They'll take your tortoise, or whatever

SARASOTA - Kay Rosaire greets Mikey the Vervet Monkey by name. She knows the names of each and every one of her animals, and these days there are a lot more names to learn as she gets calls from people who can no longer afford their exotic pets.

"Most of them admit that they can't financially afford to keep them. Some of them are having to take jobs in other states and having to move and can't take them with them," she explained.

Rosaire is the president and founder of Big Cat Habitat and Gulf Coast Sanctuary in Sarasota -- home to 36 big cats such as lions and tigers and a menagerie of other exotic animals such as camels and lemurs.

As the economy has deteriorated, she's taking in animals she never expected to have. A woman dropped off an orphaned raccoon she raised a couple of months ago.

"She lost her house and called me and said, 'I don't know what to do with him,' and I said just bring him here. We'll build him a place."

It's the same story for a desert tortoise named Tank.

"His owner had lost her house and was moving to an apartment," she explained. "He weighs about 50 pounds. You can't take a tortoise to an apartment."

Rosaire is about to get three more tortoises from someone who can no longer afford them. A single tortoise eats about $10 worth of produce a day -- romaine lettuce is their favorite.

The sanctuary is also now home to a horse -- a Clydesdale she named Buddy. Rosaire says she got a call from a cowboy offering up Buddy as food for her big cats.

"'I have a Clydesdale and I'm going to bring him over there and you can shoot him and feed him to the cats.' And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't shoot horses here. We love animals" Rosaire recalled.

Rosaire says they have room to expand on their 30 acres, but the issue is facilities. They have volunteers but she says building materials are always on their wish list. Still, she can't bear to say no to an animal in need.

"Many times if nobody's willing to take them, they'll be euthanized. And we're totally against killing any kind of animal. We're animal lovers. So if we don't have a place for them, we'll make one."

You can learn more about Big Cat Habitat on their website: http://www.bigcathabitat.org/