First off, Tiger Touch is not a zoo. We are not a visitor friendly interface between the public and potentially dangerous animals. Our mission is to learn from the Great Cats the knowledge needed to exercise compassion with effectiveness in our relationship to them and their shrinking wild habitat. We are a sanctuary and a research facility, and our research is entirely oriented to the wellbeing of the categories of animals in our care.

As such we do not ordinarily accept "interns", and visits are restricted to special people whose membership gifts help support the cats. We recognize that our relationship with our resident cats is a personal relationship. It is based on our part on years of experience with Great Cats as a category of living thing and with those particular individuals in our care. Both types of experience are necessary to reduce risk to acceptable levels.

On October 6, 2008, Emmie Abidilla came to visit us, not as an intern but by virtue of her standing as a top ranking journalist in a Philipino newspaper, someone who might give us favorable media exposure and influence among wealthy potential patrons of our University Resort project.

Her visit was accepted subject to her accepting our carefully worded and clearly communicated visitor rules. She said she understood and gave her assent. Unfortunately for her and disastrously for us she knowingly and deliberately broke our contact rules. She was injured, though not as badly as the poorly retouched photos you might see on the internet might suggest. In fact it was healing nicely when a friend of hers who heard of the injury started making lurid and patently false statements about us, not restricted to the injury itself but insulting the character of caretakers John and Barbara Williamson. She even tried to have the Williamsons arrested and our animals confiscated, including having the cougar involved destroyed.

Let us be perfectly frank. In dealing with these large carnivores, we take two particular risks that go with the territory. There is the risk that we could be injured by the animals themselves. There is also the risk that we could be harassed legally or even bodily by people whose philosophy of animal care differs from our own. Some people who consider themselves advocates for animals have taken it upon themselves to oppose other animal welfare movements with the same ferocity and tenacity that they bring against those who abuse or dispossess defenseless animals. Evidence suggests that Emmie Abidilla's friend Sharlene is such a person.

We will, of course, carry on our work. Those who would bring about change or become advocates for the voiceless always do so knowing they will be opposed and even threatened. No great victory is ever won without its price. This is part of ours.

You may read John and Barbara Williamsons' detailed statement by clicking here.

Yours in Compassion,

The Board