This is an animal rescue project that my wife (Barbie) and I started because of the Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT 1) that I became involved in in 2004-05.
This project was to be the community service portion of my testing. Tom Callos, my UBBT coach, had challenged the 27 member team to "think out of the box" as martial artist and do, and create things that would help our communities, create change, and promote martial arts in a new way.
Barbie is an unbelievable animal lover and was very aware of the issues with exotic animals in the United States. These birds, lizards, snakes, turtles, tortoises are sold in pet stores every where, and are in homes by the tens of thousands, but when a person no longer wants them or cannot continue to raise them there is no city or county humane society, or animal shelter that will take them in and readopt them. Which means that abuse or misteatment of these creatures is a hugh issue.
So we created a non-profit organization called Leaping Lizard Rescue. In the past 4 years we have rescued a mind boggling 1500 animals, (one rescue involved over 80 animals at one home), and because of my wifes love, understanding, and knowlege of these creatures we have people come from all over the western United States to seek us out and use our program.
Check us out at http://www.leapinglizardrescue.com/
This project was to be the community service portion of my testing. Tom Callos, my UBBT coach, had challenged the 27 member team to "think out of the box" as martial artist and do, and create things that would help our communities, create change, and promote martial arts in a new way.
Barbie is an unbelievable animal lover and was very aware of the issues with exotic animals in the United States. These birds, lizards, snakes, turtles, tortoises are sold in pet stores every where, and are in homes by the tens of thousands, but when a person no longer wants them or cannot continue to raise them there is no city or county humane society, or animal shelter that will take them in and readopt them. Which means that abuse or misteatment of these creatures is a hugh issue.
So we created a non-profit organization called Leaping Lizard Rescue. In the past 4 years we have rescued a mind boggling 1500 animals, (one rescue involved over 80 animals at one home), and because of my wifes love, understanding, and knowlege of these creatures we have people come from all over the western United States to seek us out and use our program.
Check us out at http://www.leapinglizardrescue.com/
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