SANCTUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Three Texas cougars who were
sent to the Jim Moore hunting ranch near
Balmorhea, Texas, after use by the Florida
Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in
a 1993-1994 test of Florida panther habitat,
were purchased on August 10 by Sumner
and Elise Matthes of Sarasota In Defense of
Animals for $3,000 apiece, and taken with
the aid of American SPCA wildlife programs
coordinator Kathi Travers to Carol
Azvestus’ Wild Animal Orphanage on the
outskirts of San Antonio, for 120 days of
rehabilitation. The longterm goal is to return
the cougars to the wild. The Florida Game
and Fresh Water Fish Commission refused to
contribute toward the cost. Nineteen Texas
cougars were used in the experiment all told,
of whom eight were eventually sold to
canned hunts via resellers in Florida, South
Carolina, and Missouri. Moore acquired
seven, of whom another, named Waldo,
was returned to Florida earlier. Moore,
Sumner Mathis reported, “will not say what
he did with the three others.”

A simmering dispute between
Dona Tracy of the Hudson Valley Raptor
C e n t e r and the New York Department of
Environmental Conservation absorbed half a
page of the September 14 New York Times.
The 15-year-old raptor center, considered
one of the world’s best, cares for more than
120 owls, hawks, falcons, and vultures
with a volunteer staff of 52. The DEC,
however, claims Tracy is improperly refusing
inspectors access to the birds. Tracy,
defended by environmental attorney and falconer
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claims the
DEC tried to take a falcon for premature
release at a public ceremony.
Audrey Tourney, director of the
Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in
Rosseau, Ontario, has accepted two
declawed, defanged bears who were formerly
used to train hunting dogs in a barn outside
Detroit, and is trying to raise $20,000
to build an expansive outdoor home for
them.