Carole Baskin, American child and animal rights activist, was born on June 6, 1961, at Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas.

Baskin was born to Vernon Charles Stairs and Mary Barbara Jean Norris Stairs. She is the only daughter of her parents and comes from a poor background.

At the age of nine, she expressed an interest in helping cats, but after learning that veterinarians were killing animals, she decided not to pursue a career in veterinary medicine.

Baskin claims she was raped repeatedly when she was 14 by three men who lived across the street from her and that her traditional Christian family provided her with no emotional support.

She dropped out of high school and moved in with an employee at a nearby roller skating rink. Baskin then hitchhiked from Florida to Bangor, Maine, sleeping under parked cars. She later bought a Datsun pickup truck and put her cat in the back.

Career of Carole Baskin

At age 17, Baskin worked at a department store in Tampa, Florida. She began breeding show cats to raise money and started a llama lawn mower business.

Baskin married Don Lewis, her second husband, in January 1991 and joined him in the real estate business. In 1992, the two founded Wildlife on Easy Street, a big cat sanctuary near Tampa.

Baskin and her husband originally raised tiger cubs and show cats, but gave up when they saw how much suffering the practice caused the animals. Baskin still serves as executive director of the sanctuary. After Lewis disappeared in 1997, she gave the facility a new name: Big Cat Rescue.

She has advocated for action against private zoos through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and her podcast “The Cat Chat.”

Baskin was selected to compete on Season 29 of Dancing With the Stars in 2020. She and partner Pasha Pashkov performed a paso doble to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” during the show’s season debut on the 14th. September, earning the lowest overall score of the evening, 11 out of 30.

Baskin called on Congress to ban the private trade and ownership of exotic cats through his organization, Big Cat Rescue. When President Joe Biden signed the Big Cat Public Safety Act into law on December 20, 2022, it was part of his and his family’s life’s work.

She advocated for the passage of the Captive Wildlife Safety Act from 1998 until its passage in 2003, and the bill closed loopholes in the law. The BCPSA phases out private ownership of big cats and prohibits the handling of all big cats and their young.

From 2005 to 2016, Baskin donated only to Democratic candidates; However, after 2017, a significant portion of their donations went to Republicans. 2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker and Rep. Kathy Castor, who represents Baskin’s district, both recently donated money to Democrats.

Does Carole Baskin have children?

Baskin has a daughter with her ex-husband Murdock. His daughter’s name is Jamie Veronica Baskin. She was born on June 16, 1980.