I got this from WOLF, PLEASE READ IT AND HELP THESE ANIMALS!

The following information came to us from Peta’s Action Center. Link:

[link]

All may not be as soft and cuddly at Starcross Wolves as the breeding outfit's Web site indicates. According to nearby residents in Kaufman County, Texas, this operation's wolf hybrids are regularly seen and heard fighting viciously and ganging up on each other with little or no human intervention. Dogs are reportedly injured, often fatally, in these frequent altercations, and our callers claim that the owner shows little concern. We're told that the property is periodically littered with carcasses.
An hour's worth of video footage—reportedly secured by outraged
neighbors—has left PETA caseworkers horrified and appears to
corroborate their alarming claims. For your viewing convenience, we have edited this video footage down to a 9-minute clip. We issue a cautionary warning about the graphic nature of this video footage, yet we encourage everyone to view it so that you can better understand the situation.

Please click here to view the video clip:
(sorry, the link will not work in my journal)
Residents claim that they have worked tirelessly for two years to get officials to take action, to no avail. PETA caseworkers recently asked officials to immediately investigate this matter and secure the welfare of any animals found injured on this property. We have yet to receive a definitive response.
Texas Penal Code § 42.09 explicitly prohibits anyone from "[failing] unreasonably to provide necessary food, care, or shelter for an animal in the person's custody" or "[confining] an animal in a cruel manner;""cruel manner" is defined as a "manner that causes or permits unjustified or unwarranted pain or suffering."

Please contact this jurisdiction's officials right away and politely ask them to thoroughly investigate this matter, to file any applicable criminal charges, and to secure the welfare of any and all animals at this facility: (Names and Contact Info Below)
Please Send An Email, Fax or Letter!
David Byrnes, Sheriff
Deputy R. Widener, Animal Control Officer
Kaufman County Sheriff's Department
100 W. Mulberry
Kaufman, TX 75142
972-932-4337
972-932-9751 (fax)



Deputy Walter Dykes, Environmental Crimes Division
Kaufman County Sheriff's Department
100 W. Mulberry
Kaufman, TX 75142
972-932-4337, ext. 2857
972-932-9751 (fax)



Ed Walton, District Attorney
Kaufman County District Attorney's Office
Kaufman County Courthouse
100 W. Mulberry St.
Kaufman, TX 75142
972-932-0262
972-932-0357 (fax)



Jim Deller, Commissioner, Precinct 4
Kaufman County
P.O. Box 766
Kemp, TX 75143
903-498-2013, ext. 2
903-498-4033 (fax)



Dr. Bob Hillman
Texas State Veterinarian

P.O. Box 12966

Austin, TX 78711

512-719-0700

512-719-0719 (fax)



State Vet & USDA (Copy & Paste):

comments@tahc.state.tx.us,

ace@aphis.usda.gov,

acwest@aphis.usda.gov,

tracy.a.thompson@aphis.usda.gov,



Media (Copy & Paste):

dbray@dallasnews.com,

jeffdavis@dallasnews.com,

grodrigue@dallasnews.com,

ssmith@dallasnews.com,

wstallings@dallasnews.com,

marj.waters@parkcitiesnews.com,

kdfw@kdfwfox4.com,

metronorth@kdfwfox4.com,

newstips@ktvt.com,

investigates@wfaa.com,

bharris@wfaa.com,

bshipp@wfaa.com,

publisher@themonitor.net,

ttrib@swbell.net

Denver Zoo is celebrating the birth of three black bear cubs (Selenarctos thibetanus), Chai (Cheye – like the tea), Thai (Tie) and Omai (Oh-my), born January 16, 2006 in an off-exhibit maternity den. The two male cubs, female cub and their mother, Tenzing (Ten-zing) will be on exhibit in the early spring. Zookeepers say the three cubs are doing well and have opened their eyes. This is the second successful rearing of Asiatic black bear cubs at Denver Zoo. Asiatic black bears were native to a wide range of Asia but now are threatened and can only be found in Southeast and East portions of Asia. The Asiatic black bear is hunted for its body parts (especially the gall bladder), which are used in Asian cuisine and medicines.

Moktan (Mock-tan), the cubs’ father, is not involved in the rearing process, just like in the wild. The Asiatic black bear is sometimes called the “moon bear” because of its long, jet black fur and distinctive white crescent shaped chest marking.

YAY!!!!

Alaska Game Board Maneuvers to Bring Back Wolf Control Program
Associated Press / January 25, 2006
Anchorage, Alaska — The state Board of Game rewrote its aerial wolf hunting regulations Wednesday in a move to revive a program deemed illegal by a judge last week.

Hunters could be back in the air before the weekend if Lt. Gov. Loren Lehman approves the revised guidelines Thursday, said Board of Game Chairman Mike Fleagle.

“We anticipate the plaintiffs will try to stop the program, but for now it will go back online,” Fleagle said.

Friends of Animals, a Darien, Conn.-based animal rights group, has led the fight against the wolf-killing program, which is intended to boost moose and caribou populations in five areas of the state. The program got its start in 2003 in the McGrath area of the Interior where residents had long complained predators were killing too many moose, leaving them with too few for food.

Last week, Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in favor of the animal rights group, saying the game board failed to provide required justification for the program. She also said the board did not explain why alternative means for reducing the number of wolves would not work.

The board also gave no explanation for how it set the wolf reduction levels — ranging from 40 to 90 percent in the different areas, Gleason said.

The board gathered on Wednesday at what it called an emergency meeting, where members voted unanimously to scrap the existing rules for its five aerial wolf control areas and insert new language in response to Gleason’s ruling.

Giving a meeting emergency status meant the board did not have to take public comment on its rule changes.

“The board should act as quickly as possible to address the problems the judge identified,” said Department of Law attorney Kevin Saxby.

The regulation changes included adding wolf and moose population estimates that the board says justifies the aerial hunting program.

The board also added a list of aerial hunting alternatives that it deems unfeasible. They include destroying wolf habitat by burning or bulldozing, sterilization, relocation, stocking areas with more moose and feeding roadkill to wolves as another food source.

Fleagle said most of these alternatives were too expensive.

Jim Reeves, the lawyer representing Friends of Animals and seven Alaska plaintiffs, said the board meeting to pass emergency regulations was wrong.

“We have made it clear to Kevin Saxby’s office that we do not regard it as an emergency when an agency needs to adopt regulations to fix a problem of its own making,” he said.

The board needs to engage in the normal rule-making process, which requires public notice and comment, Reeves said. It also needs to go back and get new information from the five areas to support the wolf control program, he said.

“It has to get contemporaneous information … not just rely on information from two, three, five years ago and patch a couple of holes,” he said. “What they did today is they said we will just look again at all this stale information from before and put some patches on it.”

If the state decides to reinstate the wolf control program anyway, Reeves said one possibility is to ask the judge to examine the legality of the emergency regulations.

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer
Published: January 17, 2006

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s lethal wolf control program under which hundreds of wolves have been killed is illegal, a judge ruled Tuesday in a victory for a Connecticut-based animal rights group.

In a case going back to November 2003, Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the state failed to follow its own regulation when authorizing the aerial wolf control program, where pilot and gunner teams were allowed to shoot the wolves from the air.
Given the judge’s ruling, the program has been suspended, Matt Robus, director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation, said soon after the judge issued her ruling. People with permits to kill wolves in the five areas of the state where the program is under way were being notified, he said.

“Meanwhile, our attorney is still analyzing what the judge had to say. Based on what we hear from him we will decide if there are technical things can be addressed or whether it is bigger than that,” Robus said.

Gleason, who went over more than 2,000 pages of documents offered by the state, found that the Alaska Board of Game did not follow some or all of the state regulations when authorizing the program in the five areas.

The court found “that the Board of Game failed to adhere to its own regulation regarding the control of predation by wolves when it adopted these aerial control plans,” Gleason said in her 32-page ruling.

More precisely, the state failed to provide required justification for the program, including previous measures that failed to work, Gleason said. The game board also failed to explain why alternative means for reducing the number of wolves would not work, the judge said.

“The Board is bound by its regulations,” Gleason said. “A review of the enabling regulations for aerial wolf control programs … indicates that the Board failed to adequately address some or all of these regulatory requirements in each of the applicable GMU (game management units) in which it has authorized wolf control.”

The ruling was a long-awaited victory for Friends of Animals, a Darien, Conn.-based animal rights group that led the fight against the wolf-killing program and previously had failed to get the judge to issue an emergency injunction to stop it.

“She has ruled that the wolf control program is invalid and all the underlying regulations are invalid,” said Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral, who added she was “tremendously gratified with Judge Gleason’s ruling.”

“It (the law) requires that they have data and present the data and establish the facts that are required in those regulations. They can’t just make stuff up,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer, James Reeves of Anchorage.

Robus said it was too early to tell if the program can be salvaged.

“I’m not sure what the procedure is to fix it is. I think … we need to evaluate what Judge Gleason had to say and what action to take.”

The program is aimed at boosting the number of moose and caribou in areas where residents say wolves are killing too many, leaving them with too few for food. State biologists estimate that Alaska has 7,000 to 11,000 wolves. Robus has said there are some early indications that the program is working.

Since the program began in 2003, more than 400 wolves have been killed. The state set a goal of another 400 this winter. The state issued more than 100 new permits last month.

*** PLEASE CROSS POST ***
wolfsanctuary.net


Larimer County, CO – November 22, 2005 – Thanksgiving brings slim pickings to wild animal sanctuaries in Colorado. The Wolf Sanctuary in Larimer County has seen donations drop by approximately 50% since Hurricane Katrina. "This impact is being felt by all the sanctuaries of which we are aware," according to Frank Wendland, co-founder of WOLF. "We were ecstatic to see the outpouring of generosity shown by the general public to all the animals left in Katrina’s path, but now we are seriously concerned about animals whose nonprofit protectors are seeing shortfalls as a result."

Large animal welfare organizations, such as The Humane Society of the United States, received a boom in donations during the Katrina rescue efforts. According to Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society, "It was off the charts." Just a few of the current reports place Katrina donations for animal rescue as follows:

HSUS - Humane Society of the United States $20.0 Million

ASPCA - American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals $13.0 Million

AHA - American Humane Association $1.6 Million

Noah's Wish - An organization founded specifically to aid animals with disaster response $5.0 Million.

It is no wonder, with this level of generosity, that animal lovers have exhausted their giving for the year. Unfortunately, the other organizations that have been their past beneficiaries are at a loss to pay the bills. "Most nonprofit wildlife sanctuaries have always been on a tight budget anyway, as the sanctuary movement is a relatively new concept and misunderstood by most," says Wendland. "A 'True Sanctuary'; does not breed, does not sell, trade, or barter the animal or the animal's body parts or use the animal for any type of entertainment -- they simply provide lifetime care to animals that have been abused, neglected, unwanted, impounded, abandoned, orphaned or displaced. They DON'T kill animals just because nobody wants them," Wendland continues.

It is important for anyone concerned about animal welfare, though they may feel they have already given their share, to remember these organizations.