Why shelters and sanctuaries get stoned from within

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

As Lynn Cuny’s Wildlife Rescue and

Rehabilitation sanctuary has expanded, the incoming presi-

dent of the Association of Sanctuaries has learned to study

human as well as animal behavior. After absorbing a

media bashing led by former volunteers in late 1992,

between similar bashings endured by distant neighbor

Wally Swett of Primarily Primates, Cuny shared some the-

ories with ANIMAL PEOPLE that have subsequently

proved valid in many other sanctuary and shelter blow-ups.

“Problems don’t begin because of just one per-

son,” she said. “They begin with a particular combination.

You may have a potential problem smouldering for years in

someone who’s otherwise a very good employee or volun-

teer. This will be someone with low self-esteem, a pro-

found poverty mentality, who needs and wants an inordi-

nate amount of encouragement and recognition. If you are

a successful sanctuary or shelter, your success at animal

care can make these people crazy. They see the animals

being loved and appreciated, and money being spent on

care and medicine, and they don’t believe they could ever

have these things in their own lives. They become jealous.

Everybody must get stoned, even Wildlife W aystation

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST, California––

Wildlife Waystation, founded by former Hollywood costume

designer Martine Colette, is the biggest wildlife rehabilitation

center and sanctuary in the U.S.––and perhaps the world.

Forty of the most recognized names in show business help

Colette raise the annual budget of circa $1.5 million.

Occupying 160 acres in Tujunga Canyon, Wildlife

Waystation has 14 paid staffers, 32 volunteers who live on

the premises, and 175 commuting volunteers, of whom

about 35 are active regulars. It answers 50,000 telephone

calls a year, handling more than 4,000 animals annually,

including wildlife and exotics picked up by many local and

regional animal control departments. The biggest of these is

the Los Angeles Board of Animal Regulation, serving the

third largest human population of any animal control depart-

ment in the country.

“If God gives you something on this earth, it’s up to you to be responsible for it.”

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

SHARON, Wisconsin––The JES Exotics

Sanctuary isn’t a member of the Association of Sanctuaries,

Jill Shumak explains, because after attending one TAOS

meeting as a guest, Jill and her husband E.J. were “not con-

vinced that it had anything to offer us.”

Explains E.J., “They were coming on like another

regulatory body, and we already have regulators up to here,

with the state, county, local, and federal. Any time you

have a sanctuary, you have everybody looking over your

shoulder.”

The Shumaks had no objection to the TAOS

accreditation requirements, but they weren’t interested in any

more red tape. They would have been interested, E.J. says,

if TAOS had appeared as if it would develop the clout for

membership and accreditation to be meaningful in reducing

governmental hassles.

Can Wild Animal Orphanage be brought up to par?

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas––Keeping perhaps the

biggest collection of former crackhouse guard-cats in Texas,

Carol Azvestus’ Wild Animal Orphanage lies beside a nar-

row, lightly traveled road on the extreme northwestern edge

of the city, just down a low grade from an old-fashioned

Pentecostal church that still holds Sunday picnics. Scrub oaks

and grazing horses across the road complete a superficially

tranquil vista. In fact, WAO is only minutes from a major

shopping center, Sea World San Antonio, and several trans-

portation arteries, some of them being widened in anticipa-

tion of rapid development.

Already Azvestus has used almost all the land she

has. A quarantine area is going up in one of the few vacant

corners. Yet her menagerie is still rapidly growing. In addi-

tion to the 150-odd animals on site when ANIMAL PEOPLE

paid an incognito visit, another 13 big cats were to arrive

within a week from a defunct roadside zoo in North Carolina.

BOOKS: True scary elephant tales

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Animals In Peril: How “Sustainable Use” Is

Wiping Out The World’s Wildlife, by John A.

Hoyt, Avery Publishing Group (distributed by Humane

Society International, 2100 L St., Washington, DC

20037), 257 pages, $10.95 paperback.

Everything You Should Know About

Elephants, by The Performing Animal Welfare

Society (POB 849, Galt, CA 95632), 32 pages,

paperback, donation requested.

Time was when the only scary elephant tales

involved Winnie the Pooh’s heffalumps and the moonshine

nightmares of Timothy Mouse and Dumbo. That was before

“sustainable use” theory ran amok across Africa, helping

stoke the poaching boom of the 1980s, while abuse of captive

elephants came to light with sickening frequency.

Primarily Primates

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

LEON SPRING, Texas–– Wally

Swett of Primarily Primates president Wally

Swett was among the first to advocate form-

ing the Association of Sanctuaries, and par-

ticipated in many of the founding discus-

sions, with the proviso that he not have to

attend meetings or be elected to any office

due to lack of time to perform the duties.

Pressured to attend meetings and take an

office anyway, he recalls, he withdrew

instead.

Swett’s non-participation still hurts

TAOS. Few sanctuarians in the world have

more credibility with peers than Swett, who

is considered the pioneer of the art of reso-

cialing institutionalized primates. Long

before Zoo Atlanta rehabilitated Willie B.,

the gorilla who spent 27 years in solitary con-

finement and is now Exhibit A for the suc-

cess of resocialization, Swett was routinely

taking monkeys who had spent a decade or

more caged, alone, in homes, roadside

zoos, and laboratories, and successfully

reintroducing them to family groups––some-

thing other experts had believed impossible.

When Swett backed away from TAOS, other

sanctuarians held back too.

She began with a bobcat

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

BOERNE, Texas––Association of Sanctuaries president-

elect Lynn Cuny started Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in 1977

incorporating one year later. She knew from childhood that she wanted

to work with animals. “My brother worked at the zoo and I couldn’t

wait to be old enough to follow him into zoo work,” she

remembers––but that was the steel-and-concrete era, when zoos were

more like dungeons than natural habitat. “When I got there,” she con-

tinues, “it broke my heart. I decided to found an organization that

would serve the needs of wild animals in free-roaming and captive situ-

ations, because there was simply no assistance available for such ani-

mals” when they became sick or injured.

Cuny began by distributing business cards “to any individual

or agency that might come in contact with any animals in need of help.

The very first call was from a woman who had seen a skunk with a

mayonaise jar stuck on his head, stumbling through a neighborhood on

the far northeast side of San Antonio. A well-placed nail with a tap

from a hammer, and the little guy was free.”

Watson says pirate took submarine

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

The Sea Shepherd Conser-

vation Society, according to a Nov-

ember 30 advisory, “is pursuing legal

action” to shut down Paul Watson pre –

sents the great whales, “a fraudulent

whale education exhibit presently tour-

ing Switzerland,” operated by Marine

World Expo, no relation to the Marine

World oceanariums, “which is owned

by John Buegler, a German ciizen

from Rodenbach. In September,” the

statement continued, “Captain Watson

agreed to allow Buegler to use his

name in return for 30% of the ticket

sales, to support the conservation

activities of Sea Shepherd.” Buegler

also was authorized to exhibit the Sea

Shepherd submarine on lease, and was

to return the submarine at the end of

October 1994. “Buegler has refused to

honor his agreement,” Sea Shepherd

alleged, “and has instead kept all

money raised from the exhibit. He also

refused to pay for shipping the subma-

rine.”

Animals in laboratories

January 1, 1995 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Legislation In Support of Animals has asked the Department of the Interior for a sta-

tus report on the condition of about 100 sooty mangabey monkeys kept by the Delta Primate

Center at Tulane University. Explains LISA president Jeff Dorson, “After an intense lobbying

effort, Tulane obtained a federal permit to buy wild or captive sooty mangabeys from west and

central Africa and through interstate commerce in

1987. The permit allows Tulane to buy up to 150 of

these endangered monkeys for use in leprosy exper-

iments, and is good for 10 years. In granting the

permit, however, the National Institutes of Health

agreed to fund, conduct, and complete a survey to

determine the remaining number of wild primates in

west and central Africa. The survey would cost tax-

payers $250,000. The agreement also stipulated

that Tulane would set up a captive breeding pro-

gram for sooty mangabeys. If the survey was not

completed, Delta would be forced to release 150

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