No More Tiger Ranches
- by: Dave O'Connell, American Senior Cats
- recipient: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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END WANTON ANIMAL CRUELTY IN THE PENNSYLVANIAN COMMONWEALTH!
Pet-Abuse.com Case: http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13365/PA/US
Pet-Abuse.com Photo Gallery: http://www.pet-abuse.com/case_images/13365
THE CATASTROPHE IN TARENTUM
In March 2008, Allegheny Sheriff's Deputies, accompanied by American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) humane enforcement officers, executed search warrants that revealed a nightmare of cruelty at the Tarentum, Pennsylvania, "Tiger Ranch" cattery. (See Tiger Ranch Investigative Video: http://tinyurl.com/2o3wzg.) A stone's throw from prosperous Pittsburgh suburban tracts, and right beside the Interstate, thousands of neglected cats slowly declined and died in filthy, unfurnished trailers.
Suffering, disease-ridden survivors were filmed as they staggered among the stiff corpses of their companions, unable to eat or drink with their ulcerated mouths, or breath through their mucus-choked airways. (Sources: "Tiger Ranch Stuns Vet; 'Never Saw Conditions Like This,'" WTAE TV-4 (ABC), http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/16031945/detail.html; "Tiger Ranch Supplemental Video," http://tinyurl.com/4qx9pg.)
GUILTY: MULTIPLE COUNTS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY
On July 13, 2009, Linda Marie Bruno, a/k/a Lin Marie, pleaded guilty to 12 criminal counts of Cruelty to Animals, and two counts of Evidence Tampering.
The Valley News Dispatch reports: "Marie is facing up to two years in state prison and a $5,000 fine for each of the 12 cruelty counts as well as up to two years in prison and $5,000 fine for each of the two tampering charges.
"That means she could be sentenced up to 28 years in prison and fined $70,000 if the maximum sentence is imposed." (Source: "Ex-Tiger Ranch Owner Pleads Guilty to Animal Cruelty Charges," Valley News Dispatch, July 14, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/valleynewsdispatch633575).
TIGER RANCH: A 14-YEAR HISTORY OF TORMENT AND DESPAIR
Those cats and kittens beyond suffering were found jammed in freezers, bulldozed into shallow graves, or laying where they fell, dead, in their food, litter boxes, trailers, or beneath the open sky.
Hundreds of animals were imported from distant states; fine, adoptable cats who arrived in excellent health, only to deteriorate, suffer, and die in the frigid Pennsylvanian Piedmont. (Source: "Sick Cats Came To Tiger Ranch From Several States," WPXI TV-11 (NBC), http://tinyurl.com/6z3jqx.)
The Tiger Ranch proprietor was arrested, and faced 593 charges of animal cruelty at a criminal arraignment in July 2008.
NEVER AGAIN!
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the County of Allegheny, must take measures to ensure such grievous atrocities are never again perpetrated against blameless domestic animals or livestock within their borders.
Be It Therefore RESOLVED, that the Pennsylvanian Commonwealth and Allegheny County must affirm and reinforce existing cruelty statutes, and propose such new criminal statutes that will enable felony animal cruelty charges against any party that perpetrates grave harm against harmless domestic animals or livestock; and
Be it Further RESOLVED, that the law enforcement authorities of the Pennsylvanian Commonwealth, Allegheny County, independent authorities of the ASPCA, the PSPCA, and all relevant animal cruelty law enforcement authorities, should be granted the fullest and broadest authorities to search, investigate, and terminate grave and intolerable instances of animal cruelty, neglect, and epidemic disease; and
Be it Further RESOLVED, that Tiger Ranch, the "death camp for cats," should remain forever closed, and convicted animal abuser Linda Marie Bruno, a/k/a Lin Marie, should be barred from all contact with domestic animals; and
Be it Further RESOLVED, that legitimate, not-for-profit, "No-Kill" organizations and rescue entities be accorded the support and recognition they deserve, and be in no way tainted by association with the Catastrophe in Tarentum.
As District Judge Susan Blaschak aptly observed, "In the absence of duty, care, food, water and helping the animals get to it ... this rises to the level of torturous conduct." (Source: "Cat Shelter Operator Ordered to Stand Trial," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08128/879634-54.stm.)
END WANTON ANIMAL CRUELTY! NO MORE TIGER RANCHES!
We urgently request that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and all legally empowered animal cruelty investigators and law enforcement agents, do the utmost to ensure that the horrific instances of animal cruelty, neglect, epidemic disease, and painful death uncovered in the Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary, in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, never again occur in the commonwealth, or anywhere else; and that
The alleged perpetrators of the Tiger Ranch horrors are prosecuted and, if convicted, punished to the full extent of the state, local, and municipal, criminal statutes.
The Members of Care2
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