Exotic Feline Breeding Compound Exotic Feline Breeding Compound (EFBC)

Thanks for bringing that to our attention @Adventuredl . I'm not surprised to hear they've been struggling financially, but it's pretty wild to find out that they're already closed. I was even planning to make a return trip this year...

I didn't upload any of my photos to the gallery at the time because I still had backlog to push through and the enclosures were well-documented. Now that mine are possibly the last snapshots we have of the place, I'll move them up the priority list.
 
Adventuredl said:
EFBC’s Feline Conservation Center announced that they are permanently closed to the public as of February 10th and will permanently close soon. All cats are in the process of being relocated to other facilities.
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The owner and founder, Joe Maynard, passed away several years ago and I wondered if they would continue without him. They did continue for many years but it looks like the end has come. To be honest I am not sorry to see them go because most of their enclosures were awful.
 
I used to visit there regularly since 2012, but hadn't visited since October 2021 when the person who runs it made me feel very unwelcome, with snide comments like "don't you already have enough photos of J.J.?", asked me not to talk to other visitors about their cats and didn't seem to want me asking any questions about any of their feline residents.
 
It must have been a sudden decision. On February 10 in the morning they posted on Facebook we will be closed today due to severe weather conditions. That same night they posted they had closed to the public as of that day and will permanently close. Unless the "severe weather" post was just a bluff to cover their moving of the cats. The post says 26 cats were relocated to new homes in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee on February 9. The remaining 29 cats will be relocated in the coming weeks.
 
It looks like they had their tax exempt status revoked about 2 years ago. I looked them up on the IRS website and found this:

EFBC IRS.JPG EFBC IRS.JPG
 

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Arizona Docent said:
On February 10 in the morning they posted on Facebook we will be closed today due to severe weather conditions.
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As far as I know there was no severe weather in that area on February 10... or anywhere in southern California actually. Forecasts show the location of the compound having been roughly 60 F and sunny with low or typical winds that day.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
As far as I know there was no severe weather in that area on February 10... or anywhere in southern California actually. Forecasts show the location of the compound having been roughly 60 F and sunny with low or typical winds that day.
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There was a Facebook post from January 10 stating they would be closed due to severe weather. @Arizona Docent is it possible you misread that post, or was there a since deleted post from February 9 or 10?

This couldn't have been as abrupt as they've made it sound in their Facebook post given that they stated they moved 26 cats to multiple states, all on February 9. That would've required a lot of paperwork plus exams plus arranging transport once the new facilities were identified. They just chose not to let anyone know it was coming.
 
Elena said:
with snide comments like "don't you already have enough photos of J.J.?", asked me not to talk to other visitors about their cats and didn't seem to want me asking any questions about any of their feline residents.
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This is so weird to me. You would think someone would be excited to take interest into their animals or their projects and such. Especially if you are paying to get in (I am assuming you do). Just hoping all the animals end up in great homes.
 
A new Facebook post (just uploaded) says a volunteer has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay to keep electricty running and other necessary expenses until the remaining cats are rehomed. That person (or maybe another volunteer) also donated ten thousand dollars of their own money. It sounds like a dire situation.
 
toxodon said:
This is so weird to me. You would think someone would be excited to take interest into their animals or their projects and such. Especially if you are paying to get in (I am assuming you do). Just hoping all the animals end up in great homes.
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We have to remember that what ZooChat members get excited about is not what the general public gets excited about. A North China leopard is just a leopard to them. Plus it is in an out-of-the-way location with minimal visitor amenities and many enclosures that I would consider borderline inhumane.
 
It will be interesting to find out where the cats are moved to. I assume they will more likely end up in sanctuaries as opposed to display institutions, which is a bit of a shame for some of the rarer cats.
 
Arizona Docent said:
We have to remember that what ZooChat members get excited about is not what the general public gets excited about. A North China leopard is just a leopard to them. Plus it is in an out-of-the-way location with minimal visitor amenities and many enclosures that I would consider borderline inhumane.
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I agree that a lot of us can be a bit eccentric, it was more how Elena said it was told to them. The picture one in particular is just weird to me. But you do seem to know the people better, so maybe that is just how they are.
 
toxodon said:
I agree that a lot of us can be a bit eccentric, it was more how Elena said it was told to them. The picture one in particular is just weird to me. But you do seem to know the people better, so maybe that is just how they are.
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I used to enjoy trying to capture nice photos of the cats there when I'd visit despite the enclosures that weren't the fanciest. I viewed it as a bit of a photographic challenge. Occasionally I'd see other people there with a camera (vs. taking photos with a cell phone).

I had a membership for years, though I didn't visit that often. When they used to have Twilight Tours pre-COVID where you'd be able to visit the normally non-public areas (this is where the Persian leopard was), I'd try to visit during those if the weather was bearable (they're prone to very high winds and 100+ degree temperatures in the warmer months). As it's in a more remote area just north of Los Angeles County (it would take me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to drive there), it wasn't very busy and was relatively quiet compared to a normal zoo. Despite some of the bare bones enclosures, I liked to periodically check up on the cats, some of which I remembered from when they lived at AZA facilities. If the cats were in the non-public areas, like Koshka and Giuseppe the Amur leopards who previously lived at the San Diego Zoo or Ixchel the Brazilian ocelot who was born at the Los Angeles Zoo, I'd ask how they were doing, if they were making progress with any breeding efforts, etc.
 

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A lawsuit was filed by the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound, Inc. against Christy Cregut, Luke Cregut and Randy Cregut in Kern County Superior Court on February 6. The Case Number is BCV-23-100375. I couldn't upload the *.pdf files here, but the documents filed can be accessed (for free) via the Kern County Superior Court website by following the link for "Non-Criminal Case Search" at the link below:

https://www.kern.courts.ca.gov/online-services/case-information-search
 
Elena said:
A lawsuit was filed by the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound, Inc. against Christy Cregut, Luke Cregut and Randy Cregut in Kern County Superior Court on February 6. The Case Number is BCV-23-100375. I couldn't upload the *.pdf files here, but the documents filed can be accessed (for free) via the Kern County Superior Court website by following the link for "Non-Criminal Case Search" at the link below:

https://www.kern.courts.ca.gov/online-services/case-information-search
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I did all the steps you say and it comes back "case not found." Can you just summarize what it is about?
 
SwampDonkey said:
Interesting, I wonder which 9 zoos, presumably AZA given their involvement, are going to get the 20 cats mentioned.
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It will be interesting to hopefully eventually find out where all of their former residents end up. There are some zoos outside the AZA that work with various AZA SSP programs as Sustainability Partners, so those facilities could be involved as well. I'm especially curious to know where the 3 North Chinese Leopards and 1 Persian Leopard go, as they're the only ones of their species in the United States.
 
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