Senate passes Baskin-backed Big Cat Public Safety Act

TAMPA, Fla. (WWSB) - Carole Baskin of ‘Tiger King Fame’ announced that the Big Cat Public Safety Act passed the Senate unanimously.

The legislation set to ban “cub petting” now awaits the signature of President Joe Biden.

Carole Baskin took to Big Cat Rescue’s social media to announce the success. The bill passed the House of Representatives in July in a 2/3rd bipartisan vote. Baskin also explained the two key provisions of the bill to protect tigers.

“First, it puts an end to the abusive use of tiger cubs and other big cat cubs for petting and photo ops. Cubs used for this purpose are ripped from their mothers at or close to birth, as shown in one scene in Tiger King, deprived of the health protections of the mothers’ milk, and often deprived of sleep and physically punished to discourage their natural behaviors. There is no tracking of how many of them die in the process or where they end up when, a few months later, they are too big and dangerous for petting,” reads a statement from the group’s Facebook page. “Second, the bill phases out private ownership of big cats by unlicensed owners who keep them as “pets” in what are typically miserable conditions in backyards or worse. Current owners of big cats are “grandfathered” and can keep their existing animals. But they must register the existing animals with the US Fish & Wildlife Service and may not breed or acquire more. Thus, private owners can no longer serve as the dumping ground for cubs who “age out” of petting operations. Within a decade most of the thousands of big cats living this way will have passed away, and in twenty years no cats will be living in this kind of misery.”

" The passage of the bill is the successful culmination of many years of battling against narcissistic, abusive, dangerous men who dominated this cruel trade and did everything they could to stop its passage, including wanting to intimidate, discredit, and even kill me,” said Baskin.