One orca freed, ten to be caught and sold

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2002:

VANCOUVER,  B.C.;  SEA OF OKHOTSK–The orphaned orca A-73,
who followed the Seattle/Vachon Island ferry boats throughout the
spring in southern Puget Sound,  was captured,  treated for minor
ailments,  taken back to the A-pod home waters in the Johnstone
Strait,  and reunited with the pod in mid-July 2002,  at total cost
of $800,000.
The greatest part of the expense was borne by the Nichols
Brothers boatyard in Freeland,  Washington,  whose jet catamaran did
the hauling.

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Animal enterprise cases

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August, 2002:

San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera on June 18 sued
Petco for “cruelty and a pattern of brazen violations of city health
and safety standards, continued over three years,” he told San
Francisco Chronicle staff writer Ilene Lelchuk. Herrera reportedly
hopes to obtain a court order prohibiting Petco from selling animals
within San Francisco. Founded in 1965 with a single store in La
Mesa, California, Petco introduced the practice of allowing local
animal shelters to offer dogs and cats for adoption, instead of
selling puppies and kittens from breeders. Petco now has 573 stores
in 42 states, and only rival PETsMART places more shelter animals in
homes–but Petco is also under PETA boycott for allegedly failing to
enforce high care standards, and for continuing to sell reptiles,
birds, and small mammals from breeders.

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Will wild orca capture and Makah whaling resume on Puget Sound?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2002:

SEATTLE, SHIMONSEKI– Decisions announced on May 24, 2002
by the National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington D.C. and the
International Whaling Commission in Shimonseki, Japan, hint that
the next big battles over both whale captivity and whale-hunting
might be fought on Puget Sound, Washington state.
But again, maybe not, as the issues of captivity and
“cultural subsistence” whaling that sparked high-profile protest in
the mid-1990s have all but dropped from public view.

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Diving mule man in hot water

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2001:

ST. LOUIS–Tim Rivers, 55, of Citra, Florida, notorious for the “Tim Rivers High Diving Mule Act” performed since 1957 at county fairs around the U.S., is among nine defendants named in federal indictments for allegedly illegally supplying 11 captive-raised tigers and leopards to canned hunts.

Indicted with Rivers for alleged conspiracy and Lacey Act violations were Lazy L Exotics owners Todd Lantz, 39, and Vicki Lantz, 40, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Freddy Wilmoth, 44, of Gentry, Arkansas, who is son of Wild Wilderness Drive Through Safari owner Ross Wilmoth; and Stoney Elam, 30, owner of the Power House Wildlife Sanctuary in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.

Named later were three Michigan men who allegedly bought some of the animals’ pelts: George F. Riley, 69, of Farmington Hills; Leonard Kruszewski, 40, of Milford; and William D. Foshee, 43, of Jackson. Issued earlier, the indictments were opened in November 2001. The Lacey Act bars taking, moving, or selling in violation of any U.S. law or treaty.

The nine defendants were indicted in a continuing investigation, said a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service press release. “In January 2001, Woody Thompson Jr.,” owner of the Willow Lake Sportsmen’s Club in Three Rivers, Michigan, “was sentenced to serve six months home detention and two years probation; fined $2,000; and ordered to pay $28,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Save the Tigers Fund,” the Fish and Wildlife Service release said.

The case resulted from a probe by the Fish and Wildlife Service and federal attorneys in Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan, who the release said, “uncovered a group of residents and small business owners who allegedly bought and killed exotic tigers, leopards, snow leopards, lions, mountain lions, cougars, mixed breed cats and black bears with the intention of introducing meat and skins into the animal parts trade.”

Rivers was accused of selling two leopards in 1998. Elam allegedly sold two tigers and three leopards. Todd Lantz was accused of buying four tigers from Freddy Wilmoth in 1998 and taking them to be shot at the 5H Ranch in Cape Girardeau. “Vicki Lantz prepared federal forms falsely stating that the transaction was a donation,” the press release said.

Jim Mason, now head of the Two Mauds Foundation in Mt. Vernon, Missouri, told ANIMAL PEOPLE that he had heard of the activities of Lazy L Exotics and the 5H Ranch “the first time I went to Cape Girardeau to investigate the wildlife traffic,” after editing the Animals’ Agenda magazine, 1981-1986.

Rivers took over the Diving Mule Act from his father, who reportedly founded it. In early years a monkey was often chained to the back of the mule, who was forced to dive into a tank of water from a ramp of varying height. In recent years the monkey was no longer seen.

Rivers fled town to evade cruelty charges against the Diving Mule Act in Babylon, N.Y., 1979 and 1991; Brockton, Mass., 1983; Jackson, Miss., 1988; Birmingham, Ala., 1990; and Lackawanna, N.Y., 2000. The Diving Mule Act was stopped by injunction in 1989 in Huntsville, Ala.; in 1994 in Chicago; and in 2001 in Green County, Tenn. In 1994, Brevard County, Fla., passed an emergency bylaw to bar the act from the county fair. In 1998 the Florida House
Agriculture Committe approved a bill to ban the Diving Mule Act, but the bill did not advance farther. In 1999 Rivers won dismissal of a cruelty case brought by Justice for Animals in North Carolina when the veterinarian who was to testify against him did not appear.

WSPA and ending animal circuses in Rio

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2001:

RIO DE JANEIRO–“We did it! No more circuses with animals in Rio de Janeiro! Governor Anthony Garotinho signed our bill into law! This is our second victory this year, as we also got rid of the decompression chamber for good in Sao Paulo,” enthused Alianca International do Animal founder Ila Franco in a November 26 e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE.

The Sao Paulo decompression chamber was believed to be one of the few still used to kill animals anywhere in the world. Most U.S. shelters quit using decompression between 1976, when the San Francisco SPCA was reputedly first, and 1985, when the Dallas and Houston animal control shelters were reputedly among the last.

Franco had updated ANIMAL PEOPLE from time to time about her pursuit of both campaigns–and also about the work of Alianca in sterilizing 6,000 dogs and cats and filing 36 cruelty cases during 2001. Franco credited many other people and organizations with helping. She thanked World Society for the Protection of Animals veterinarian Lloyd Tait, for example, for helping with sterilizations.

Franco was quite upset with WSPA, however, when she next contacted ANIMAL PEOPLE, on December 18, after seeing the WSPA web site. Said the site, making no mention of Alianca, “The state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil has passed a law banning the use of animals in circuses. The move follows a series of reports and campaigns by WSPA’s Latin American offices.” Elaborated WSPA Brazilian representative Elizabeth MacGregor in an e-mail announcement, “Public support for this bill was partly inspired by a terrible incident in Brazil last year where an improperly caged circus lion killed a child. The parents of that child have appeared at WSPA-sponsored demonstrations in support of the bill.”

Countered Franco, “Support for this bill was immensely inspired by this terrible accident because Alianca kept the facts of the incident vividly in view.” The campaign began “In 1999, when the circus elephant Madu killed her keeper in Caraquatatuba and then ran away to Sao Sebastiano,” Franco remembered. “I was called by a man who took his
son to the show and saw the circus people beating Madu.” Rushing to the scene, Franco spent four days at the circus,
she said, monitoring the treatment of Madu, and learning that the dead trainer had allegedly beaten her on the trunk to make her drink. Franco also watered a thirsty bear, she recalled, “who drank for 20 minutes without stopping.”

Franco “photographed what I had seen, to prove what was going on,” she continued. “Then I rented a big screen, sound system, and microphones, and a few feet away from this circus I showed videos to inform the public about how circus animals are trained.” Franco also formally incorporated Alianca, after years of activity, to bring a court case against the circus, seeking to confiscate the allegedly abused animals. She won the case, and arranged for the animals to be sent to a Rio de Janeiro zoo where she hoped they would receive better care–but the circus left the city
rather than give the animals up.

Franco then arranged to follow the circus and lead a rally against it, but “Three days before the scheduled protest,” she
remembered, “the six-year-old child was killed by a lion in Recife, Pernambuco.” Meeting the father of the child at a TV talk show appearance, Franco invited the family to join the Alianca rally. “I sponsored their air fares out of my pocket, and the father, mother, and baby sister all stayed for three days at my home, where we planned our approach to the state legislature,” Franco told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

For the next two years Alianca volunteer Andrea Lambert lobbied the Rio de Janeiro legislature, while Franco roused public opinion. “I edited videos, made 20,000 pamphlets, made t-shirts, passed out information at a science fair for 60 public schools, and hired a theatrical troupe” to take the message to the poor communities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, Franco recounted. “Meanwhile, we removed seven lions from another circus. As the only place available for them was at the zoo in Sta. Catarina, where I saw that the people would treat them well, but the quarters were unfinished due to lack of funding, I helped to fund proper quarters,” Franco said.

The seven lions became an effective exhibit in the Alianca campaign.Then, Franco recalled, “We found out that the same lion who killed the six-year-old had injured another child three years earlier, and killed two four-year-old girls 12 years before that. Their families were also invited” to join Alianca on TV talk shows. Along the way, Franco said, she was often threatened by circus people, and was once beaten by the wife of a circus owner. Only on the day of the voting on the bill to ban animals from circuses, Franco said, did she introduce the father of the dead six-year-old to MacGregor.

“At not one moment before that,” Franco stated, “did Je’ Miguel [the father] ever hear of or know of WSPA or MacGregor, and neither he nor I had any help from them.” Franco made an issue of the omission of Alianca from the
account because while WSPA is a $9-million-a-year group in the U.S. and a $7-million-a-year group in Britain, Alianca is a hand-to-mouth group in Brazil, with no paid administrative staff. A victory of global note could be a rare chance to attract U.S. and British donors.

[Contact Alianca International Do Animal c/o 2535 La Serena St., Escondido, CA 92025, USA; <WynterWulf@aol.com>.]

Other cases

Earlier in 2001, ANIMAL PEOPLE received similar allegations of discrepancies between WSPA claims and actuality from India, Korea, Pakistan, Romania, and Costa Rica, reported in “Seeking the bear truth about World Society work in India” (April 2001), and “Questions for WSPA and the RSPCA” (June 2001). ANIMAL PEOPLE then received a series of anonymous letters detailing alleged parallel episodes involving WSPA in other nations during the past decade. Many allegations were supported by photographs.

Much of the material could not be published without on-the-record sources, but ANIMAL PEOPLE was able to ask WSPA chief executive Andrew Dickson on October 1 why the WSPA wildlife rehabilitation center in Colombia stands dilapidated and vacant.  Built in 1984 with funds from the estate of Marcelle Delpu, it closed in 1998.

Wrote WSPA publicist Jonathan Owen, on October 10, “The buildings are now the property of Colombia. WSPA ownership ceased when the centre was subject of a compulsory purchase order from the authorities due to a major road building scheme. The site is now adajcent to a busy major highway.” The source expressed skepticism. The photos show facilities which–with repair–appear still suitable for use as a rehabilitation center, shelter, or clinic.

“We have also received photographs documenting the condition of the former Clinica Veterinaria Sozed animal shelter and hospital in Rio de Janeiro, another short-lived WSPA venture. Why was this project not sustained?” ANIMAL PEOPLE asked Dickson. Replied Owen, “We are unable to comment as we have no direct involvement in or knowledge of this facility.”

“Let us give you further detail,” said ANIMAL PEOPLE, “and perhaps you can come up with WSPA’s side of the story. According to our source, ‘Dr. Claudie Dunin, a longtime supporter of WSPA, offered to donate nearly $50,000 U.S. to WSPA to buy an office in Sao Paolo. The building was purchased in 1994, and Anna Maria Pineiro, who lived nearby, was made president of WSPA in Brazil. However, within 18 months, Andrew Dickson made a unilateral decision to close the office and sell the property. He irreparably harmed relations with animal protection organizations in Brazil. Mrs. Pinheiro will no longer have anything to do with anyone in animal protection. When Dunin threatened legal action, WSPA gave her back $22,000, with which to buy a shelter and veterinary clinic in Rio Comprido, in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, in which WSPA would have a rent-free office. WSPA never paid a cent toward helping the animals who were
assisted by the shelter. In early 2001 it closed due to lack of funding.'”

Twelve weeks later, WSPA has said nothing further. ANIMAL PEOPLE can say with certainty only that the mere fact the account was leaked to us–true or false– appears indicative of management problems.

No Olympic medals for “cultural” cowpokes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2001:

SALT LAKE CITY–The Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the forthcoming Winter Olympic Games was expected to drop the scheduled February 9-11 Command Performance Rodeo from the Cultural Olympiad at a January 3 meeting with rodeo foes. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association could still hold the rodeo, but without an official Olympic connection.

SLOC president Mitt Romney “suggested that if calf-roping is in, then SLOC is out,” Salt Lake City mayoral spokesperson Joshua Ewing told Brady Snyder of the Deseret News, “so we’re assuming that since calf-roping is still included, SLOC is out.” Confirmed Caroline Shaw, spokesperson for Romney, to Mike Gorrell of the Salt Lake Tribune, “Mitt is relatively insistent that calf-roping not be one of the events.”

Cultural Olympiad artistic director Raymond T. Grant on December 3 relayed to PRCA commissioner Steven J. Hatchell a request from Romney that calf roping be excluded, after Romney said at least three times after a November 29 meeting with rodeo opponents that calf roping might be dropped for being too violent. At the meeting, said Eric Mills of Action for Animals, “Grant was the main guy promoting the rodeo.” [Mention of Mills and Vancouver Humane Society representative Debra Probert was accidentally lost from the ANIMAL PEOPLE coverage of the meeting.]

According to Deseret News staff writer Snyder, Grant told the PRCA that, “Having engaged the animal rights activists, this engagement needs to produce some results. I recognize that the result might very well be the PRCA saying to me that what was suggested is not acceptable to the PRCA.” The PRCA reportedly responded that, “Since we have not been asked or given an ultimatum, our plan is to proceed as scheduled. We have a contract for the rodeo, and that includes calf roping.”

Pledged Steve Hindi of SHARK, “If the rodeo plans continue, the Olympics are in for a very rough run. The SHARK Tiger video truck is being readied for a rendezvous with the Olympic Torch Relay on January 4 in Illinois. From then on, the Tiger will relentlessly follow the Torch,” through a 31-stop itinerary, “and right into Salt Lake City. The Tiger will not be at the Olympic rodeo, but will instead patrol legitimate Olympic events, where it will be seen by far more people from around the world. Nevertheless, there will be protesters outside the rodeo grounds, and investigators inside to
report on whatever happens to the animals.”

PETA also planned to follow the Torch Run, and on January 1 put up a billboard opposing the rodeo in Salt Lake City .
Protests at the rodeo site, the Davis County FairPark in Farmington, Utah, were to be led by the Utah Animal Rights
Coalition. The Farmington city council withdrew and rewrote a draft anti-protest ordinance in early December on the advice of the American Civil Liberties Union, but will still require demonstrators to obtain permits 10 days in advance.

Hindi, Tony Moore of the Foundation Against Animal Cruelty in Europe, and Mathilde Mench of the German groups Initiative Anti-Corrida and Animal 2000 on Dec-ember 19 flew to Lausanne, Switzer-land, to meet with International Olympic Committee medical director Patrick Schamasch, M.D.Schamasch told them that even if the rodeo is held as part of the Cultural Olympiad, it will not be allowed to call the event an “Olympic competition” or give “Olympic medals” to the winners.”Schamasch declared that there will be no Olympic medals, real or imitation, given to the contestants,” Hindi affirmed. “That brings to an end any fantasy the rodeo people had about being Olympians.”

An obvious distinction between the Command Performance Rodeo and other Olympic-related events, pointed out Mills, is that “The rodeo cowboys are the only contestants competing for prize money–$140,000, according to the PRCA. Rodeo animals,” Mills continued, “are the only contestants forced to compete through the use of electric prods, bucking straps, spurs, ropes, tail-twisting, kicks, slaps, pain and fear.” Officially, the Olympic Command Performance Rodeo is not even offered as an athletic competition, despite the pretense of rodeo cowboys to athleticism. Instead it is to be repeated daily, February 9-11, as part of the Cultural Olympiad, which usually features music, dancing, and theatrical events considered representative of the host nation.

A rodeo was also part of the Cultural Olympiad at the 1988 Winter Olympics, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but drew little protest because most animal activist groups knew nothing about it until after it was held. The frequent violent fate of rodeo animals was shown meanwhile at the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas on December 9 when a 14-year-old bucking horse named Great Plains suffered a broken back during a ride by William Pittman II of Florence, Mississippi.

In November, a mare was killed and a calf reportedly badly hurt at the American Royal Rodeo in Kansas City. According to the most recent available PRCA data, 38 animals were injured at 57 officially sanctioned rodeos in 1999–meaning that the PRCA itself admits that animals are injured at two-thirds of rodeos. Rodeo opponents believe the actual injury rate is far higher.

Rodeo cowboys too are often injured, and not just by falling off or being dragged by the animals they try to ride or rope. In Rockhampton, Aust-ralia, Central Queensland Fertility Clinic science director Simon Wal-ton has linked bull-riding and riding bucking horses to reduced sperm counts among contestants, though not to the point of inducing sterility.

University of New Mexico researcher Loren Ketai, meanwhile, has found that recreational horse riders suffer more head injuries than rodeo performers when bucked off an animal–but recreational riders are rarely trampled by the animal who bucked them, whereas rodeo performers are trampled twice as often as they hit their heads.

Marine mammal theme parks hedge big bets

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

SAN DIEGO, MANILA, LA PAZ–Swim-with-dolphins attractions are making a splash worldwide, but the smart money in marine mammal exhibition seems to be betting on a future with far fewer captive whales and dolphins, at fewer facilities.

That comes as a turnabout, since the anti-marine mammal captivity movement that erupted in 1993 like the fictitious orca Willy’s leap to freedom at the climax of the first Free Willy! film took a cold bath during the past few years when Keiko, the orca who played Willy, showed little desire to be free.

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Coke quits rodeo; SHARK shows Dodge who builds tough trucks

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:

CHICAGO, LAS VEGAS, COLORADO SPRINGS, DETROIT–Things went better with Coke for Steve Hindi and SHARK. Eleven months after Pepsi Cola withdrew from advertising in bullrings, yielding to an 18-month global boycott, Coca-Cola advised Hindi on November 16, 2000 that “While our products may be available at some arenas where
rodeos may take place, we are no longer a corporate sponsor of rodeos or any affiliated organizations, including the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.”

Explained Hindi, “A Coke representative announced the decision after viewing a documentary by the French public television station ARTE. ARTE field producer Uwe Muller and SHARK worked together in October to obtain video footage of three PRCA stock contractors abusing animals and violating even the PCRA’s loose humane regulations. The ARTE documentary was aired to over 33 million viewers in Europe.

“This is a huge development,” Hindi continued. “Coca-Cola is three times larger as a corporation than Pepsi, and rodeo is vastly more popular in the U.S. than bullfighting, but the Coke executives never needed to face a demonstration to recognize after they saw the video that continued support of rodeo would violate their corporate policy against animal abuse. Coke’s withdrawal poses a major public relations blow and financial blow to the rodeo industry.”

Hindi thanked Trillium Asset Management Corporation senior analyst Simon Billiness for facilitating negotiations with Coca-Cola, thanked Vermont veterinarian and former rodeo performer Peggy Larson for expert advice, and thanked ANIMAL PEOPLE for introductions.

Hit rodeo finals

Then Hindi headed back to the Chicago-area garage where he was finishing the first of an envisioned fleet of Tiger video protest trucks, featuring oversized TV screens on all four sides of the box, with digital signboards to tell viewers what they are seeing. The $150,000 prototype hit the road to the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas on November 28.

“By driving more hours than was prudent, we made the 1,800 miles in under two days,” Hindi said. “On December 1 the Tiger approached the arena where the rodeo was to be held and lit up the evening with the rotten truth about rodeo. The rodeo stooges were at first shocked, and then started going through the roof, flipping me their I.Q. from all directions. Real people were equally taken, but they suddenly had a whole different impression about the goofs strutting around like John Wayne.”

The Tiger was featured on two TV news stations and in both Las Vegas daily newspapers. “California activist Lucy Shelton had a lot to do with that, exhibiting persistence that went beyond the call” as volunteer publicist, Hindi acknowledged. The Tiger debut tour drove on to El Segundo, California. “Late that afternoon the Tiger screens lit up outside the Mattel buildings, near the Los Angeles International Airport,” Hindi recounted.

“Mattel took offense at inserts of their bullfighting Barbie doll among our bullfighting footage. First they had their security people tail me. Next they called the police, and an officer pulled me over. He said the Mattel people claimed that the truck and I were suspicious, and they feared I was casing the place. I never would have guessed that criminals cased intended targets in big trucks that light up the evening,” Hindi laughed.

“I explained that Mattel knows who I am, what SHARK is, and what the issue is. The officer knew he had been played for a fool. He didn’t like it a bit. He wished me well, and said he would let the other area cops know what was going on.”

Beats ratings fears

An ongoing handicap for the anti-dog-and-cat-eating campaign led by Kyenan Kum of International Aid to Korean Animals has been that mainstream TV in the U.S. and Europe will not show the public how the animals are routinely tortured to death because too many viewers would change the channel.

In mid-December Hindi took Kum into the cab for several evenings of demonstrating how the Tiger can take graphic depictions of abuse directly to the public, bypassing media gatekeepers. They called ANIMAL PEOPLE by cell telephone during a pass by the Los Angeles Korean Consultate, but talking proved impossible because so many pedestrians kept coming up to the open windows of the Tiger to take handouts telling what they could do to pressure the Korean government to halt dog-and-cat-eating.

Hindi then took the Tiger back to Chicago for its 6,500-mile oil change. Along the way he took an impromptu detour to see how it played in Colorado Springs, home of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. “The media jumped at the chance to cover the big truck when it challenged the rodeo animal abusers right where they live,” Hindi said. “And the cowboys? They huddled in their headquarters and hid! Korean government officials did the same thing. “When people see animal abuse, they agree with us that it has to stop. They join us. That’s what this movement needs to succeed.”

By the second week in January the Tiger was on the road again, this time to circle a Daimler-Chrysler auto show in Auburn Hills, Michigan, asking the Dodge truck division to cease spending $6.6 million a year on rodeo advertising. Hindi introduced the Tiger to Detroit media as a “concept vehicle,” and a “revolution in engineering”–which it is, involving applications of TV technology never before attempted.

Hindi and SHARK still have to raise the funds to pay off the prototype, before they build more. But compared to the cost of broadcast time to distribute a much weaker version of the message for just 15 to 30 seconds at a shot, Hindi’s conclusion from the first trials is that the Tiger is a bargain–and it hasn’t even been painted yet. “It’s the most effective tactic I’ve discovered in 11 years of campaigning,” Hindi said, a strong claim from the man who in 1992 stopped pigeon shoots in Illinois after 100 years of failures by others, and has rarely gone for long since without achieving a comparable lasting victory.

Editorial: Keeping P.T. Barnum at bay

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Starting on page 13 is our 11th annual “Who gets the money?” feature, outlining in
statistical summary form where the lion’s share, the dog’s share, and much of the rest of the
money donated to animal protection goes, how it gets used, and who gets paid what amount
for making the major spending decisions.
The numbers help in comparing charities, but are not the whole story.
Consider a seemingly simple matter: trying to compare the needs of nine of the bestknown
care-for-life sanctuaries in the U.S. by measuring their budgets against the numbers of
animals they keep.
Best Friends has the most animals, at about 1,800, and may have the most dogs and
cats. But Best Friends does adoptions. DELTA Rescue, with about 1,400 animals, almost
certainly has more hard-case dogs and cats in lifetime care.
Both Best Friends and DELTA Rescue also have farm animals, but far fewer than
Farm Sanctuary, which in recent years has usually had about 1,000, divided among facilities
in New York and California.

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