Cougar Rescues: The Story of Freddy and Sassy

Guest post by Carole Baskin, Founder of Big Cat Rescue

If only they could speak to us in a language that we understand.  Then we might know the horrors they have survived and be more inclined to protect others from enduring their fate.

I’ll share with you what I do know and hope that will inspire you to help these cougars and to do all you can to end the trade in exotic cats.

Cougar Freddy

Back in the 90s, farmers Al and Kathy Abell, decided to start a breeding facility called Cougar Bluff Enterprises. They set up cages in their back yard in Elizabethtown, IL and filled them with a couple of cougars (Freddy & Sassy) a lion cub named Simba, some wolves and wolf hybrids. It was their plan to breed and sell and be surrounded by the kinds of wild animals they loved. The more they saw of what breeders and dealers were doing to animals, like the former owner who had beaten Sassy with a shovel, the more they realized that there was just no good reason to be breeding and selling exotics, so they never bred the big cats.

Sassy The Cougar

Having raised Simba the lion from a cub, they may have been complacent about the dangers of such interactions. Simba wasn’t even full grown before killing Al Abel. On that tragic day, Feb. 12, 2004 Kathy Abel came home to find the lion on the front porch of their home, her dog dead in the yard and no sign of her husband.

Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene as dark was closing in and the lion was on the edge of the 277,000 ac Shawnee National Forest. Kathy could not locate darts for her dart gun and the deputies were ordered to shoot Simba the lion rather than risk him killing someone in the park. It wasn’t until after Simba, body riddled by bullets, lay dying that Kathy discovered her husband dead on the floor of Simba’s cage. It had only taken one bite to the leg to cause him to bleed to death.

Fast forward six years and on Nov. 8, 2010 Chris Poole, of Big Cat Rescue came across a Facebook post saying that Kathy Abell had killed herself and left two cougars and an array of other domestic pets and farm animals with no one for miles around to care for them. We responded right away that we would come get the two cougars, Freddy and Sassy. It took a long 9 days to get the health certificate and import permit and to wait for Kathy’s family to bury her before we would be allowed to arrive on the scene. Meanwhile, Robin Parks, Field Volunteer for the Mountain Lion Foundation had coordinated with Kathy’s sister Kimberly Rapp and a local rehabber, Bev Shofstall to insure that the cats were being fed and cared for.

Big Cat Rescuers: President, Jamie Veronica Murdock, Operations Manager, Gale Ingham and Chris Poole hit the road on Nov. 17th driving straight through the night to Cave In Rock, IL which was the nearest lodge to the cougars. While en-route, Bev the rehabber emailed asking us to hurry as she wasn’t sure Freddy, the 14 year old and very frail cougar, could make it another day. Rescuers made the trip in record time but arrived well after dark. They coordinated with Kimberly Rapp to pick up the cats at first light on the morning of the 18th.

This is where YOU come in.

These cats have witnessed things that no one should ever have to see. It is only through your help that we can make sure their last years are the best years of their lives. Your voice in letters to your lawmakers asking for a ban on the private possession of big cats, at CatLaws.com is what will stop the future breeding, trading and discarding of big cats that led to this sad situation. Your donations are what make it possible for us to commit to an emergency rescue like this.

To donate visit: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm

For PayPal: send to Cu*************@**********ue.org