- Organization Name:
- Carolina Tiger Rescue
- Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
- The Carolina Tiger Rescue website was launched in October 2009 to represent the new face of a wildcat sanctuary previously known as the Carnivore Preservation Trust. In its history, the sanctuary evolved from a private conservation breeding facility to a refuge for discarded "pet" wildcats and a conservation education resource to the community. The sanctuary's change in function required a change in its public persona, including its website. Carolina Tiger also wanted to take advantage of current web technologies to turn its website into a valuable educational resource, and to do this, needed Adobe software. Carolina Tiger received a donation of Adobe CS3 Design Suite from Techsoup and began rebuilding the site using Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash, and Photoshop.
- What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
- There are currently few good resources to follow the latest news in wildcat field conservation, and the resources that are available are not easy to navigate. Thanks to Dreamweaver and Flash, Carolina Tiger was able to step up the quality of their existing site and also create a template to integrate two blogs seamlessly into the website's new design. The Conservation-News blog and Captive Wildcat-News blog, found under the website's "Animals" menu, provide a visually stimulating, easy-to-sort resource for current news about wildcat field conservation and wildcats in the pet trade. The blogs feature a map that shows the visitor where wildcat news is taking place and keywords for each article so that visitors can find similar articles on a particular topic.
- How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
- The Conservation News blog and the Wildcats in Captivity blog introduce new ways for Carolina Tiger's family of wildcat lovers to engage in conservation and to learn more about the exotic wildlife trade. By adding the blogs to the site as Conservation-News.CarolinaTigerRescue.org and CaptiveWildcat-News.CarolinaTigerRescue.org, Carolina Tiger improved its search engine optimization and now reaches thousands of visitors each month from over 50 countries around the world! Tour Guides can share more currently relevant information with the 13,000+ visitors that tour the facility each year. Interns and student volunteers can access hundreds of news articles and learn about additional opportunities to contribute to wildcat conservation, becoming the new generation of conservationists fighting to save wildcats. Thanks, Adobe, for connecting wildcat lovers with ways to make a difference!
