely enough time to learn the territory of a big city humane society, Nelson was with Fannie Mae. This is literally the tip of the iceberg.”
“PSPCA: No Kill Equals Hoarding, Except When We Fundraise Howard Nelson, the CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA, is pro-No Kill when fundraising and is fond of saying that his agency is already No Kill. He made substantially similar claims as head of the Washington Humane Society (saying that all adoptable animals were being saved) even as the agency killed over 70% of all dogs and cats. And in Philadelphia, he claims that cats with ear mites, pregnant cats, older cats, cats with dental problems, and even cats with fleas should be outside the scope of an agreement with animal control to create No Kill in Philadelphia. If cats with fleas are not adoptable, who is? In Nelson’s world, animals appear to be irrelevant when it comes to No Kill, since No Kill equals fundraising. And when it comes to other shelters, he says that ‘No Kill equals hoarding.’ Historically, the PSPCA has run kill shelters outside Philadelphia, but in a cost cutting move, the PSPCA is turning those over to local agencies to run independently. In the latest attack, the two-faced Nelson is refusing to turn over a shelter to No Kill advocates who want to run a comprehensive, thoughtful open admission No Kill facility. He has no problem turning shelters over to people and agencies grounded in killing.”
“Howard Nelson seems to care more about his donors than the animals he promises to protect. du·plic·i·tous -adj. Given to or marked by deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech. aka -Howard Nelson.”
“I had my doubts about the PSPCA when Howard Nelson was brought aboard, I had my doubts about the PSPCA when the Tiger Ranch raid occured, after reading this article—-I want nothing to do with a bunch of liars and hypocrites. No More Donations.”
“This is proof that Howard Nelson is taking the PSPCA in the wrong direction. Since he took the helm there Philadelphia has been embroiled in bitter infighting and heated debates that result in animals dying. It’s a shame that the man can’t get past his own ego and ambition. I feel that the Board of the PSPCA should reconsider their management decision and get back to the core of what the PSPCA should be doing instead of focusing on arming their field officers and taking over animal control! Check this article out for further reading: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080906/NEWS/809060326/-1/NEWS0912 And: http://www.poconorecord.com/assets/pdf/PR58995.PDF “But my point is that our CEO may unfortunately find difficulty in acknowledging even the possibility of an area of human fallibility. Perhaps this is so because of the adulation in which he is held by many, amounting to an environment approaching the theocratic, which simply does not permit acceptance of the possibility of even the most minor – and perfectly forgivable – human error. Theocracy, as history has shown, works poorly in government and perhaps ultimately more poorly in business.” – Richard Elliot (former PSPCA Board Member)”
“If Howard Nelson had any morals or character, he would resign and do everyone a favour here. His only agenda is fundraising and it is obvious from his actions that he doesn’t care how many laws he breaks, employees he fires, animals he kills or how many decent rescuers he puts out of commission to reach his goal. Maybe those former employees are disgruntled for a very good reason. When will the PSPCA board ‘grow a set’ and get RID of him? I am sure that their legal fees have got to far outweigh their contributions just with the Tiger Ranch case alone. That money could have been put to far better use coordinating true animal rescue/No Kill programs but it would seem egos are far more important than the animals’ welfare.”
But of course, Howie wouldn’t do anything as lowly as orchestrate a massive raid solely for the Animal Planet series and the fundraising op. I mean really, I’m sure he just had to be shell shocked to find seriously ill cats living at a NO-KILL SANCTUARY – they’d have been bagged and dumpstered w/in the day at any of his facilities.
Hi Ted,
Nowhere in anything you have posted is Howard Nelson or the PSPCA being formerly charged nor prosecuted for animal cruelty, forgery, felony counts or allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
Do you think the articles you presented here will get Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno off the hook?
However Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA Has been Charged With:
604 counts of cruelty to animals, 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_595180.html
On March 13, police and humane officers from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raided the ranch to reveal more than 600 diseased, dying and dead felines, which resulted in previous charges including 604 counts of cruelty to animals.
Those included misdemeanor counts of willfully and maliciously killing, maiming, mutilating, torturing or disfiguring a cat, as well as summary counts of cruelly ill-treating, beating, or otherwise abusing an animal, or neglecting the animal from care, food, water, clean shelter and veterinary care.
More charges were filed separately Thursday against Bruno, 45, who also goes by Lin Marie.
The new charges include seven felony counts of tampering with public records — namely rabies vaccination certificates for cats. There also are 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
The Articles You Have Posted Still Do Not Change The Evidence of the Tiger Ranch Case.
*Issue Switching* and the *Blame Game* still does not answer the following:
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
With The Following Included:
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
Fact Is…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Fact is…
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Facts is…
There was “Horrible Suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
InfoMan asked: Do you think the articles you presented here will get Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno off the hook?
Maybe-but it has opened up a lot of eyes and hopefully closed a lot of wallets When speaking of the Tiger Ranch raid—I have had elected officials saying to me: “WHAT??????”—-“THEY DID WHAT???????” “WHO WAS THIS GROUP FROM PHILLY?”
Rainman – have you experienced extended periods of time without adequate air supply (perhaps during a coughing fit your sphincter tightened about your neck)?
That the PSPCA found a glory seeking DA and filed such a massive amount of charges is no surprise. In fact, people that follow SPCA cases where there has been similar abuses of authority recognize that as one of their foremost tactics. Usually what happens is that the manager/owner becomes quickly overwhelmed with legal fees and can’t cope with the prolonged stress of court hearings so they cave and the SPCA walks away with an easy victory and another filled donation can. Howie must be terribly frustrated that Lin has steel in her backbone and a committed group of supporters that will see this case through to the bitter end. I don’t think Howie and company are gonna hold up so well under prolonged exposure.
Your copying and pasting of the same crap over and over again is only briefly annoying. I can just visualize printing off every page of drivel you’ve generated and shoving down your piehole and I feel instantly better.
Oversees activities of Assistant District Attorneys:
ALLEGHENY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Term: 4 years
Salary: $120,225
Duties: Prosecutes all criminal cases in Court of Common Pleas; prepares criminal information, requests and conducts investigative grand juries, prepares cases for court.
Stephen A. Zappala Jr
Been in office since 1998—-TIME FOR A CHANGE!
Ted Bronson wrote: “That the PSPCA found a glory seeking DA and filed such a massive amount of charges is no surprise.”
Glory seeking (Assistant) D.A. – – – Thank you!
Yes, I know… it’s all a conspiracy.
So much of a conspiracy the following did come to pass:
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was Warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*…
Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of Last Chance for Animals stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made on the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
Now That’s A Conspiracy If I’ve Ever Heard One.
*
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
I learned about this story today and read the article, and I want to reply to Black Cat’s comments from 11/2/2008 11:03am. Black Cat’s comments are in all caps.
IT IS A SHAME THAT YOU DID NOTHING TO HELP THIS CAT BEFORE IT DIED—DID NOT TRY TO GIVE IT FLUIDS—DID NOT NOTIFY THE STEWARD OF THIS CATS CONDITION—JUST DIALED THE PHONE AND LISTENED TO THE CAT MOAN???
Agreed — with all the evidence we have about that incident, it does sound bad that she did not intervene. But that’s besides the evidence about the cruel neglect by Tiger Ranch to hundreds of cats at a time, and probably many thousands during its years of operation.
REID, DEFOREST, AND MORROW SAT IN A CAR ALONG MILLER ROAD–WHY DIDN’T THEY GO INSIDE TIGER RANCH–IF THEY WERE WORKING UNDERCOVER THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN A LOT MORE INFORMATION AND PHOTOS HAD THEY GONE INSIDE THE FACILITY. WERE THEY NOT ON FRIENDLY TERMS WITH TIGER RANCH?
They would have to be allowed in, which would make it harder to conceal the investigation. If they were already not on friendly terms with the Ranch, that in no way impacts the evidence.
YOU FOUND NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS FACILITY IN 2004?
I’d imagine she did not spend a long time at the Ranch while dropping off cats there, and saw little of the grounds. Working there would have allowed her to see all the rooms, the procedures, the freezers, the graves, etc.
HOW MANY HOURS PER WEEK DID YOU VOLUNTEER?
Even an hour a week is enough to see what’s going on, unlike dropping off cats which is not enough.
AS A RESIDENT OF BUTLER COUNTY, I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE YOU WERE LAID OFF FOR “BUDGETARY REASONS”.
What’s strange about the idea of an organization laying off a paid employee when it no longer has enough money to pay the employee? And what does you own residency have to do with it?
DID YOU SEE THE DEATH ROOM—-DID YOU GO INSIDE IT? ISN’T THAT WHERE MOST OF THE UNDERCOVER VIDEOS WERE SHOT? DID YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO ENTER THIS ROOM?
The question of whether she was allowed to enter has absolutely no moral bearing on the issue. You seem to be saying that although all these animals were left to suffer, the evidence is somehow invalid because Urmann did not have permission to enter the room. So you agree that the animals were left to suffer. So besised the point, it is quite plausible that a regular volunteer would be allowed to enter the death room.
IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBTS ABOUT THE FACILITY—WHY IN GODS NAME WOULD YOU LEAVE YOUR CATS THERE? WHY WERE YOU UNABLE TO TAKE THEM TO YOUR NEW RESIDENCE?
‘”I had a bad feeling about the place as soon as I got there,” says McCalpin, who talks about the cats through tears. “I saw some sick cats. … But because we felt we didn’t have any other choice, we left them. I have never forgiven myself for that.”‘ Taking your cat to another state can be difficult. For example, you have to find an apartment where cats are allowed. Especially if the move is abrupt, this can be impossible. So she left the cats with someone who said they woud be well cared for. She may have told herself that there are sick cats in all such places. But within a week she returned for them.
I JUST CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD SURRENDER YOUR CAT, AND THEN WANT IT BACK.
“The decision weighed on her all week.” What’s hard to understand about that?
“Winikoff no longer works for LCA. ” WHY?
Because DeRose fired him for insisting to investigate further after finding evidence of horrible suffering. So says DeRose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU .
PLEASE EXPLAIN “ALL MESSED UP”—CAN MS. DEFOREST EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN—SHE HAS A DEGREE IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
No education is needed to get the gist of “messed up” here. It is a coloquial term expressing emotion by the speaker. In this case, it means they were very angry and dismayed. You can understand that they felt powerless because the organizations that were supposed to be concerned were turning a blind eye despite being shown evidence.
I HOPE ALL THE PAPERWORK WAS IN ORDER.
That does not matter with respect to the moral value of the case: the suffering that the cats were left to endure.
“At any time these folks could have come to us” with evidence, he says, “but they never did.”
VERY GOOD POINT
Not really. They expected to receive no help and no independent investigation from WPHS, just as they had other local organizations. “[b]y that point, the women had decided that local agencies had conflicting interests. The very people who were supposed to monitor Tiger Ranch, they surmised, depended on it to help take care of surplus cats.” So they could go to the WPHC.
I FIND HOWARD NELSONS COMMENTS APPAULING. WHY WAS ANIMAL PLANET THERE? MONEY?
The show may exist to raise money, so what? The Ranch also takes money.
I SAW PHOTOS OF THE PSPCA TRUCKS WITH TIGER RANCH CATS–THE CATS I SAW IN THE PHOTO LOOKED HEALTHY
Let’s all see the photo.
DID THE PSPCA COMBINE ALL THE TIGER RANCH CATS TOGETHER IN THESE TRUCKS? SICK AND HEALTHY CATS?
Do you have any evidence that they did? And if they were already in the same room together, would it make a difference to put them in the same truck?
HOW LONG WERE THEY IN THESE TRUCKS BEFORE THEY WERE EXAMINED?
Good question.
I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THE PSPCA CAN RAID A FACILITY AND NOT HAVE THE SUPPLIES TO TAKE CARE OF THESE ANIMALS.
The conditions they had were better than the appauling conditions at the Ranch. They had some supplies and some vets, so the animals would have better conditions, and some treatment or euthenasia; at the Ranch, they would receive none of that. That justifies the decision to raid the facility and take them away.
THERE WERE MANY REQUESTS MADE TO THE PUBLIC FOR DONATIONS. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF CATS TAKEN FROM TIGER RANCH HAS BEEN REPORTED AS: BETWEEN 700 AND 1,000—DEPENDING ON WHICH ARTICLES YOU READ, OR WHICH NEWS REPORT YOU WATCH–THIS ARTICLE STATES NEARLY 400. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE OTHER ANIMALS THAT WERE TAKEN FROM TIGER RANCH—ARE THERE CHARGES AGAINST THEM? SEEMS LIKE ONLY THE CATS ARE BEING MENTIONED. CAN WE GET AN UPDATE ON THESE OTHER ANIMALS?
I’d like to know that too. Where are those other numbers reported?
In reply to Black Cat 11/ 3/2008 – 2:57pm
“Are you sure Rutu is the same cat in both photos?”
There are four photos of Rutu in the article, followed by three photos of unnamed cats.
“In one picture he looks like a gray cat and in the other photo he looks like a black cat?”
Which picture labelled Rutu looks like a picture of a black cat to you?
“The markings on his face are different also.”
Only the last picture has a face that’s different from Rutu, and it’s a different cat. It’s not labeled as Rutu.
“There are 2 different photographers for the photos(Goldbloom and Mull).”
So?
Mere mortals attempts to play God will backfire in the end. The truth will prevail.
That’s all I want. The truth, no matter which way it shakes out.
Look long and hard inside yourselves.
Can you make the same claim?
Responding to Black Cat’s comments of 11/ 5/2008 – 2:14pm:
“Were the cats put in a bucket of a backhoe as you told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or where they thrown into a hole by Lin wearing welders gloves as you told the Pittsburgh City Paper?”
Could the cats have been buried in different ways at different times? She said two slightly different things about the way cats were buried. Does that mean she fabricated the photos and videos about multitudes of suffering cats? Or that there were many burials?
As far as comments from Tiger Ranch Supporters…
They Are Moot.
Fact Is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see some of the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
Pictures/Videos/Evidence… There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Fact Is…
No one reading any of what has been posted or has posted on this forum has the *legal authority* to convict nor find innocent Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie in a Court Of Law of the following:
604 counts of cruelty to animals, 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
*
Looks like we will just have to wait and see what happens in a court of law.
Now doesn’t it.
*
In the meantime…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
She said two slightly different things about the way cats were buried. Does that mean she fabricated the photos and videos about multitudes of suffering cats?
Fabricated the photos and videos—-I guess we will find that out in court.–very interesting.
PhilipGanchev: Which picture labelled Rutu looks like a picture of a black cat to you?
The first one—what are you freakin color blind??????
Let me make the question of Rutu’s colors perfectly clear to you:
Is Rutu Black & White or Gray & White????
There are 4 pictures labelled “Rutu”.
Black Cat posted: ” I SAW PHOTOS OF THE PSPCA TRUCKS WITH TIGER RANCH CATS–THE CATS I SAW IN THE PHOTO LOOKED HEALTHY”
That picture can be found here: http://www.freepowerboards.com/SOTR/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=185
Isn’t it amazing how any criticism of Howard Nelson is considered a “smear tactic”? Let’s see: He drove a highly respected vet away from providing services:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mm0i20jmryl
Instigated the resignation of a long time Board member due to well founded ethical concerns:
http://www.mediafire.com/?kbtxzbwkszt
Fired a well respected HSPO:
http://tortiball.com/wp/2008/09/reader-reaction-to-%E2%80%9Cfired-investigator-tried-to-protect-animals%E2%80%9D/
Led another competent HSPO to resign after she carried out an illegal raid under his direction:
http://tortiball.com/wp/2008/08/cat-owners-case-against-pspca-continues/
Acts in a manner that dilutes the meaning of no-kill to near worthlessness:
“Nonetheless, if the PSPCA were allowed to retake the animal control contract, I fear the end result would be a retrenchment of lifesaving efforts to potentially pre-2005 levels. (PSPCA has launched an attack of PACCA to undermine support of the agency in the City, and to retake the animal control contract.) Its CEO Howard Nelson, for example, has been fundraising saying that the PSCPA takes care of the medical needs of “all” the strays PACCA takes in, a claim that borders on fraud. As the PSPCA is still openly hostile to the adoption of Pit Bulls, the large numbers of these dogs entering PACCA would face an almost certain death if history and present views do not change and it were to be given the contract.
And despite attempts to forge a lifesaving agreement between the PSPCA and PACCA, it was rejected by Howard Nelson who submitted his own draft saying cats with fleas, or ear mites, or needing dental care, or pregnant, should be outside the scope of the agreement as they were apparently not in the PSPCA’s ambit of “adoptable” animals. (Is this how Howard Nelson was able to claim that the Washington Humane Society under his leadership was saving all “adoptable” animals while killing over 70% of all impounded dogs and cats?) If this is the vision for a No Kill Philadelphia under the PSPCA, the animals will be killed en masse.”
Nathan Winograd – http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008/02/cautionary-tale-of-almost-victory-in.html
and:
Howard Nelson, the CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA, is pro-No Kill when fundraising and is fond of saying that his agency is already No Kill. He made substantially similar claims as head of the Washington Humane Society (saying that all adoptable animals were being saved) even as the agency killed over 70% of all dogs and cats. And in Philadelphia, he claims that cats with ear mites, pregnant cats, older cats, cats with dental problems, and even cats with fleas should be outside the scope of an agreement with animal control to create No Kill in Philadelphia. If cats with fleas are not adoptable, who is? In Nelson’s world, animals appear to be irrelevant when it comes to No Kill, since No Kill equals fundraising.
And when it comes to other shelters, he says that ‘No Kill equals hoarding.’ Historically, the PSPCA has run kill shelters outside Philadelphia, but in a cost cutting move, the PSPCA is turning those over to local agencies to run independently. In the latest attack, the two-faced Nelson is refusing to turn over a shelter to No Kill advocates who want to run a comprehensive, thoughtful open admission No Kill facility. He has no problem turning shelters over to people and agencies grounded in killing.
Read the article here: http://nathanwinograd.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
The PSPCA, and Pennsylvania animal welfare efforts in general, would be well served by ridding themselves of Howard Nelson and his cronies. Immediately
Fact Is…
Howard Nelson, the CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA isn’t the one being charged with:
604 counts of cruelty to animals, 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
However Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie has been charged with the above.
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
*
Fact Is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see some of the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
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In the meantime…
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters….
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches.
I SAW PHOTOS OF THE PSPCA TRUCKS WITH TIGER RANCH CATS–THE CATS I SAW IN THE PHOTO LOOKED HEALTHY”
That picture can be found here: http://www.freepowerboards.com/SOTR/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=185
Thanks Ted.
Now I know that Howie has probably piped in his litany of lies through a rectal tube for so long that you’ve likely been brainwashed (washed pretty thoroughly I’d say, no trace left behind) but the truth remains that this has all the earmarks of a fabricated and exaggerated case – as evidenced by the comments of several hundred very vocal Tiger Ranch supporters. Here’s a few more. I can post the remaining SEVERAL HUNDRED after your next pathetic cut and paste:
“I believe that the Pennsylvania SPCA needs to find a new person that cares about the animals welfare instead of making a profit. I think the charges need to be against Howard Nelson instead. Let’s investigate him. All charges against Tiger Ranch need to be dropped.”
“I support Lin Marie and her Tiger Ranch 100%. As a Health Care Professional, I have never witnessed any animal neglect or abuse at the Ranch. Additionally, by promoting responsible adoptions and spaying and neutering countless stray and feral cats over the years, Lin Marie has been instrumental in decreasing the “unadoptable”cat population exponentially while providing a safe haven for those lucky enough to make it to the Ranch.”
“We need more people to get interested in the welfare of animals not less. This woman is doing what I wish I could and that is giving love if only for a short time to those who have never known it,leave her alone.”
“The PSPCA needs to put their energy, funds and efforts towards REAL animal abusers and neglegent pet owners, not someone who is genuine in their actions and doing their best to make a better life for unwanted cats. Euthanization is NOT the answer!”
“I visited Tiger Ranch several times during 2007 and NEVER saw anything like what the PASPCA said they found.”
“Linn Marie has been taking in animals that no one else would for years. Last Chance For Animals supports her and local people who know her are rallying to her defense and lining up for the opportunity to testify for her. PSPCA, go after the puppy mills and dog fighting rings and leave this good woman alone.”
“I have and alway will support Lin.”
“These charges are bogus! Last Chance For Animals is investigating the PSPCA for invading Tiger Ranch the way they did. Stay strong Linn Marie!
“These charges are bogus! Last Chance For Animals is investigating the PSPCA for invading Tiger Ranch the way they did. Stay strong Linn Marie!”
“If you read and view all the evidence available online about Linn Marie and Tiger Ranch, you would KNOW that she is not only innocent but a Mother Theresa of cats! For years she has taken in animals no one else would take, nursed them and found many of them loving homes.”
“The kitties can’t possibly understand…They used to be free-roaming…and now they are stacked in cages on top of each other…the stress of what they’ve gone through will surely result in more falling ill…” SADLY PROPHETIC
“After trying to find help over the past ten years for abandoned and feral cats being dropped on my property, I had heard of Tiger Ranch just prior to this incident. Now the only person willing to help is being attacked by the people who would not. I am utterly disgusted by the actions of the PSPCA. Most of these cats probably came to Tiger Ranch because organizations like the PSPCA would not help.”
“To Whom it may concern, I am a volunteer with P.A.W.S. of Sayville, Long Island, NY. We are a very small local rescue group. I personally have never been to Tiger Ranch but 3 very trusted volunteers, volunteered to make the 7 hr drive to Tiger Ranch. This was after speaking to several other people/groups that had been there and had favorable experiences. Our first volunteer went with only a few cats and if she didn’t like what she saw she would not leave them and come back with them. Believe me this volunteer would NEVER, NEVER put any of our cats in ANY danger. She took a tour of Tiger Ranch and took pictures. Since then 2 other volunteers have made several trips. We are standing behind their obsevations that Tiger Ranch was a safe, clean,healthy, organized and well supervised place for our ferals that had no other place to go. There is no place on Long Island that will take anything but the perfect cat/kitten. Because of this I am asking the PSPCA to drop all charges of animal abuse against Lin Marie and Tiger Ranch. Here is an idea, how about we ALL work and help each other for the cats/ kittens. Lin Marie is serving a great need. If we ALL work together maybe we could accomplish the goal of No More Homeless Pets. Thanks, Donna Weber, P.A.W.S.”
“The SPCA should be ashamed for the tactics being used in this case. They close an animal shleter due to “insufficient funds” yet re-open that same shelter when they see an opportunity to get a t.v. deal? Disgusting!!”
“I have known linn for a long time, I could never see her hurt an animal let alone kill an animal. She has helped so manycatsover the years she has helped my cats with getting there shots and getting fixed. She even fixed my cat for free at christmas time. I have taken cats up to her and I have personaly watched the cat I took up there get adopted out within 3 days. It was a great day. I have never seen a sick cat and I’ve been in the house barn trailer and the back cat house. I would be up there for 2 hours sometimes and watched her and everyone work and she always would get my husband to help out when needed. She’s truely a great person and a true animal lover there is no way she deserved what she is getting. She helped animals when no one wanted them and she’s helped animals otherwise would have been killed in a shelter”
“Calling Linn Marie an animal abuser is absurd. Stop harassing this woman who has been saving, nurturing and finding homes for animals for YEARS and go after the puppy mill operators and others who ARE abusing animals.”
“I WORK THERE, AND I KNOW THE TRUTH! THE PSPCA ARE THE KILLERS, NOT TIGER RANCH!!”
“Tiger Ranch has always been, and will always be, the only true non-kill shelter; not only in PA but many of it’s neighboring states as well. Linn Marie (along with the help of lovely volunteers!) never siad no to a cat/kitten no matter what the circimstances. Tiger Ranch is the only shelter to accept cats with FIV, feline lukemia, and the likes; all those cats also had seperate areas away from the healthy animals. They were all under vet. care and any that did die, died naturaully (no kill means no kill) in a loving place surrounded by lovely people and animals in the most comfortable way possible. Tiger Ranch is also the only place to accept ferrals, a large problem in PA and surrounding states. We’ve had a volunteer come out to pick up whole ferral colonies in our area ( thanks Ruth Ann!) to tkae to Tiger Ranch, and when my boyfriend worked with a local police department they would get complaints along with people threatening to shoot the ferrals if not picked up by the dog catcher, either way these animals would have died, so each time we called a volunteer and she came out almost immediately in all types of weather, collected each and every one of them and took them to Tiger Ranch where they then would see a vet within the next couple days (many of which were adopted out quickly). There is no shelter that would take these animals in let alone come to you to get them! I got my youngest cat from Tiger Ranch and she is an absolute joy! Tiger Ranch takes all the cats no one else wants, if not for her where would they go? If people as a whole were more responsible and got their animals fixed, this would not even be an issue. Unfortunately we live in a world that is far from perfect. Maybe the circumstances at Tiger Ranch were not perfect, but there is no such thing. I’ve volunteered at local shelters and have seen much worse. Tiger Ranch was kept clean, all the animals fed and under vet care, and truely were treated with love and respect. What more can you ask for? Everyone at Tiger Ranch keep up the awesome work, and know we’re all praying for you Linn Marie!”
“Why don’t you try to work with Linn Marie and support what she is doing, rather than work against her? Your actions seem more about power and control than what is truly best for the animals.”
“As an active animal rescuer, I am appalled that the PSPCA and Animal Planet have raided this woman’s sanctuary and euthanized many animals. She and those like her do the work that the SPCAs refuse to do. DROP THESE RIDICULOUS CHARGES!!!!!!!”
“I am a humane volunteer living in Terre Haute, IN. I mostly work on low- and no-cost spay/neuter projects in my area, and volunteer with the Terre Haute Humane Society. Although many of us are working hard at reducing our rampant overpopulation of cats, we still need the help of outside communities to help absorb some of the overflow if we are to avoid euthanizing healthy cats. Terre Haute Humane Society agreed to accept unwanted litters and strays from my spay/neuter clients if I could arrange spay/neuter surgeries and vaccinations for the relinquished kittens and cats. I was responsible for getting unwanted animals (which would otherwise be given “free to a good home” and further contribute to the breeding) out of neglectful situations, getting them altered and vaccinated, and Terre Haute Humane Society would arrange to send the healthy animals which were not adopted within our community to rescues with better access to adopters. Lin Marie was able to get most of those cats quickly adopted since they were healthy, socialized and ready to go when they arrived (unlike most of the cats she received). Although I never personally went to Tiger Ranch, trusted, responsible representatives from several local shelters and rescues had transported cats there and toured the facilities every 6 weeks. Before we had Tiger Ranch’s help, those cats would have to be euthanized. We have not found another rescue to absorb the extra cats we would be sending to Tiger Ranch, and our alternatives now are to try to follow up on the increase in “free to a good home” animals to try to convince new owners to accept low- or no-cost spay/neuter (not as easy as you might think), or revert to euthanizing the excess again. Tiger Ranch had separate enclosures for the varieties of cats with special needs and health issues. Cross-contamination was no more common there than what our community experiences naturally. Most cats that arrive at the clinics and shelters around here are full of worms, fleas, and often have ringworm or other contagious diseases. Sometimes, regardless of our best efforts, diseases will spread throughout a shelter. It is unreasonable and irresponsible to fault Lin Marie for some cross-contagion. It is also wrong to accuse her of neglect and, worse, cruelty to animals who were under the care of a veterinarian and receiving advised palliative medicines and pain relief. PSPCA is wasting so much time and money on separating and holding all those animals, hiring staff to care for the animals and legal staff, etc. Pennsylvania is a known puppy-mill state and the PSPCA has many more abusive and cruel targets to pursue. This is sickening, wasteful, and is resulting in more negative impact with all the cats who now have no place to go. Please use your excess funds to help Tiger Ranch meet your standards rather than spending more to destroy Tiger Ranch and Lin Marie. It will cost less and help more animals. Then go after the irresponsible breeders and pet stores.”
“PA SPCA…You should be ashamed of yourselves for what you have done. You have taken away something of real value to our community. If you had taken the time to know and understand Lin Marie you would have realized that she is the farthest thing from an animal abuser. You could have put forth an effort to help her, but instead you just came in and threw your weight around, turning the situation into a media circus. Just GO AWAY!”
“I have been to Tiger Ranch several times and have never seen the conditions you have described. I also have adotped two healthy cats from Tiger Ranch. Obviously, all the local shelter’s saw the good she has been doing or would not have brought her animals. Give Lin Marie her animals back now. Thankyou!”
“I transported cats from our local animal shelter for 2 years. Every time I’m there the buildings are exceptionally clean and the cats well taken care of. I have even been there to help her take care of the animials and was very impressed by her care and concern of the animals in her care.”
Sorry Infoman – forgot to blow that last kiss specifically your way but it’s all for you my dearest poodlehat
Copy & Paste To Read Entire Article
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_565017.html
Cat shelter rife with disease, vets say
PITTSBURGH — Hours of gruesome testimony ran overtime Tuesday in the preliminary hearing of Linda Bruno, the owner and operator of Tiger Ranch, a cat sanctuary in Frazer that officials say was run amok.
The hearing was continued until Tuesday after a five-hour slide show of dozens of cats who were found diseased, sickly and dead on Bruno’s property last month.
Expert witness veterinarians Dr. Ravindra Murarka and Dr. Becky L. Morrow listed conditions and descriptions to match the images of the sickest cats on the ranch.
There were cats whose limbs and joints were covered with bursting abcesses; cats with ulcerated and jaundiced mouths; cats with glaucoma and conjunctivitis so bad their eyes looked like dollops of burnt cherry pie; cats with severe infections that covered or destroyed their eyes and left their faces bathed in slime or molded over like old bread.
*
Copy & Paste To Read Entire Article
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
Tiger Ranch owner faces trial on 593 counts of animal cruelty
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
She testified that a necropsy on the cat found dead behind one of the four freezers used to store cat carcasses indicated it had a twisted lung lobe. That, she said, indicates the lung was not functional, and the cat had no food in its stomach.
“During the necropsy, I remember pulling eight round worms from its intestine,” she said. “It appears as if the cat died of starvation, secondary to an upper respiratory infection and from the roundworms.”
*
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch.
*
Fact Is…
Cats are doing better.
Copy & Paste the Link to See All of the Article:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/824459
Tiger Ranch cats thriving at shelter
By Francine Garrone
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Huddled in a small wicker basket in the corner of a makeshift cattery sleeps a miracle.
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Rainman – we’re getting quite a few pages of garbage from your posts – not that I doubt you can accomodate them all. Hell, I’d bet you could open a landfill. As for Doctors Murarka and the less than expert Dr. Becky L. Morrow, it was quite evident at the hearing that neither had any real experience with feral colonies aside from an occasional s/n. But I’m sure this has all been a wonderful lab experience for the ethically challenged Morrow and her students. As promised, just a few more comments from the Tiger Ranch supporters:
“We love tiger ranch and all that you do for those animals”
“I visited Tiger Ranch and what LinMarie does not many do!! She gives animals who have been discarded and takes care of them and gives them a home!”
“She is taking in sick and discarded animals that no one else will have, Then being used and misrepresented by the local news.”
“I support Lin Marie. Drop these absurd charges.”
“Linn is a Hero. This is a travesty of justice. I have been to Tiger Ranch many many times. It is a Haven for the Cats. I had a Feral Cat living there. Hopefully he escaped the immoral raid and still survives. The animals must come back to Tiger soon.”
“Lynn is doing God’s work careing for animals and giving them a chance where they would otherwise be killed by people who don’t think they deserve a chance to live and be happy!!!!!!”
“Lin Marie had no intent to kill any animal. All sick cats that were found by the PSPCA were found that way because they were taken to Tiger Ranch in that condition. Lin’s only crime was her disbelief in euthanasia, and really, can that even be considered a crime? We don’t euthanize ourselves, do we? If anything, Deb Urmann, Howard Nelson, and anyone else who has told lies about the conditions of Tiger Ranch should be arrested and charged with slander.”
“I have a kitty from Tiger Ranch. Lin never sat still. She worked to save cats that no one else cared about. The PSPCA should be ashamed, apologize, and give the remaining cats back to Tiger Ranch. Her dogs, horses, and other pets should have never been removed. Her medicines, food and whatever else was STOLEN by the PSPCA should be replaced immediately. Lin helps those of us who have cats but can’t afford to pay high vet bills. She cares about animals.”
“Linn Marie has for 16 years done the right thing for many animals – she takes in Feral & Adoptable cats. Someone ask the PSPCA what they know about feral cats. Stop the PSPCA from killing our cats that many of us left in Linn Maria’s care, to live out their lives. The Stress alone is killing these animals. RELEASE OUR CATS~~!!”
“We sent our cats to Lin Marie because we trusted her to care for them. We DID NOT turn them over to the PSPCA to be euthanized! Give her our cats back!”
“Tiger Ranch accepted a feral cat, that would not be accepted either by the Humane Society nor Animal Friends. The cat was “fixed” and resided in the feral colony. I cannot thank Tiger Ranch & Linn Marie enough, she is a “God sent”.”
“It’s horrible that these animals were taken so abruptly from Tiger Ranch especially without any warning at all. The PSPCA should already know that it’s very difficult and costly to run animal shelters. Not many people want the job. That’s all the more reason the PSPCA should try and work together with shelters and the care of animals. Unfortunately, shelters are very much needed for the animals sake. It’s not Lin’s fault that people toss their pets out everyday as if they are garbage and neglect to have their pets spayed and neutered. She gave those the animals the right to live out their life in a safe haven. At the very least, the PSPCA should have given Lin a warning if they were unhappy about the facility. That’s where the real cruelty lies in this case. God bless the animals and Lin. I fully support her in her endeavors to reclaim what is hers and hopefully rebuild Tiger Ranch bigger and better.”
“Believe Linn has handled the ranch over all these years to the best of her ability and no harm was ever the intent.”
“I think Linn must be an Angel sent from God to try her best to take care of these little ones, even the ones that have been abused and that no one wants, we need more people like her who give up so much of their own money,time and love to try and save a helpless animal. God Bless Her and he will.”
“Please drop the charges against this woman. I have been to TR several times. This woman turns NO ANIMAL away. Unlike many supposed no kill shelters…who are only no kill because they are no acceptance. Yes, there are many sick cats…but they came there sick. I completely understand the dead animals in the freeezer. My first thought was she wants to bury them and the ground is too cold. She does very much with very little help. Please, please do not crucify this woman for lack of helping hands. Give her support.”
“I too have been to Tiger Ranch and have seen the conditions of the facility. She truly cares about these animals! I hope that she again is able to start Tiger Ranch up again to help all the cats that no one else wants or otherwise would be put to sleep at the shelters that DO Kill animals. She was doing what she thought was best for all of her animals there.”
“As a veterinarian and having worked part time at the Animal Rescue League a few years ago. I am aware of cats who were placed at Tiger Ranch as their only chance to live out their lives or be further worked with and possibly placed. For example, cats that were soiling outside the litterbox might have otherwise been euthanized due to difficulty placing them.These cats were placed there and either worked with or placed in homes that could facilitate cats as indoor/ outdoor cats.”
“Tiger Ranch is trying to do the right thing for animals. Animals are not neglected or tortured – they are permitted to live in peace. The adversaries of Tiger Ranch do not know the whole story and don’t want to listen!”
“these charges are false. i have been to tiger ranch, and i am appalled by these allegations, and the way the owner was treated. and they stole donated food and medications for the cats please sign”
“Howard Nelson is a disgrace to the rescue community. This is all a publicity stunt and he should be removed from his position.”
“Helping large numbers of animals is not crazy and is not a crime. Doing the best you can and ensuring medical care is enough. Just because there are a lot, doesn’t mean the quality of care is diminished. Shame on anyone for judging harshly without all the facts.”
“Please drop the animal abuse charges levied against the Tiger Ranch. Animal sanctuaries, such as Tiger Ranch, take in the unwanted, sick and disposable animals that rest of society has chosen to ignore. They do not abuse, they provide end of care life services and help where there often is no other alternative. Tiger Ranch emphasizes quality of life to all living things – please so not punish them any further for their devotion to animals who have no other options.”
“f there weren’t places like Tiger Ranch, where would the old pets who have more life to live be??? Support them instead of trying to close them.”
“People should not be punished for trying to aid in a crisis sitaution, that crisis being, inadequate shelters and care for domestic cats in the United States, the richest of all nations.”
People who rely upon Mainstream Media as their primary (or only) source for information lack curiosity and critical thinking skills.
Reporters write stories to sell papers, therefore anything in MSM must be viewed through that filter.
Question everything.
To read the comments from people that see this case from a different viewpoint just Copy & Paste the following link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to brought in to bury the dead.
*
How many dead cats do you think it took to fill these Burial Pits?:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://www.nppmwatch.com/NEWS/April08News.html
McDonald also testified that she found an unused burial pit 32 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two other filled pits of similar size were also found, she said.
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_564837.html
McDonald said the records indicated Bruno had received 6,482 cats in 2007. Only 14 cats were indicated as being adopted out.
Records for 2008 indicated 786 cats had been taken in and nine were adopted out prior to the raid.
No records could be found for 2006.
*
Fact is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
Fact Is…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
District Judge Suzanne Blaschak said Bruno’s actions rose to torturous conduct by the absence of care, food, water, not helping the animal to ingest the food for nutrition, and clearing and wiping the animals’ eyes and noses.
*
Fact is…
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Facts is…
There was “Horrible Suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
Fact Is…
Cats are doing better.
Copy & Paste the Link to See All of the Article:
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/824459
Tiger Ranch cats thriving at shelter
By Francine Garrone
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Huddled in a small wicker basket in the corner of a makeshift cattery sleeps a miracle.
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
Yes, I know… it’s all a conspiracy.
So much of a conspiracy the following did come to pass:
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was Warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*…
Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of Last Chance for Animals stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made on the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A54497
But as PSPCA officials planned to descend on Tiger Ranch, Urmann says, Bruno got a call from a local humane officer warning her that a raid would take place in the next two days.
“Lin got off the phone and told me about the raid and I asked, ‘What did [the agent] tell you to do?'” Urmann recalls. Bruno, she says, had been instructed not to let the agents on the property because they were from outside the county and didn’t have jurisdiction. “She was supposed to call the agent, [who] would come down there and help,” Urmann says.
Well Folks…That’s A Conspiracy If I’ve Ever Heard One.
*
Lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
ATTENTION: INFOMAN, RAINMAN, ASSHATS, PHILIPGANCHEV, FORTHECATS:
If you want to see the picture of the HEALTHY Tiger Ranch Cats loaded in the PSPCA Truck—-visit: http://www.tortiball.com
“The only cats who were euthanized after the raid were the cats who were suffering terribly from chronic disease and sickness and were not going to make it anyway.
In response to ForTheCats: Cats were euthanized DURING the raid also. NOTE: DURING DURING DURING DURING
Get It?
Yes black cat, that’s because those cats must have been extremely ill and Lin Marie would just let them suffer and die of what she calls natural causes (catching horrible diseases from one another, diseases that Lin Marie allowed to spread on Tiger Ranch)!!!
I believe it was determined that the cats that you speak of were the original 13 charges of animal cruelty!
I believe one of the vets (at the hearing) said that the cats were in such horrible shape that they had to touch them, in order to tell if they were alive!!!!
I was not there the night of the rescue, but I would not want the cats to suffer that were terminally ill. I’m sure they did the right thing for those poor suffering cats. Lin Marie sure didn’t.
ForTheCats: I know that you were not at Tiger Ranch the night of the raid (rescue as you call it) but I have a few questions for you—-
1. When the cats were brought to the Clarion shelter in truckloads—were they seperated by—very sick, sick, healthy? Or were they just all put in trucks together?
2. When the PSPCA did their “rescue” at Tiger Ranch—did they go into each building individually and “rescue” the cats, or, as I have been told–went into Tiger Ranch like a bunch of gestapos, opening all buildings that housed cats, and cats were running everywhere—–ferals, sick, halthy.
Their so called “volunteers” ran around like idiots trying to catch cats. I saw a picture of a “volunteer” climbing a tree to try to catch a cat. I have also been told that a cat was so scared it climbed a tree, fell from the tree, and later died of internal injuries. Maybe if you can’t answer the questions I am asking–maybe InfoMan, Rainman, Asshat, Dave O, or Carl S. (whatever name he is going by these days) can answer these questions. By the way InfoMan—The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
Crackpots like InfoMan should be taken out and tarred and feathered for all the sensationalist garbage he cuts and pastes over and over and over again, ad nauseum. I would be willing to bet he doesn’t rescue, doesn’t volunteer at shelters and probably doesn’t donate either. He is nothing more than a glorified pot stirrer and most of us, who used to laugh at him, now don’t even bother reading his recycled posts. Get a life, InfoMan. Pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover you and your flunky so called heroes who, by the way, might be the ones needing the backhoe before this is all said and done. This case has been mishandled from day one and rumour has it that ‘doggy DA’ is in need of rescue herself on this one.
Copy & Paste This:
“Freedom Of Speech”
Now back to the matter at hand…
Others were also concerned about what was going on at Tiger Ranch:
Copy & Paste The Links to Read the Articles:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_557525.html
Kathy Schwenning of Pittsburgh, Susan Matthews of Monroeville and Marion DelPriore of Washington, D.C., said they knew trouble would eventually find Bruno and Tiger Ranch.
http://www.catster.com/forums/Shelters_Rescue_and_Fostering/thread/507008
The trio said they hired a local private detective last year in an effort to expose what they believed were awful conditions on the property.
“We knew something was wrong,” said DelPriore, who relocated a colony of feral cats to Tiger Ranch from Washington, D.C.
Schwenning said she toured the property in 2003 and couldn’t believe what she found. “All I saw were sick cats,” she said.
*
To read the comments from people that see this case from a different viewpoint just Copy & Paste the following link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
*
Trouble in Tarentum, PA at Tiger Ranch
Yes, so much trouble that Lin Marie AKA Linda Bruno was WARNED about the undercover investigation & WARNED about the raid:
Yes, I know… it’s all a conspiracy.
So much of a conspiracy the following did come to pass:
Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made sure that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA was Warned:
*”I did make sure that Lynn found out from some other sources that there was an informant amongst her”*…
Yup, that’s what Chris DeRose of Last Chance for Animals stated… see & hear it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8t536n0OnU
There’s an excellent thought provoking comment about the statement Chris DeRose of Last Chance For Animals/LCA made on the video:
AMAZING! ACCORDING TO CHRIS DEROSE FOUNDER OF LCA/Last Chance For Animals STATES THAT TIGER RANCH WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY(?)
FALSE, MISLEADING, SENSATIONALIZED DOCUMENTATION?
WHY DID TIGER RANCH HAVE TO BE WARNED THAT THERE WAS AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS IF IT WAS AN EXCELLENT FACILITY?
IN OTHER WORDS “IF” THERE WAS NO WRONG DOING THERE WHY EVEN BOTHER TO TIP ANYONE OFF?
NOW THINK ABOUT THAT ONE!
*
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A54497
But as PSPCA officials planned to descend on Tiger Ranch, Urmann says, Bruno got a call from a local humane officer warning her that a raid would take place in the next two days.
“Lin got off the phone and told me about the raid and I asked, ‘What did [the agent] tell you to do?'” Urmann recalls. Bruno, she says, had been instructed not to let the agents on the property because they were from outside the county and didn’t have jurisdiction. “She was supposed to call the agent, [who] would come down there and help,” Urmann says.
Well Folks…That’s A Conspiracy If I’ve Ever Heard One.
*
Lest we forget & lose sight of what went on there watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
*
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan—–Kathy Schwenning of Pittsburgh, Susan Matthews of Monroeville and Marion DelPriore of Washington, D.C., said they knew trouble would eventually find Bruno and Tiger Ranch.The trio said they hired a local private detective last year in an effort to expose what they believed were awful conditions on the property.
MAYBE THEY HIRED FOUR PRIVATE DETECTIVES……..
and it was no coincidence that Reid and DeForest were sitting together in a car parked a little farther down Miller Road. Along with a veterinarian named Becky Morrow, the four women were working undercover to shut Tiger Ranch down.
Well Folks…That’s A Conspiracy If I’ve Ever Heard One.
Questions?
Common sense would send up a red flag for someone when they had to use a backhoe to bury the dead…
Wouldn’t ya think?
You would have thought that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA along with her veterinarian would have figured out something was seriously going wrong there when “burial pits” had to be made with a backhoe for the dead…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them”:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
Where is Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie the self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch in Tarentum, PA personal responsibility in all of this?
Curious as to what Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie’s veterinarian found in her/his necropsies?
Or was it just an everyday accepted occurrence to put dead bodies in the freezer daily?
Yes, folks you are reading this correctly… *Burial Pits*/*Backhoe*…”so she wasn’t *constantly* burying them” according to her defense attorney Ron E. Valasek.
One would think with that statement Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie would have wanted to know why they were dying.
Enough of them dying so a backhoe had to be brought in to bury the dead.
*
How many Dead Frozen Kitties do you think it took to Fill the Burial Pits?:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://www.nppmwatch.com/NEWS/April08News.html
McDonald also testified that she found an unused burial pit 32 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two other filled pits of similar size were also found, she said.
*
http://www.catster.com/forums/Shelters_Rescue_and_Fostering/thread/507008
The trio said they hired a local private detective last year in an effort to expose what they believed were awful conditions on the property.
“We knew something was wrong,” said DelPriore, who relocated a colony of feral cats to Tiger Ranch from Washington, D.C.
Schwenning said she toured the property in 2003 and couldn’t believe what she found. “All I saw were sick cats,” she said..
Now put on your “curiosity and critical thinking skills caps” here folks & ponder this thought:
Perhaps the 4 people involved in the undercover investigation weren’t the only ones at TR doing an undercover investigation…
Will more be revealed?
*
Yes, more questions about dying and dead cats at Tiger Ranch…
http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/Print/03-19-PA-AnimalSanctuaryRaid-2
Valasek told the newspaper the no-kill shelter is a “superb facility” that includes an air-conditioned dying room where animals could die with dignity..
Tiger Ranch Supporters have tried to make an issue out of the filming of a cat dying in a litter box:
Quote “That is disgusting, that cat died alone”…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyXdirYxKHA
Where was the Care, Comfort & Dignity the night these 2 cats were found dead during the raid…
Yes, They Died Alone.
One was found behind one of the 4 freezers used to store the dead bodies and the other was found dead in a litter box:
Copy & Paste To Read Entire Article
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
Tiger Ranch owner faces trial on 593 counts of animal cruelty
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
She testified that a necropsy on the cat found dead behind one of the four freezers used to store cat carcasses indicated it had a twisted lung lobe. That, she said, indicates the lung was not functional, and the cat had no food in its stomach.
“During the necropsy, I remember pulling eight round worms from its intestine,” she said. “It appears as if the cat died of starvation, secondary to an upper respiratory infection and from the roundworms.”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_564837.html
The prosecution played a video taken the night Tiger Ranch was raided that showed cats throughout Bruno’s home, the pus-like film covering the walls about 3 feet from the floor, on space heaters used to keep the cats warm and on the refrigerator, and a dead cat lying in a litter box.
*
What I Have Seen…
Lest we forget & lose sight of what went on at Tiger Ranch watch these videos:
Copy & Paste This Link:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
Let your voice & conscience be heard throughout the world
Let Us Not Allow The Long Suffering Deaths Of These Poor
Creatures Be In Vain
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat
Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
InfoMan–The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
What is the problem–you were NEVER there?
How about that for repetative posts?
InfoMan—Where have you been—-Care2?
Gee–Have I silenced the opposition?
Mmmmmm
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_557419.html
“Last January we sent about 50 feral cats. (Bruno) told us she would release the feral ones on her property. She said she had 300 acres,” said Zanesville, Ohio, animal shelter executive director Larry Hostetler.
An Allegheny County property Web site says Bruno owns 28 acres, not 300.
…
…
Meanwhile, the sting is causing worry for cat owners near and far..
Last October the Clifton, N.J.-based Angels of Animals made the long drive from New York City’s suburbs to deliver at least a half-dozen cats to the farm.
“We were assured they went into foster care,” said spokeswoman Ellie Kowalski, who made the six-hour trek.
“Now, we’d like to know if they are OK,” she said. “We will drive another six hours to take the cats back if necessary.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_564837.html
Bruno proceeded to tell Manning of adoption and intake records that were kept in plastic book shelves in the office section of her home.
According to PSPCA humane officer Rebecca McDonald, all records taken from Tiger Ranch were covered in cat urine and dirt.
McDonald said the records indicated Bruno had received 6,482 cats in 2007. Only 14 cats were indicated as being adopted out.
Records for 2008 indicated 786 cats had been taken in and nine were adopted out prior to the raid.
No records could be found for 2006.
*
http://www.nppmwatch.com/NEWS/April08News.html
McDonald also testified that she found an unused burial pit 32 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two other filled pits of similar size were also found, she said.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_557415.html
Members of the APCA’s Animal Crime Scene Unit walked through the sanctuary videotaping open graves and photographing specific areas.
The burial pit that was recently dug can be seen from a Google Earth satellite image.
DeForest said the burial pit has been shifted three times since she began keeping track of burials in 2006.
*
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
*
Now lest we forget & lose sight of what went on at Tiger Ranch… Look at these Videos & Pictures of the Tiger Ranch Cats… Graphic:
Copy & Paste The Links:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
You Can Help To Put a Stop To This
No More Tiger Ranches
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters…
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches
An Allegheny County property Web site says Bruno owns 28 acres, not 300.
You may want to dig a little deeper–may not be in Frazer Township–may not even be in Allegheny County.
I am sure that the continued cut and paste postings of InfoMan of the same old stories has to be irritating everyone here. I can’t wait to get a look at this clown at trial since he claims he is going to be doing interviews. Sure…..Right…..*cough*
Last October the Clifton, N.J.-based Angels of Animals made the long drive from New York City’s suburbs to deliver at least a half-dozen cats to the farm.
“We were assured they went into foster care,” said spokeswoman Ellie Kowalski, who made the six-hour trek.
“Now, we’d like to know if they are OK,” she said. “We will drive another six hours to take the cats back if necessary.”
Mmmmm—-Didn’t have a problem leaving the cats at this horrible place? Apparently, they found nothing wrong with Tiger Ranch. Just concerned if they got fostered? Why don’t they drive to Clarion and ask Howie. Gee—-do you think they will let them in the building?????
Thought I might post this again—-waiting for some answers:
ForTheCats: I know that you were not at Tiger Ranch the night of the raid (rescue as you call it) but I have a few questions for you—-
1. When the cats were brought to the Clarion shelter in truckloads—were they seperated by—very sick, sick, healthy? Or were they just all put in trucks together?
2. When the PSPCA did their “rescue” at Tiger Ranch—did they go into each building individually and “rescue” the cats, or, as I have been told–went into Tiger Ranch like a bunch of gestapos, opening all buildings that housed cats, and cats were running everywhere—–ferals, sick, healthy.
Their so called “volunteers” ran around like idiots trying to catch cats. I saw a picture of a “volunteer” climbing a tree to try to catch a cat. I have also been told that a cat was so scared it climbed a tree, fell from the tree, and later died of internal injuries. Maybe if you can’t answer the questions I am asking–maybe InfoMan, Rainman, Asshat, Dave O, or Carl S. (whatever name he is going by these days) can answer these questions. By the way InfoMan—The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
Wow, so much information. Infoman, as usual you’re full of crap. I have a question for you. How many animals do the PSPCA shelters kill a year? What do they do with the dead bodies????? I’m guessing they are taken to a local landfill and thrown away like a piece of garbage. Now let’s talk about sick animals. Here’s a couple articles you may want to read. http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080823/NEWS/808230343/-1/NEWS0912http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070912/NEWS/709120341
Here’s a great article written by a reporter from a Philly paper. It seems like old Howie and his cohorts are getting into all sorts of trouble.http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20081110_Stu_Bykofsky__SPCA_claims__Real_deal__or_the_work_of_DFEs_.html?adString=ph.news/news_update;!category=news_update;&randomOrd=111008070211&viewAll=y&c=y#comments
Fact Is…
Howard Nelson, the CEO of the Pennsylvania SPCA isn’t the one being charged with:
604 counts of cruelty to animals, 10 misdemeanor charges: seven counts of forgery for allegedly signing a veterinarian’s signature on the documents and three for allegedly operating an unlicensed veterinary practice.
However Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie has been charged with the above.
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
*
Fact Is…
The cats of Tiger Ranch still “Suffered Horribly”
Copy & Paste to see the Undercover videos & pictures here:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/?page_id=8
More Pics of a few of the cats rescued & conditions at the time…
Copy & Paste then scroll down to see some of the Tiger Ranch Cats:
http://www.pspca.org/news/tiger_ranch
Pictures/Videos/Evidence… There will be more to come:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Buffalo Township veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, one of the four people involved in the undercover sting, said the investigators are only able to release a hour-and-a-half of video at present.
“We have 350 pages of evidence and surveillance video,” Morrow said. “The hour-and-a-half of video is public record under the (search) warrant. I can’t begin to add up the amount of video we have.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_565017.html
Cat shelter rife with disease, vets say
PITTSBURGH — Hours of gruesome testimony ran overtime Tuesday in the preliminary hearing of Linda Bruno, the owner and operator of Tiger Ranch, a cat sanctuary in Frazer that officials say was run amok.
The hearing was continued until Tuesday after a five-hour slide show of dozens of cats who were found diseased, sickly and dead on Bruno’s property last month.
Expert witness veterinarians Dr. Ravindra Murarka and Dr. Becky L. Morrow listed conditions and descriptions to match the images of the sickest cats on the ranch.
There were cats whose limbs and joints were covered with bursting abcesses; cats with ulcerated and jaundiced mouths; cats with glaucoma and conjunctivitis so bad their eyes looked like dollops of burnt cherry pie; cats with severe infections that covered or destroyed their eyes and left their faces bathed in slime or molded over like old bread.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_566206.html
Tiger Ranch owner faces trial on 593 counts of animal cruelty
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
She testified that a necropsy on the cat found dead behind one of the four freezers used to store cat carcasses indicated it had a twisted lung lobe. That, she said, indicates the lung was not functional, and the cat had no food in its stomach.
“During the necropsy, I remember pulling eight round worms from its intestine,” she said. “It appears as if the cat died of starvation, secondary to an upper respiratory infection and from the roundworms.”
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_564837.html
Bruno proceeded to tell Manning of adoption and intake records that were kept in plastic book shelves in the office section of her home.
According to PSPCA humane officer Rebecca McDonald, all records taken from Tiger Ranch were covered in cat urine and dirt.
McDonald said the records indicated Bruno had received 6,482 cats in 2007. Only 14 cats were indicated as being adopted out.
Records for 2008 indicated 786 cats had been taken in and nine were adopted out prior to the raid.
No records could be found for 2006.
*
http://www.nppmwatch.com/NEWS/April08News.html
McDonald also testified that she found an unused burial pit 32 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two other filled pits of similar size were also found, she said.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_557415.html
Members of the APCA’s Animal Crime Scene Unit walked through the sanctuary videotaping open graves and photographing specific areas.
The burial pit that was recently dug can be seen from a Google Earth satellite image.
DeForest said the burial pit has been shifted three times since she began keeping track of burials in 2006.
*
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US/
The raid also uncovered burial pits containing perhaps thousands of cats, according to the SPCA.
About 100 dead cats were found in freezers. Valasek has said Bruno needed some place to store them until she could get a backhoe so she wasn’t constantly burying them.
*
Fact Remains the Cats are Doing Better:
Tiger Ranch Update: Video Shows Seized Cats Four Months Later
Jul 17, 2008
Copy & Paste The Links:
http://www.wpxi.com/video/16914006/index.html
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/824459
Tiger Ranch cats thriving at shelter
By Francine Garrone
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Huddled in a small wicker basket in the corner of a makeshift cattery sleeps a miracle.
*
In the meantime…
End Cruelty, Neglect, Abuse and Death in Substandard Cat Shelters….
Impose Stiff Penalties For Felony and Misdemeanor Animal
Cruelty:
Copy & Paste The Link & Let Your Voices be Heard:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-tiger-ranches.
*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_558187.html
Investigator: ‘Horrible suffering’
While Bruno had her army of supporters, Mike Winikoff, a former undercover investigator for DeRose’s Last Chance for Animals, said in a written statement that he found “horrible suffering” among the cats at Tiger Ranch.
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
Rainman, InfoMan, ForTheCats. Asshats:
I came across this and found it very interesting-:
Tiger Ranch was raided by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) on March 13, 2008. Three hundred and eighty (380) cats were seized during the raid… many were killed on the spot by the PSPCA and over one hundred were killed within days of the raid.
The PSPCA justified their actions by sharing “undercover” video showing cats that looked ill and/or dying. Some people are uncomfortable seeing ill cats or for that matter, ill people. Why, they wonder, don’t they see ill cats at the other shelters? In fact, at most shelters ill cats are not allowed a chance to recover. Most shelters reach kill decisions which are speedily enacted due to limited money and limited space. Most shelters see the sad truth as “they can house several cats for the cost of one ill cat and NOBODY is going to want to adopt an ill cat anyway and we are going to get a bad name if people see ill cats here.” Most shelters see sick as a snapshot in time. Most shelters, including the PSPCA, routinely kill ill cats (and for that matter, healthy cats too)… calling them “unadoptable”. In reality, MOST ill cats, given TIME and treatment, will turn the corner and recover.
Tiger Ranch is a no kill no cage sanctuary. Their mission is to provide a safe haven for abandoned, abused, neglected, unwanted friendly and feral cats, a viable alternative to euthanasia. Tiger Ranch’s steward, Lin Marie, believes that all cats, regardless of age, disability, health, socialization and temperament deserve a chance at life.
Tiger Ranch had a continuum of care. From kittens, to teenagers, to seniors to supportive care for ill cats. Tiger Ranch also provided for approximately 1000 low cost cat sterilizations for the community.
In the 14.5 years of operation, Tiger Ranch was inspected and/or visited by at least 20 different humane officers. Most of the inspections were unannounced. We are proud to say that Tiger Ranch has never received a single citation from any of the humane officers.
Visitors to Tiger Ranch found a large, well-maintained facility with many different buildings and outdoor playgrounds, where cats were free to live out their natural lives. The supporters of Tiger Ranch would come back year after year to visit the cats. The cat rescuers who have worked with Tiger Ranch, know that it was a place where cats were given a second or third chance at life. The 696 folks who have signed our first petition will testify to how Tiger Ranch helped them and the cat they brought.
If the PSPCA had not killed the hundred or so Tiger Ranch cats, chances are they would have gotten better and lived out their lives contentedly. Everyone understands that seeing an ill cat in no way denotes the care they are receiving or where they are at in the recovery process. The Tiger Ranch cats were not without hope. The Tiger Ranch cats’ lives were not without value. We ask that you join us in taking a stand for a true NO KILL REVOLUTION.
To learn more about this precedent-setting case and how you can help, please visit http://www.defendtigerranch.org
Supporters of Tiger Ranch
I found this post on the Philly Daily News website. I think we all know who Tammy is. Good morning Howard and all. How did everyone sleep last night? Cold, wet and shivering? Oh, yeah, that was only the animals. Hey Howard, I see that you have some more Agent Trainees out there. I passed one the other day. Super! She’s a winner. How is PSPCA handling the horse surrenders or are you not getting in horses? How about the dogs and cats? Any chance of an end-of-year report on how many taken in, adopted out and euthanized? Just curious. Because if PSPCA adopted out the thousands they are claiming, there should be adoption papers and records for fostering. So, how do I get my hands on those? And Howard, feel free to e-mail me at any time. My e-mail address should be REAL easy for you to remember. Philly News, is this one gonna be censored too? It’s a nice post! Too close to Christmas to be nasty! Have a good day and stay safe out there! Tammy
Yadda yadda yadda….Blah blah blah, InfoMan….bring us something new, not recycled posts over and over and over again, ad nauseum…..Now for new news….Pittsburgh is overrun with feral cats…..I don’t see your fab four making any effort to help out that situation….Where’s Howard too? I know, it is Pittsburgh, not Philadelphia so not his problem….Problem is, he didn’t think it was a problem to cross counties to target Lin and shut her down when many of these ferals might have had half a chance at TIger Ranch….YOU and your ilk make me sick…..
Infoman—in case you didn’t read this article, I’m posting the whole thing. Howard Nelson as far as I know hasn’t been charged with any crime but he should be. He is not above the law. He is a liar and this is not just coming from Tiger Ranch supporters.
THE PENNSYLVANIA SPCA misrepresented the number of humane officers it had available for a 24-hour hot line it announced in January; it used unqualified staffers to euthanize animals, and it broke a state law by ordering agents into counties where they had no legal authority.
These allegations come mainly from the DFEs, as they satirically call themselves – Disgruntled Former Employees of the SPCA, headquartered in Philadelphia at 350 E. Erie Ave., with five SPCA branches around the state.
As DFEs, they may have a score to settle. So may Richard Elliott, a PSPCA board member for 20 years who resigned under pressure earlier this year with parting shots at CEO Howard Nelson. An attorney who has represented PSPCA in the past, Elliott served the organization as president from 1994-99, but was on the outs with Nelson, who took the reins in March 2007.
Also forced out was Suzanne Super, a board member for more than 30 years who echoed Elliott’s complaints that the board was the pet poodle of an imperial Nelson.
“Howard was livid that anyone should question his authority,” she said.
In a story in the Jan. 22 Inquirer, Nelson claimed to have 14 Humane Society police officers to handle calls coming in on a just-launched, 24/7, statewide anti-cruelty hotline.
But there weren’t 14 agents, Elliott said.
“We had 14 agents and agent trainees,” Nelson told me. “We count the agent trainees.” In January, there were only six agents and eight trainees.
In fact, almost a year later, there are only 13 agents, plus trainees.
Nelson inflated the numbers for PR pop, say his critics. To not distinguish between agents, who have legal authority, and trainees, who do not, is not a small matter, although Nelson minimized the discrepancy during an 90-minute interview Thursday.
I reported another discrepancy earlier this year, when Nelson told me PSPCA had submitted a proposal for the city’s animal-control contract “at the request of the city.” Health Department Executive Deputy Commissioner Joseph Cronauer said the PSPCA proposal was unsolicited.
In talking to about a dozen of Nelson’s critics, some of whom declined to be named because they signed nondisclosure agreements, there were repeated assertions that Nelson falls short on veracity.
In his resignation letter, Elliot raised suggestions of “inaccuracy” in some “public statements.” In a later interview with me, he said, “Howard is not the God-head many on the board think he is.”
Because he was hired to make changes, Nelson said he is a “lightning rod” for those who don’t like the changes.
The majority of the board still backs and admires Nelson. Richard Sperry, a member for 25 years, said he finds Nelson to be “100 percent” truthful.
Of wider importance is that PSPCA staffers illegally worked as agents outside their jurisdiction.
What does that mean? After training and appointment by a humane society, each agent must be sworn by the court in each county in which he or she will operate. With 67 counties in Pennsylvania, it’s a cumbersome process.
Former PSPCA humane agents Chris Martin, Pennell Hopkins, Reba McDonald and Tammy Kerr all told me their PSPCA bosses routinely ordered them to work outside their jurisdiction. If they didn’t, they said, they’d be gone. Another, who requested anonymity, said: “I’m going out, every day, basically breaking the law.”
Nelson said, “That is a totally false statement.”
Operating outside jurisdiction is a misdemeanor that can result in a $1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail.
“I could have been fined $57,000 and given 9.1 years in jail, that’s how many times I went outside my jurisdiction,” said Kerr, adding that Nelson would explain it away, but “he is a big, horrible liar.”
Nelson said PSPCA would not “ask an employee to do anything illegal.” No one could force them to do it, he said, adding the allegation is a “misunderstanding of the law.”
In a July 28 staff memo, Nelson instructed agents to not wear badges in counties where they were not sworn and not to leave any paperwork. Critics say the “paperwork” ban was to eliminate evidence.
Nelson said the memo was just a “clarification” of proper procedures.
For a professional opinion, I turned to Anne Irwin, who coordinates the mandatory training for Pennsylvania’s Humane Society police officers.
Even without a badge, she said, “If they are wearing a uniform that looks like an enforcement officer . . . they are giving the impression that they have enforcement authority.”
When former board member Super requested formerly available information about personnel hiring and firing, she was told it was “confidential.” Nelson told me the information is shared only with the executive committee.
That’s not a good practice, said Laura Otten, director of the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s School of Business. That kind of “general data, about how many, the length of service, absolutely” should be made available to the board.
“When boards don’t get involved,” said Elliott, “you get Lehman Brothers.”
I asked Nelson about deception in the fall 2008 issue of The Scoop, the PSPCA’s members’ newsletter. A photo showed six agents being sworn in in Philadelphia. Eight agents were actually sworn in. The picture was manipulated to remove two later-fired agents.
Nelson didn’t see the harm in that. It smacks of the old Soviet Union, I said, where out-of-favor people were removed from photos and documents and turned into nonpersons.
He said it wouldn’t happen again.
There was another error in The Scoop last year. PSPCA claimed it “takes in and cares for all sick and injured stray animals” in Philadelphia.
That’s not true. Nelson said he was new on the job, it was a mistake and a correction was sent out.
Critics say the false claim was made to bolster fundraising, which led, for example, to current construction of a large dog park next to the shelter to be used by homeless dogs confined there.
Saving the worst for last, Antonio Belen, who worked as a driver for PSPCA until last March, on several occasions was ordered to euthanize animals, although he was not qualified.
State law, unbelievably, doesn’t require medical training to administer the lethal dose. It requires that a person have “proper training.”
Nelson said euthanasia is performed “by a veterinarian, a vet tech and technicians certified by a vet.”
No certification is required and vet tech Kathy Krause said her only training was on-the-job.
She, Belen and Wilfredo Delgado all told me they had been ordered to put down animals and none felt confident in their skills. Delgado, a kennel attendant, didn’t want to kill animals and said poor performance by him and others caused animals to suffer.
“Their claims are false,” Nelson said. “They are not a credible source. “
Another disturbing allegation – of animal cruelty within the shelter – came from a former employee who requested anonymity.
In late spring, a Chihuahua was abused during a “catch pole” training session at the shelter, he said. The animal-control device is a pole with a lasso-type loop on one end. The loop snags the animal’s neck, while the pole keeps the animal at a distance, to prevent biting.
Agent Wayne Smith led the training, giving each of five or six trainees a chance to snare the frightened brown dog in a stacked cage about five feet high, pull him out by the loop around his neck and lower him into a carrier on the floor. Capture practice, then using a leash, was repeated on the tiny dog by all trainees.
“The dog was scared to death, flipping out, going nuts. Each time it was more traumatic on this poor animal. I would classify this as torture,” said the former agent.
It went on for 40 minutes, he said. Then Smith euthanized the tiny dog.
Smith denied the allegation, saying that “a catch pole is never used on a dog that size.”
The Chihuahua was “very aggressive,” he said, and had been marked for euthanasia earlier because he was too wild to be adopted.
Trainee Greg Jordan was there. He first agreed a catch pole was used, then became unsure and said he didn’t remember seeing the dog euthanized. Smith said Jordan was in the room.
The former agent said Smith made a point of telling trainees they might have to deal with neighbors’ complaints when they see a catch pole used and Smith actually shouted as neighbors might when the former agent used the catch pole.
Even Nelson’s critics praise his prowess as a fundraiser. That’s one of the reasons he was hired. His fans, such as longtime board member Sperry, say “he has brought new energy, expanded our contacts, raised our profile” to the benefit of Pennsylvania’s animals. Under Nelson, the staff has grown from about 100 to 142 statewide, including 85 in Philadelphia.
Critics concede Nelson’s ability to get coverage of PSPCA by actively courting the press, but say he spends too much time on that. [Disclosure: Last year, I received a Media All-Star Award from PSPCA. This year, two Inquirer reporters were so honored. TV reporters also have been recognized.]
The Animal Planet cable channel approached Nelson and got the OK to bring its “Animal Cops” show to Philly in January. That has brought both good exposure and bad accusations.
Some staffers said animals in the shelter were put down to make room for animals brought in from the “Animal Cops” raids. “Ridiculous,” Nelson fumed. Two sources told me treatment of injured animals was sometimes withheld until “Animal Cops” cameras arrived.
Delgado, who worked 4 p.m.-midnight, told me that he witnessed Nelson ordering treatment be withheld for a pregnant horse that had been struck by a car until cameras arrived.
“That’s false, defamatory,” Nelson said. “I was here, he was not.” Delgado insists he was there.
In Elliott’s resignation letter, he wrote that prior to Nelson, the board “was the epitome of complacency (of which I was as guilty as any).” The board must be a “watchdog and is neither a bridge club or a garden society,” he wrote.
It’s impossible for any outsider to determine the accuracy of the charges made by the DFEs. They are true, partly true, or false. It’s the business of the adoring board to find out. *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:
http://go.philly.com/byko.
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Hey Infoman, where are you? I have some questions for you.
1. Do you believe that all sick and injured cats should be euthanized so they don’t suffer? 2. Do sick and injured cats only exist at Tiger Ranch? 3. Did anyone at the raid bother to ask Lin the backgrounds on any of the cats? 4. Why was it that out of the 4 organizations contacted about Tiger Ranch that only the PSPCA decided to act? Was it because Howard Nelson is such an honest, compassionate person? Why is it that there’s all these people supporting Lin? People that were there on a regular if not daily basis. People who are her neighbors. Humane agents from different counties who volunteered for Lin. Boyscout troups and other rescue organizations and shelters. These people were all permitted in the buildings. Gee, I don’t remember any of them complaining about the conditions. Could it be that the “Fab Four” had another ax to grind with Lin? Could it be that they were in it for the publicity? Funny, there’s lots of cats that need help out there. Right now there is a severe overpopulation of cats in Allegheny County. I haven’t heard one thing about these woman helping these cats. I guess that’s not front page news. By the way Infoman, I can tell you have no experience doing rescue. People that are clueless are the only ones buying the crap you and the “Fab Four” are shoveling out.
Noopysmom & ScrappyDoo–the Black Cat will sit back and take a break–you both seem to be doing very well……Thank you.
When you say “doing very well,” black cat, if you mean lying and spreading rumors, then I guess you are right.
Hey noopysmom, wasn’t it some of you that were complaining that Mike Winikoff, who made a the statement to the press saying that he believed Tiger Ranch needed to be shut down, was a disgruntled former employee and that his word didn’t count. (Of course, he wasn’t. He quit because Chris DeRose stopped the investigation after talking to his niece.) So, you pick which DFE’s that you want to believe based on whether or not they agree with your side. No bias there!
I just like to point out when you contradict yourselves.:)
“She took in 6,482 cats in 2007 and adopted out 14. Of 800 something in the first 10 weeks of 2008 she adopted out 9 cats.
Great adoption rate! Seems more like the poor cats ended up in one of those large burial pits on the property.
Oh, and the pictures of the ranch? Yes, I especially love the isolation room with the dead cats lying in their feces. The cats must have been thrilled to have such a great sanctuary.”
Here’s another quote from someone who attended the hearing:
“I am horrified to wonder how all of those people who support her were able to look at those pictures of the cats, suffering terribly and say it was not a bad place and cats should go back there. I saw the pictures and I saw the tears they brought to many peoples faces.
Cats with mucos covered noses/ eyes, ulcerated tongues, swollen joints that had abcessed, pneumonia, hypothermia, severly dehydrated, emaciated, “gasping for air”.. (all terms used by the veterinary professionals who testified).
Worst of all the cats whos’ eyes ruputered from ulcerations. Do these people defending her not know how extremely painful that is for a cat? And keep in mind, we are not talking about a couple cats in this condition, we are talking about MANY cats in this condition.
This, is not hospice, it is cruelty. Plain and simple.”
Mmmmm–Busy day today—ForTheCats—or should I call you C.H.
“She took in 6,482 cats in 2007 and adopted out 14. Of 800 something in the first 10 weeks of 2008 she adopted out 9 cats.
Where are you getting these figures from?
As said before—-I see a handwriting analysis in somebody’s future…………….
For the Cats, are you actually for cats? Do you even know what the frick you’re talking about. Have you dealt with stray cats on a daily basis? Well, I have and I’ve also been at Lin’s on intake day. Jerk your head out of your ass and face the facts. There are plenty of sick cats out there. Cats with upper respitory infections, cats with missing eyes and limbs, cats with earmites, fleas, maggots, ticks, lice. There are cats with ear hematomas, cats with wounds, you name it. It’s obvious to me that you have no experience dealing with cats. As a person who has been involved with rescue for a number of years I can tell you that I’ve seen everything under the sun. These sick cats aren’t a rarity. I’ve taken in these “horrible looking cats” and so has Lin. When I was at Lin’s one day someone brought her a cat that was extremly emaciated, full of fleas, snotty nose, swollen eyes, the works. It sure as hell wasn’t Lin’s fault that this cat was ill. The person who brought her this cat knew that no other local rescue would take this cat and the shelters would have euthanized it. Lin immediately gave this cat to one of her volunteers and they medicated it, gave it fluid under the skin, treated it for fleas, etc. It makes me furious that you (for the cats) have the nerve to insult and badmouth someone who dedicated their life to taking in cats that no one else wanted. I’m sure you don’t have what it takes to get off your lazy, pathetic ass and actually do something to help these animals. As for Mike Wikinoff, that’s one disgruntled person. The PSPCA has more than one disgruntled employee. It had 4 humane agents quit, two longstanding board members, as well as other employees including a vet. I will be glad to post their info as soon as I obtain it. Old Howie sent out a memo to his humane agents telling them to go into counties they are not authorized to be in and to remove their badges. They were to say that they were rescue agents. This is against the law. For the cats, why don’t you answer the questions I asked of Infoman. Do you think that all sick and injured cats should be euthanized, even if there’s a chance they will survive? By the way, I assure you that upper respitory infections are a common occurance at shelters. Don’t believe me, go and volunteer at one. Do these cats get better overnight, I don’t think so.
Oh I forgot, I’m guessing the verminator had time to tamper with those records while she was at Tiger Ranch. I wouldn’t put anything past that nasty woman.
Oh I forgot, I’m guessing the verminator had time to tamper with those records while she was at Tiger Ranch. I wouldn’t put anything past that nasty woman.
I thought some of you might enjoy this article. It seems like one of the PSPCA shelters have an outbreak of Panleukopenia. I’m guessing if the PSPCA would have vaccinated each cat when it arrived at the shelter they wouldn’t have had an outbreak. You see the vaccine is extremely effective, unlike the vaccines for the upper respitory viruses. From what I understand, the cats aren’t vaccinated until they’re adopted. FYI–Panleukopenia is one of the deadliest, most horrific viruses a cat can get. It is extremely fatal with kittens. It is far worse than any strain of calici virus. I suggest that some of you anti-Tiger Ranch people do a little research on cat illnesses. It’s funny, none of the cats at Tiger Ranch were diagnosed with Panleukopenia. By the way, Panleukopenia is not airborne as stated in the article.
STROUDSBURG —The cat quarantine is over at the Monroe County SPCA shelter.
Cats are now safe for adoption and strays are again being accepted, although with just 22 cat cages, space is limited.
“People are bringing them in faster than I can get them adopted out,” said Ann Barton of the SPCA.
Seven cats were dropped off, just one was adopted in the first hour back in the cat business Tuesday.
The quarantine went into effect in August when Panleukopenia, a dangerous virus also known as feline distemper, was discovered.
Adopted cats got sick and died shortly after arriving in their new homes.
Between six and 12 cats died after being placed with new owners.
Then cats housed in the SPCA started to get sick and die.
“We had to clean the cages for 15 days with a heavy-duty cleaner, and since it is an airborne virus, we got the air moving in the building,” Barton said.
The cleaner was Trifectant Broad Spectrum Disinfectant, commonly used in veterinary facilities to control pathogens.
Cats housed in the SPCA remained healthy for more than 15 of days, signaling the end of the episode.
Barton said the Pennsylvania SPCA in Philadelphia told her it was safe to lift the cat quarantine.
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Since you aren’t too busy today–FORTHECATS—Thought I might post this again—-waiting for some answers:
ForTheCats: I know that you were not at Tiger Ranch the night of the raid (rescue as you call it) but I have a few questions for you—-
1. When the cats were brought to the Clarion shelter in truckloads—were they seperated by—very sick, sick, healthy? Or were they just all put in trucks together?
2. When the PSPCA did their “rescue” at Tiger Ranch—did they go into each building individually and “rescue” the cats, or, as I have been told–went into Tiger Ranch like a bunch of gestapos, opening all buildings that housed cats, and cats were running everywhere—–ferals, sick, healthy.
Their so called “volunteers” ran around like idiots trying to catch cats. I saw a picture of a “volunteer” climbing a tree to try to catch a cat. I have also been told that a cat was so scared it climbed a tree, fell from the tree, and later died of internal injuries. Maybe if you can’t answer the questions I am asking–maybe InfoMan, Rainman, Asshat, Dave O, or Carl S. (whatever name he is going by these days) can answer these questions. By the way InfoMan—The truth is—–I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I ASKED YOU–HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU VISITED TIGER RANCH “BEFORE” THIS RAID?
Another thing: How many charges were filed against Lin Marie the night she was taken to jail? I believe it was 13—that was the number of cats in the “isolation room”–It’s amazing how many more charges were added after the cats spent days in the disease spreading cesspool PSPCA truck & shelter—all cats were mixed together—something for you anti-Tiger Ranch people to think about–you were soooooooo prepared for this rescue (as you call it) that you did not even have the supplies to take cake of the “700” cats you “rescued”—I saw Dr. Muraka on TV the night of the raid—there are 700 cats here—all sick….. yeah right–as the “volunteers” ran all over the property kile a bunch of morons trying to catch cats —so experienced in “rescue”…….ha ha ha ha
Sorry for the care of cats, I feel a need to post again. How many times have you been to Tiger Ranch? Do you know the backgrounds on all the sick cats? How long were they there? How old are they? What condition were they in when they arrived? Maybe the reason Lin’s supporters found nothing wrong with Tiger Ranch is because they knew the answers to these questions. How can you judge someone when you don’t have all the information. I recently took a dog into my rescue that looked horrible. He was so emaciated that he could barely walk. When I took him to the vet I got the dirtiest looks from everyone in the waiting room. I had to explain his situation to all who saw him. One guy even stopped me in the parking lot and asked me in a very angry voice what happened to my dog. After I explained this guy’s whole demeanor changed. He thought I was a wonderful person and thanked me for taking this dog into my rescue. In less than a minute I went from being the biggest asshole in the world to a saint. It took a couple months but this dog went from looking like crap to looking like a show dog. His recovery didn’t happen overnight.
How many times have you been to Tiger Ranch?
(Before the raid)
This question is directed to ALL of the opposition—I’m sure Infoman’s answer will be: NEVER
FORTHECATS: Never (you answered the question in one of your previous posts)
Lying and spreading rumours you say, For the Cats? Did you miss the news piece on the Pittsburgh TV station recently? I guess they are lying too, eh? You know, for a fact, that Lin took in all of the cats you say or are you just feeding the rumour frenzy yourself? I would bet money on the latter. Somehow, I don’t believe you would know the truth if it jumped up and punched you in your nose.
Well, waddya know? It’s been reported that collection cannisters are now appearing in Clarion County stores – “Please support the re-opening of the Clarion County Humane Society under new ownership”. Funny thing is the Contact person happens to be the asst. Shelter Manager that is “caring” for the Tiger Ranch hostages. Sounds like Clarion may just get their HIGH-kill shelter back.
It remains a big “maybe” though – folks in Clarion remember well what a kill factory it was and they actually have an upstart animal welfare program that maintains a no-kill philosophy. Perhaps the asshats in Philly will give generously enough to support a Clarion facility – they still seem to like Howie, or at least his fundraising success. Pity the animals…
As if the cannisters weren’t bad enough, now PACCA has lost the contract to provide services for the animals in Philly to (gasp) the PSPCA. Can we say OVEREXTENDED, Howie?
It really is sad how delusional people are on this issue. All signs point to neglect and abuse. There is photographic and video evidence of that. Yet, still these supporters of Tiger Ranch would love to see cats thrown back into a life of disease, neglect, and slow death.
I am happy the cats that did survive the ordeal are recovering and I hope no animal ever has to suffer as they did at that place again.
What’s sad is when intellectually lazy (challenged?)people react to soundbytes and photographs without taking the time to learn the facts. The HUNDREDS of Tiger Ranch supporters are comprised of people with either first hand knowledge of Tiger Ranch (and more than a little about ferals, feline diseases and sheltering) or those who have objectively sorted through the “evidence” and ask WTF?
I could show a sheeple (or is it poodle?) a picture of a maimed body and sell them any one of ten scenarios as to how the body was found in that condition.
Folks seeking the truth will need to dig a little deeper or, as in the case of Animalia, dig out (the popping sound will be your sphincter snapping shut. Enjoy the daylight.)
Animalia:
How do you feel about the suffering that is going on in Pittsburgh city streets and surrounding areas? All those cats out there on their own, no owners, no vet care, maybe little food or shelter, REPRODUCING. Can you not understand that their numbers are much higher now because Tiger Ranch cannot help them or spay and neuter them? What are YOU personally doing to help them, you who seem to be fighting tooth and nail to keep Tiger Ranch from rising from the ashes and who probably played a huge role in shutting it down. Why is it that you hope no animal suffers as they “did at that place,” but you seem very placid about the suffering going on without Tiger Ranch?
Ignorance and arrogance are a dangerous combination. At least have the decency to realize that many, many questions about what happened at Tiger Ranch beg for answers, the kind of answers that only a trial can provide. Innocent until proven guilty, once again.
Animalia–it’s funny how you seem to go from message board to message board, spouting the same crap but never staying long enough to finish the arguement. I guess you know when you’re losing. This is how I see it. Four nasty, vindictive woman saw a chance to get two minutes of fame so they devised a plan to bring Tiger Ranch down. Three respected agencies found nothing wrong with Tiger Ranch, two of which were based in Pittsburgh. Since these ladies got no satifisfaction from them they decided to go elsewhere. They involved the PSPCA. The PSPCA has a publicity hungry, power hungry CEO. One who is not above lying. Seems like a perfect match. Howard Nelson operates high kill shelters and thinks that no-kill shelters/rescues are operated by collectors. This person has been denounced by Nathan Winograd, a leader in the no-kill movement. Let’s not forget the fact that Lin spayed/neutered thousands of cats. They were housed in heated/airconditioned buildings that were kept clean. They were fed Science Diet food. Lin took in sick cats that would otherwise have died at a shelter or died in the streets. Sounds pretty terrible. The Tiger Ranch cats were removed by the PSPCA with no prior inspection. They permitted Lin’s accusors to be involved in the raid. They never asked about the backgrounds of the cats. They took these cats, threw healthy cats in with sick cats into vans and drove them to a mold infested shelter hours away. Animalia–I have some questions for you. What is your group doing to help homeless cats in the Pittsburgh area? Now I’m sure that everyone in your group was aware that Lin didn’t euthanize sick cats, so why is it so hard for you to grasp that there were sick cats at Tiger Ranch? Do you really expect people to believe that all the cats that came to Tiger Ranch were healthy and they got sick there? If your group would get involved in saving the thousands of homeless cats in Pittsburgh you would know firsthand that many of the cats are ill or injured. Do you believe that all sick and injured cats should be euthanized so they don’t suffer? Unless you’re God, you don’t know which ones will survive and which ones will die. Most of the homeless cats on the street suffer everyday. They don’t have food, water or shelter. They are multiplying and no one is doing anything to help.
This question is directed to Animalia:
How many times have you visited Tiger Ranch before this as you call it “rescue”. I’m sure your answer will be never—and once again—I will silenc the opposition.
Here is the truth about Howie and the money hungry organization that he is CEO of (for now): BTW: I have e-mailed this to every employee in my office—there are about 350 of them—telling them to please read this and reconsider if planning on donating to the PSPCA. Thank you.
Tiger Ranch was raided by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) on March 13, 2008. Three hundred and eighty (380) cats were seized during the raid… many were killed on the spot by the PSPCA and over one hundred were killed within days of the raid.
The PSPCA justified their actions by sharing “undercover” video showing cats that looked ill and/or dying. Some people are uncomfortable seeing ill cats or for that matter, ill people. Why, they wonder, don’t they see ill cats at the other shelters? In fact, at most shelters ill cats are not allowed a chance to recover. Most shelters reach kill decisions which are speedily enacted due to limited money and limited space. Most shelters see the sad truth as “they can house several cats for the cost of one ill cat and NOBODY is going to want to adopt an ill cat anyway and we are going to get a bad name if people see ill cats here.” Most shelters see sick as a snapshot in time. Most shelters, including the PSPCA, routinely kill ill cats (and for that matter, healthy cats too)… calling them “unadoptable”. In reality, MOST ill cats, given TIME and treatment, will turn the corner and recover.
Tiger Ranch is a no kill no cage sanctuary. Their mission is to provide a safe haven for abandoned, abused, neglected, unwanted friendly and feral cats, a viable alternative to euthanasia. Tiger Ranch’s steward, Lin Marie, believes that all cats, regardless of age, disability, health, socialization and temperament deserve a chance at life.
Tiger Ranch had a continuum of care. From kittens, to teenagers, to seniors to supportive care for ill cats. Tiger Ranch also provided for approximately 1000 low cost cat sterilizations for the community.
In the 14.5 years of operation, Tiger Ranch was inspected and/or visited by at least 20 different humane officers. Most of the inspections were unannounced. We are proud to say that Tiger Ranch has never received a single citation from any of the humane officers.
Visitors to Tiger Ranch found a large, well-maintained facility with many different buildings and outdoor playgrounds, where cats were free to live out their natural lives. The supporters of Tiger Ranch would come back year after year to visit the cats. The cat rescuers who have worked with Tiger Ranch, know that it was a place where cats were given a second or third chance at life. The 696 folks who have signed our first petition will testify to how Tiger Ranch helped them and the cat they brought.
If the PSPCA had not killed the hundred or so Tiger Ranch cats, chances are they would have gotten better and lived out their lives contentedly. Everyone understands that seeing an ill cat in no way denotes the care they are receiving or where they are at in the recovery process. The Tiger Ranch cats were not without hope. The Tiger Ranch cats’ lives were not without value. We ask that you join us in taking a stand for a true NO KILL REVOLUTION.
To learn more about this precedent-setting case and how you can help, please visit http://www.defendtigerranch.org
Supporters of Tiger Ranch
The fact that you guys saw this shit at Tiger Ranch, called the cats “healthy”, dumped off however many more, and didn’t do anything about it is the real sick part of this entire thing. Look at those pictures. How can you call these people “vindictive” for wanting to save those animals from that? Do you really think that video on different days and all of these images were staged and that these animals were brutally harmed just to get at some small town mentally ill woman’s farm land? I mean, really?
As for the pregnant animals on the streets of Pittsburgh and the idea that Tiger ranch would have aided them, there sure were plenty of cats having kittens that were taken from that place. How can I expect TR to help any cats in Pittsburgh when she can’t even care for them in Tarentum.
I don’t stay to argue with you guys because it’s like arguing with mental patients. It goes nowhere… except insane. But, I will stop in to say how happy I am that some cats were rescued and survived and did not end up mysteriously disappearing like so many others… Who knows what horrid fate they suffered.
Ta ta now. To all of the people who actually care about the cats involved in this, rather than saving their egos, be grateful the cats are out of there. Hopefully she will never have any animals to do this to again and hopefully all involved with Tiger Ranch will get any necessary mental help they need.
What’s the matter Anamalia—-we have silenced you?????
*SNORT*, LOLz, Animalia is recommending mental help. That’s a good one.
Animalia–I swear to God, you’ve not listened to one fricking work we’ve said. I know you’ve never done rescue because otherwise those pics would not have been that surprising or alarming to you. Get the hell off your lazy ass and help those cats homeless cats in Pittsburgh. Why hasn’t Voices for Animals, Deb Urmann and Becky Morrow done anything to help? No publicity in it, huh? You nutcases should be ashamed of yourselves. BTW, how many pregnant cats were there at Tiger Ranch? I heard only a couple. You see if you truly had done rescue you would realize that sometimes you get in cats that are already pregnant, duh. If a cat is sick you certainly don’t want to spay it. If a cat is too far along in a pregnancy some vets will not spay them and some rescues choose not to do so. Animalia, you are truly clueless. You don’t have what it takes to actually help an animal. You better stick to picketing the circus or better yet try cleaning up all the goose sh*t at the parks so they won’t get killed. Maybe using a little less hairspray would improve your judgement.
OK, I’m stepping in here as editor and online referee. We’re up to more than 160 comments on this story, and I think we’re well past the point of exchanging genuine information. The discussion has devolved into ad hominem attacks and personal abuse. Accordingly, I’m going to delete any further comments posted to this article.
That’s not to say this needs to be the last word. We’ll no doubt be covering the Tiger Ranch story as it moves into the courtroom. And interested parties will be able to post comments on THOSE pieces when they go online. Hopefully, the fact that there will be new developments to discuss will elevate the debate: People will be able to talk about testimony and evidence presented at trial, rather than questioning each other’s sanity, ethics and intelligence.
Let’s try to be good to each other, people.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_633461.html
Just an update on the case. Bruno pled guilty to many charges for a plea bargain and will be sentenced Oct 5. That should clear things up for everyone.
“Mere mortals attempts to play God will backfire in the end. The truth will prevail.
That’s all I want. The truth, no matter which way it shakes out. Look long and hard inside yourselves.
Can you make the same claim? “
Yes,Madras, yes I can. All the name calling and nastienss, TedB aka Evan, did all of your vulgar wordsmithing change what happened in the end? How about you Cleo? How about you noopysmom? Calling Deb Urmann, a hero to many, “the verminator”? What if she and Dr Morrow, get the DA to subponea these sites for your real ID? How proud would your families all be, all of you who were so ugly to people you did not even know, people brave enough to stand up for the voiceless? You have committed a real crime, I hope these women show more class and compassion than you have.
There is justice for you all as well, it may be with in the letter of the law, or just good old karma, but what is done in the dark, comes out in the light.
You call can spin this anyway you care to, all of you.After months of reading this drivel and name calling, I am sure you will all rationalize it in your very own unique ways.
I would hope some of you would see the truth at the end.
I do REAL rescue, I was at Tiger Ranch, many times before the raid, I made many calls, wrote many letters and spent many hours, trying to get the local agents to do something about the absolute horror that was Tiger Ranch.
All of you Tiger Ranch supporters were duped by a very clever, and cunning Lin Marie. You are a reflection of the causes you take up for. She fooled alot of people, I feel sorry for all of you.Look how you have behaved, trying to libel Vets who saved those poor cats, harrassing and cyber bullying anyone who dare to oppose your veiw points.
The main stream media did a pretty good job on this case,and in the end justice was served.
If you belive for a second Lin Marie was not guilty of every crime she was charged with, you do not have a working knowledge of how the DA’s office works. They had a huge case against her, and a fairly air tight one to boot.Just as the jury was being choosen, she choose to plea out…..She choose to plea, guilty.
She forged Vet records, and pleaded GUILTY to NEGLECT.
Time and time again, we who wanted to see her brought to justice were asked, “what are you going to do if Lin Marie is found innocent” Now I put the question to all of you, are YOU going to make retributions to those you have wronged?
Now that justice has been served, I would like to see laws put into place that would stop any place like Tiger Ranch from every happening again. I would like to see Lin Marie get the help, she so desperately needs, but never see another animal in her care.No aminal should have to suffer at her hands again.
I would like to see an investigation into the agents in the area, who time after time, turned a blind eye to what was really going on at Tiger Ranch. I would like to know what became of the 6000 + cats she took in, in a year. I would like to know what happened to all the cats from Georgia, and other States. Surely they all did not end up in the large enough to be seen from Google earth burial pit.
I plan on working towards answers to those questions, working towards a non kill State here in PA, spay and neuter programs, and making sure a place like Tiger Ranch never happens again…
I came across this post on another forum—explains this whole fiasco……..
“I have been reading this forum for months now. Many of you do not understand how our court system works. Lin Marie was charged with 371 summary charges, 203 misdemeanor charges, and 7 felony charges. The Assistant D.A. proposed a “plea bargain” to Lin Marie—plead guilty to 14 misdemeanor charges—and this will not go to trial. Hundreds of charges would be dropped..including the felonies. Every day people “plea bargain” in the United States—settle for lesser charges, and plead guilty. Plead guilty even though they are innocent—you have to play the game. Go ahead, call me stupid, ugly, retarded,fat, whatever…I really don’t care. I just want to “set the record straight”.
Thank you.”
I wasn’t duped by anyone… I wanted the case to go to trial so I could finally get to see and hear all the evidence with my own eyes and ears. Then see and hear the defense testimony with my own eyes and ears. There have always been parts of this case that just did NOT add up for me – on both “sides” of the matter. And yes, there were way MORE parts that did not add up for me on the side of the prosecution, my “bias” has always been clear.
I am somewhat disappointed that we will never have that opportunity. This matter shall remain unresolved in my mind forever now. It may have still remained unresolved after a full trial by jury, but Lin made her decision and did what she felt was right for her.
What I am mostly thankful for ist that it’s finally over for the cats. I am hoping and praying that PSPCA does the right thing and makes a sincere effort to place every one of them into loving homes, or other appropriate living situations (in the case of ferals, if there are any still alive).
The fact is Lin Marie plead guilty, the DA did not go to her and offer her a plea bargain, the DA was “picking twelve” for a jury for the case. Lin Mare choose to plea guilty.
It is almost insulting to tell anyone they do not have a good working knowledge of the courts, or how the system works, many of us do. Many of us also knew how solid this case was from the get go, inspite of everything that was said.
Again, the DA did not go to Lin Marie with a plea, Lin went to the DA with one. Why someone who swore up and down they were innocent, would plead guilty is beyond me. If someone made a case against me, that said I mistreated my animals, I would fight till the very last breath left my body, would have taken a chance with a jury, that way, at least I would at least have a chance to appeal if found guilty.
Some people seem to lose sight of the fact, that by pleading out, Lin Marie gave up the chance to appeal, no matter what the outcome.
So lets keep the facts straight here.
From Chuck Biedkas article in the Trib,
“The owner of a defunct, no-kill cat shelter in Frazer pleaded guilty yesterday to 12 animal cruelty charges.
Tiger Ranch owner Lin Marie, 47, of Miller Drive, Frazer, also pleaded guilty to two counts of evidence tampering.
She also agreed to pay $200,000 in restitution.
In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped almost 600 animal cruelty and other charges against Lin Marie.
The charges stem from the much-publicized March 13, 2008, raid of Tiger Ranch by state animal protection agents from Philadelphia and an Allegheny County detective.
The Tiger Ranch owner, who in previous court papers was identified as Linda Bruno, signed Monday’s plea bargain as Lin Marie, and was introduced to Judge Jill E. Rangos by that name.
Marie signed the plea bargain Monday — the day that jury selection was slated to begin for her trial.”
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdis…
That is how it really happened.
“I wasn’t duped by anyone… I wanted the case to go to trial so I could finally get to see and hear all the evidence with my own eyes and ears. Then see and hear the defense testimony with my own eyes and ears. There have always been parts of this case that just did NOT add up for me – on both “sides” of the matter. And yes, there were way MORE parts that did not add up for me on the side of the prosecution, my “bias” has always been clear.” – Madras
This was posted by Madras on another forum in which Madras was conversing with the supporters of Tiger Ranch:
May 08, 2008 7:13 PM
“OK… finished with “Round 1″… posted my statement/blog on the discussion board in 49 groups, twice in each group (once as a reply to the most recent anti-TR topic, and once as its own topic).
Those 49 groups have 651,041 members. I’m sure there is some cross over , so that’s not 651,041 unique people we’ve reached, but the word is certainly going to be out there now!!!
As I was posting, I notice Dave adding new anti-TR topics. I’m going back through for a second pass to post a link to my blog statement in response to each one.
Whew, this is a lot of work. He must just sit at his computer all day posting stuff!”
Recognize this Madras?
It looks to me like it is obvious who you are FULLY supporting here. Stop pretending to be sitting on the fence, Madras. Just be honest. You, Madras, have been “duped.” You, Madras, pretend to want to hear both sides when you really have already made up your mind long ago. You, Madras, devoted an entire website to supporting a convicted animal abuser! Congratulations on that blunder!
Sentencing Update:
Here’s more for those that want the *Truth* about what was said at the sentencing.
Copy & Paste Links:
http://www.post-gazette.com/ pg/10009/1027026-54.stm
Cat ‘sanctuary’ owner sentenced for animal abuse
Saturday, January 09, 2010
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lin Marie
The image that Lin Marie presented to the animal rescue community of her cat sanctuary was one of love and success. She described “TigerRanch” as “the land of milk and tuna,” where hundreds of cats were taken in and adopted back out each month.
But prosecutors yesterday, in asking an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court judge to sentence the woman formerly known as Linda Bruno to jail time, presented a bleak and disturbing image where diseased cats were left to contaminate the healthy, only 21 cats were adopted out of thousands taken in, and mass graves dotted the 29-acre Frazer property.
Judge Jill A. Rangos, who repeatedly admonished the defendant and expressed her disappointment in the multitude of lies she told, did not order the woman to jail.
But she didn’t discount the possibility either.
Instead, the judge ordered Ms. Marie, 47, to serve two years of house arrest, followed by 27 years of probation. But Judge Rangos also told
the defendant she would not hesitate to put Ms. Marie in jail if she violates even the slightest of conditions of her release.
Among those, she is to have no contact with any animals and she must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and participate in weekly mental health treatment.
“I give you this break, in part, not because you deserve it, but I don’t feel the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should pay to warehouse you at the jail,” the judge said.
Further, she added, house arrest will allow Ms. Marie to continue working to earn money to cover restitution. She was ordered to pay $200,000 to cover the cost of the veterinary care provided to the 391 live cats seized during the March 2008 raid of the facility.
A former humane agent who began volunteering at Tiger Ranch in August 2007 went to local animal rights groups to complain almost immediately about the conditions she saw.
However, it was the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that finally agreed to help pursue the case.
Along with local law enforcement, they organized a raid on March 13, 2008, bringing in mobile veterinary clinics and dozens of people to help catch the hundreds of cats.
“It’s unforgiveable this was going on for so long,” said Dr. Becky Morrow, a veterinarian who helped with the investigation, at the raid and in the many months since. “The smell alone would have tipped anyone off.”
Originally facing hundreds of counts of animal cruelty, Ms. Marie pleaded guilty in July to 12 counts, plus an additional two counts of tampering with records.
Assistant District Attorney Deborah Jugan laid out for the judge, in very minute detail, the number of cats — both alive and dead — found on the property and their medical conditions.
According to Ms. Marie’s own records, the prosecutor said, there should have been 7,819 cats on the property that she had taken in. Instead, they recovered 391 live cats and 106 that were dead and stored in freezers. Of the live cats, 300 of them were malnourished, and 294 had some form of upper respiratory infection.
Ms. Marie paid a man with a Bobcat to dig mass graves for her on a regular basis, the prosecutor said. The last one was 30 feet long, 12 feet deep and 12 feet wide.
“You couldn’t walk on Tiger Ranch without stepping on cat bones,” Ms. Jugan said. “I often wonder if she told so many lies she started believing them. It’s amazing how many people this woman was able to con.”
But as she spoke to the judge, Ms. Marie said she was past the lying she had done. She had undergone what she called a “paradigm shift.”
“I’m sorry, and I’m sad. I’d like to move on with a life that’s different,” she said. “I just hope I get a chance to work on me. I want to work on me.”
Before announcing the sentence, the judge commended the prosecutor for her “extraordinary effort,” and then turned her attention to Ms. Marie.
“I am tremendously disappointed that despite the opportunity I did give you, you have either chosen not to cooperate and [instead] spew vitriol in other people’s direction without taking any personal responsibility for the disaster Tiger Ranch became,” Judge Rangos
said.
Ms. Marie interrupted.
“It is my fault, no doubt. I abdicate nothing. I take full responsibility.”
Of the 391 cats that were rescued, 240 survived. Sixty chronically ill cats that cannot be adopted now live in a house bought by Dr. Morrow that has been turned into a sanctuary. There remain 50 cats that are healthy and available for adoption. They can be viewed at
tigerranchrescues.com.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/ x/valleynewsdispatch/s_661432. html
Tiger Ranch ex-operator gets probation, house arrest
By Bobby Kerlik, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Joe Appel/Tribune-Review
Tiger Ranch promised “a land of milk and tuna” for unwanted cats. Instead, an Allegheny County judge said Friday, the sanctuary in Frazer became a disaster.
The former owner of the closed property avoided further jail time, but will spend 27 years on probation and two years on house arrest. She must pay $212,000 in fines and restitution for housing hundreds of cats in filth and disease.
Lin Marie, 47, formerly known as Linda Bruno, apologized at a lengthy sentencing hearing for keeping the animals in squalid conditions while accepting donations for their care. She earlier pleaded guilty to 12 counts of cruelty to animals and two counts of tampering with records.
“I’m sorry and I’m sad, and I’d like to move on with my life,” Marie told Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos. “I just hope I get a chance to work on me. I need to work on me. I want to work on me.”
Rangos ordered Marie to have no contact with animals and to continue mental-health treatment. The judge sentenced Marie to one to six months in jail but gave her credit for 37 days she served. Marie will not have to serve any more time in jail.
“I came into this case thinking … you were most likely a woman who had good intentions but became overwhelmed. From that perspective until today, I have learned quite a lot,” Rangos said. “You have chosen not to cooperate and spew vitriol in others’ direction without taking any personal responsibility for the disaster that Tiger Ranch
became.”
Police and humane agencies raided the 29-acre property in March 2008 and found 391 cats living in messy conditions. Many of the cats were in such poor health that they had to be euthanized. About 240 survived.
Marie contended Tiger Ranch was a no-kill shelter that took in sick and dying cats that no one wanted. Her attorney, Robert Hollister, who is a veterinarian, said Marie was “an individual who gave too much of herself for too long.”
Assistant District Attorney Deb Jugan, however, displayed a slideshow of diseased cats having open sores and other ailments. She played the answering-machine message from Tiger Ranch that Marie recorded, promising “a land of milk and tuna” for unwanted cats.
“Euthanasia would have been the kindest way out for the cats. A lot of them died agonizing, torturous deaths,” Jugan said. “None of the donations went for the cats’ care, except to pay for their graves and the shipping costs for their donated food.”
Jugan said Marie used some of the donated money to pay her mortgage and hairdresser and to buy hay for a horse-breeding business.
Jugan contended that more than 7,000 cats died at Tiger Ranch during a three-year period and showed pictures of a 30-foot-by-12-foot grave
where more were to be buried.
“Cat bones are strewn about the property,” Jugan said. “You can’t walk at Tiger Ranch without stepping on cat bones.”
Veterinarian Dr. Becky Morrow, who treated the rescued cats, said some died in her arms during the raid.
“No punishment will ever make up for the magnitude of suffering she caused,” Morrow said. “It’s most important to keep this from ever happening again.”
Morrow said anyone interested in adopting one of 50 cats still needing homes can visit http://www.TigerRanchRescues.com.
Oh & btw… I was at Tiger Ranch just like Chris DeRose was…
Want to know the *truth* about that one? Go back & review the YouTube videos that were removed … Just *Chock Full of Information” on that one.
Hello…Ted B AKA Evan D AKA iamlazarus, Madras & all of the other Supporters Of Tiger Ranch (SOTR),
Just wanted to let you know that Linda Bruno AKA Lin Marie self proclaimed steward of Tiger Ranch Cat Sanctuary probably won’t have much trouble paying her fine…She’ll be using YOUR donations!:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_633575.html
Snippet:
Marie has received a little more than $200,000 in legal defense and other contributions, Jugan said.
Marie’s lead attorney, Robert Hollister, of Montrose, in the northeast corner of the state, declined to say how much of the fine will be paid with contributions to Tiger Ranch or how much of the money will be used in legal defense.
Oh & in case you missed the news of where all of the previous donations went?
pay her mortgage,
to buy hay for a horse-breeding business,
her own dental work,
trips to the hair salon
and Italian restaurants
Copy & Paste the Links:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pets/81054737.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10009/1027026-54.stm
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_661432.%20html
*
Lest You Forget Heed The Following Words:
http://tigerranchrescue.info/
Statement from Mike Winikoff, Investigator, formerly with Last Chance for Animals
“I was working for Last Chance for Animals when the initial complaints about Tiger Ranch came in to the office,” Winikoff said in the statement. He conducted a preliminary investigation.
“I concluded that there was evidence of horrible suffering at Tiger Ranch, and requested authorization to conduct a more thorough investigation. My request was approved, but then abruptly withdrawn.
“I’ve never fully understood why LCA pulled me off of that investigation,” he said. “After I left LCA, I continued to look into Tiger Ranch and became more and more convinced that the allegations were valid.
“As a 20-year veteran of the animal rights movement, including a decade as an undercover investigator, I remain convinced that Tiger Ranch deserved to be closed and investigated for animal cruelty.
“I believe that our mission as animal advocates is to prevent and alleviate suffering wherever it occurs, even when the suffering is created by those who may be trying to do good things for animals.
“I do not believe that good intentions absolve us of the consequences of our actions. That applies both to Tiger Ranch and the people who dumped cats there without fully investigating their likely fate.”
Here are the statistics on the medical conditions of the cats rescued from Tiger Ranch:
“The majority of the cats (71%) were under the age of three years old and 300 cats were found to be suffering from various degrees of malnutrition – 178 of those cats were emaciated and starving, and nearly 70% were dehydrated. 80% of the cats were found with upper respiratory infections, 73 with painfully inflamed eyes and 54 with painful mouths and tongue ulcerations. 53 cats suffered from an atypical and highly fatal Calicivirus infection (Virulent Systemic Calicivirus), that caused inflammation of blood vessels, severe swelling and wounds of the paws, and damage to internal organs, akin to the effects of Ebola virus. Rampant streptococcal diseases afflicted hundreds of felines, with 82 cats diagnosed with wounds and abscesses of the limbs and joints, over 68 cats with acute onset rhinitis (profuse amounts of pus coming out of their noses), and 51 cats who presented with spontaneously forming abscesses and wounds of their neck regions (referred to as “Feline Strangles”). Nine cats developed streptococcal meningitis when the infection destroyed the bones of their sinuses or extended via the inner ear to the brain and at least 28 cats had joints literally destroyed due to severely painful septic arthritis caused by the bacteria.”
“Other reported conditions include:
• 102 cats suffering from ear infections
• 8 cats with Feline Leukemia Virus and 17 with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus
• 123 cats with Dental Disease, 34 who suffered with very painful stomatitis
• Various skin disorders, including 64 cats significantly suffering from skin mites, 23 cats with fleas, and 18 cats with Ringworm
• 3 cats suffering from Skin Fragility Syndrome in which their skin was ripping off
• 11 cats suffering from the fatal condition of Feline Infectious Peritonitis
• Over 178 cats with diarrhea/enteritis, stated to be mainly associated with Giardia and endoparasites
• 5 cats with Pancreatitis
• 9 cats with kidney failure, stated to likely be secondary to strep infections
• 10 cats suffering from a rare Obstructive Inflammatory Laryngeal Disease who could not breathe due to swelling inflammatory masses forming in their airways, documented to be very rare and likely secondary to a viral infection/Calicivirus
• 2 cats with Hemangiosarcoma, a liver cancer extremely rare in cats stated to have potentially infectious risk factors
• 7 cats suffering from Mycoplasma conjunctivitis, deep corneal ulcerations, eye loss, and blindness
• 50 cats suffering from circulatory system collapse due to septic shock from either streptococcal infections or Virulent Systemic Calicivirus
• 5 cats with DIC, a fatal blood disorder
• 17 cats with reproductive diseases and pregnancies”
These stats paint the REAL picture of suffering that occurred at Tiger Ranch.
This is what happens when NO MEDICAL CARE is provided. (NO VET!)
This is suffering on a HUGE scale!
This should NEVER be allowed to happen again!
It is really a heart breaking moment for a owner to lose their most lovable pet in front of their eyes. Even they get into trauma after such incidence. To avoid such circumstances you can take them for regular check up and can follow the guidelines prescribed by your Vets. You can also refer to on line assistance for the same like I prefer trifexis – https://www.petcarerx.com/trifexis/22843 for prevention of heartworm as it shows results within seconds. However, before its consumption, dont forget to consult your vet.