Changings of the guard at Best Friends, Alley Cat Allies, Farm Sanctuary, Toledo Zoo, et al

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Bonney Brown, founder of the Neponset Valley Humane Society
in Massachusetts in 1992, and outreach director for the Best Friends
Animal Society since 1998, has taken a similar post with Alley Cat
Allies. “Alley Cat Allies and Best Friends have always had a strong
working relationship. We look forward to future collaboration,”
Brown said. Southern Animal Foundation co-founder Paul Berry, with
Best Friends since 2001, will fill Brown’s former position.

Farm Sanctuary cofounder Lorri Bauston, who left the
organization in July 2004 and resigned from the board in March 2005,
has announced that she will open a new 26-acre sanctuary called
Peaceable Kingdom in September 2005. Contact info: 5200 Escondido
Canyon Road, Acton, CA 93510; 661-269-0986;
<info@peaceablekingdomsanctuary.org>;
<http://peaceablekingdomsanctuary.org>.

William Dennler, executive director of the Toledo Zoo since
1981, abruptly retired on May 4, 2005. Dennler on February 28
fired Timothy Reichard, the chief zoo veterinarian since 1982.
Reichard alleged that he was fired for speaking frankly to the USDA
about alleged management errors that killed three giraffes, a hippo,
and a pregnant bear who starved to death after staff wrongly believed
she was hibernating. The Reichard firing brought the March 18
appointment of a 14-member county task force to investigate the zoo
management. The task force is co-chaired by Marty Skeldon, whose
father and grandfather were both directors of the Toledo Zoo, and
whose brother Tom is longtime head of the Toledo animal control
department. Also on March 18 the zoo dismissed management consultant
Scott Warrick, who had conflicted with Reichard.

The Animal Protective Association of Missouri, located in
St. Louis, on April 28, 2005 accepted the resignations of 10 of 16
employees, closed for a day, and reopened with shorter hours,
partially staffed by personnel borrowed from the Humane Society of
Missouri. Former Animal Protective Association executive director
Katherine McGowan resigned on February 8, and was not immediately
replaced. Board president Bill Durham denied claims by picketing
ex-staff that the APA planned to install a gas chamber and close an
on-site vet clinic.

Phil Morgan, who on March 31 resigned effective June 30
after seven years as president of the Escondido Humane Society, was
relieved of his duties three weeks later by the shelter board. He
then took over as executive director at the Northern Arizona Second
Chance Center for Animals in Flagstaff.

Kate Rindy, 53, executive director at the Santa Fe Animal
Shelter & Humane Society since 1995, announced in April that she
will retire when construction of a new shelter is finished. Rindy
previously resigned in March 2003 during a dispute with the board
over the design and size of the new shelter, but was persuaded to
return. The new shelter, 3.5 times as big as the present shelter,
is $1.4 million short of the $10 million needed for completion.
Rindy previously headed the Grand Forks Humane Society, then for 20
years was director of pet overpopulation issues for the Humane
Society of the U.S.

Randy Keplinger, executive director of the Young-Williams
Animal Center in Knox County, Tennessee, since it opened in
December 2000, resigned on April 14. Veterinarian Michelle
Williams was named interim director. The Young-Williams center was
created after the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley gave up
Knoxville and Knox County animal control duties to focus on
sterilization and adoption. Keplinger formerly headed the Oak Ridge
animal control department. During his tenure the rate of shelter
killing in Knoxville rose from 20.9 in 2000 to 27.6 in 2004.

Responding to recurrent staff complaints about alleged
religious proselytizing on the job, the Montgomery County, Texas
commissioners in late April demoted animal services director Kelli
Copeland to deputy director and announced that a new director would
be appointed.

Rebecca M. Stevens was on April 22 named executive director
of the Hamilton County Humane Society in Noblesville, Indiana,
after a year on the board of directors. Stevens will oversee the
construction of a new county-funded animal control shelter, to be
managed by the humane society. She brings to the job a background in
franchise marketing and telecommunications.

Compassion Over Killing continues under longtime volunteer
Erika Meier. COK director Myun Park and cofounder Paul Shapiro on
February 1, 2005 became director of farm animal welfare and manager
of the new factory farming campaign at the Humane Society of the U.S.