<a href=”http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/trophyhunt.html”>Stop the Trophy Hunt – Faltering Light Petition | GoPetition</a>
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Are you a Sierra Club member? If so, we need you to speak up in support of a far-reaching policy regarding wildlife trapping. WHY THIS MATTERS
“For your work on the Sierra Club trapping task force, I wanted to share this photo. It is of a trapped coyote we found on a Sierra Club outing I led last week. Being immersed in trapping related issues, I have seen the photos and read the accounts- but none of that could prepare me for this. Seeing the cruelty in person was an incredible blow. We found her struggling and injured just trying to get away from us as we approached but being tripped by the trap chain again and again. We could do nothing but take her picture and walk away. All the participants agreed to end the outing early to try to get help but we were not in cell range so I had to wait until I got home to call the game warden. He met me out there the next day but when we got to the trap site just shy of 24 hours later, the coyote was gone. The trap was just left lying shut on the ground and that makes me think the trapper did not come. After killing the coyote, he would have either taken the trap or reset and hidden it again. There were no tracks that anyone had been there since we had the day before. So I don’t know what happened to this little coyote but I think she managed to get herself and her badly mangled leg out of the trap on her own. I also don’t know how she can fare with an injury like this. Please use this photo any way you can as I promised her suffering would not be for naught.” Click on the link or Copy and Paste the address into your internet browser window. http://santamariatimes.com/news/local/young-buck-has-wild-night/article_972c0a5a-e67d-11e0-98b4-001cc4c03286.html Media Contacts: By MORGAN HOOVER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER November 22, 2011 6:31 AM The executive director of the Animal Rescue Team will be featured in January on Animal Planet’s hit show “Animal Hoarders.” For more information, go to www.animalhoardingproject.com. email: mhoover@newspress.com  Local group rescues critters from Nevada hoarder on upcoming Animal Planet show It was 115 degrees in the Nevada desert, and more than 100 animals were kept in a trailer and outdoor chicken-wire cages. They were confined with little room to move. Inside one of three trailers, arranged around a makeshift courtyard, you had to step over some of the 18 dogs to get to the 85 cats, half of them feral.
Lauren Scott likely will never forget the odor inside the trailer, where an unemployed single mother and her two young daughters lived with 40 cats. The wild cats could come and go through holes in the decaying floor.
“It was the smell of all those animals in one place,” said Ms. Scott, operational manager of Solvang-based Animal Rescue Team Inc. “You could smell it from the front gate. There were more fleas in that place than I’ve seen in stables.”
Sadly, the woman living at the Pahrump, Nev., home had taken on more than she could handle with time or money, said Julia Di Sieno, executive director of Animal Rescue Team.
Besides the 85 cats and 18 dogs, there were four horses, four doves, four pigs, three roosters, several rabbits, two ducks, one turkey, one hen, one pigeon, and everything but a partridge in a pear tree.
Oh, and don’t forget the llama.
Ms. Di Sieno, Ms. Scott, and volunteers Lisa Mathiasen and Bryan Muñana drove in an SUV — aka the Animal Rescue Team ambulance — to Pahrump July 25 to take 14 animals from the hoarder. They were two bunnies, the ringneck doves, the roosters, the ducks, the female turkey, a pigeon and a hen.
Animal Rescue Team’s removal of the animals was filmed during a “Confessions: Animal Hoarding” episode that will air early next year on Animal Planet. The cable network hasn’t released the exact date.
When a film production company working for Animal Planet heard about the home in Pahrump, a small town in the middle of nowhere, they contacted Ms. Di Sieno, 51. The Animal Planet series shows rescues of animals from hoarders — people whose obsession with animals lead them to take on too many — often living in deplorable conditions.
“She (the hoarder) was very passionate about the animals. She realized she had gotten in too deep,” Ms. Di Sieno said.
She kept thinking, “I can always take on one more,” until one more became more than a hundred, Ms. Di Sieno said. “She did have a lot of knowledge, but did not have the financial resources.”
The woman, who used to work at a shelter that killed strays, was worried that her animals would also end up being euthanized at the shelter.
It can be hard to say no to taking in an animal who needs a home, but quality of care matters more than quantity, Ms. Di Sieno told the News-Press last week over the assorted sounds of birds at Animal Rescue Team’s facility in Solvang.
CARES Coalition removed 24 of the cats. Ironwood Pig Sanctuary took the pigs.
The fate of the horses and dogs is unknown.
The animals at the Pahrump home seemed healthy, except for one rooster with a swollen leg and a cat who needed to be dewormed and was blind in one eye, Ms. Di Sieno said. “She was unable to afford to have it dewormed.”
“I felt sorry for the llama,” Ms. Di Sieno added. “It had not been sheared for years, and it was 115 degrees.”
Driving The Bus Productions Inc., the Vancouver, B.C., company producing “Confessions: Animal Hoarding,” heard about the Pahrump woman from her sister. Ms. Di Sieno said the woman didn’t resist the efforts, in most cases, to take her animals, but was in tears, and her children were upset about losing their furry friends.
“When it came to the cats, she did backpedal,” said Ms. Di Sieno.
Ultimately, CARES Coalition, which was there the same day as Animal Rescue Team, took 24 cats and asked Ms. Di Sieno if she could take some. Given the limited space in the SUV, she wasn’t able to do so. She also had hoped to take a California quail and a raven, but a call to California Fish & Game determined they couldn’t be brought across the border. Ms. Di Sieno referred the hoarder to a Lake Tahoe, Nev., organization to take them, but doesn’t know whether that happened.
It took two or three hours to load the animals after Animal Rescue Team arrived there at 10:30 a.m., Ms. Di Sieno said.
After driving them back in the Animal Rescue Team ambulance, Ms. Di Sieno found a home for three ringneck doves and the pigeon at a 10-acre Santa Maria ranch, while the turkey got a home in the Santa Ynez Valley. Another home in the Santa Ynez Valley took the hen and a rooster. The bunnies, another rooster, one dove and the ducks remain at Animal Rescue Team.
One rooster died.
The animals at Ms. Di Sieno’s facility have more space than they did in Pahrump, living in large metal cages that protect them from predators better than the small chicken-wire cages. Ms. Di Sieno gave a quick tour showing ART’s veterinary hospital, a small building, and large cages with space between them. She clapped her hands to encourage fawns from getting too close to a fence. “I don’t want them to like us,” she said, referring to preserving their wild instincts.
Before “Confessions: Animal Hoarding,” Animal Rescue Team had had a dog featured on a talent show on Animal Planet and had a photo of an unusual bond between two animals on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
When it comes to caring for animals, people must be realistic about their limitations, Ms. Di Sieno said.
“If you do get in too deep, help is available.”
email: dmason@newspress.com
Raymond Notthoff, a 58-year-old truck driver from Rosemead, was in for a frightening, feathery surprise when a great horned owl managed to get stuck in the front grill of his truck as he drove southbound on State Route 135 near Los Alamos. In a surprise vote late Wednesday night, the Washoe County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife voted not to endorse the new bear hunt being considered by the Nevada Wildlife Commission.
The 5 member board will send their opinion to the August 13th Commission meeting in Fallon, Nevada.
“This bear hunt has been rammed down the throats of the public by the Commission,” said Vice Chair Rick Smith. “I’m not against the hunt because I believe we can have one. I’m voting against it because of how it was presented to the public. You didn’t see it coming and neither did we.”
“I’m not sure where the hell I stand. The numbers against the hunt are pretty high. I don’t see how we ignore that,” said board member John Reed.
Twelve members of the public spoke against the hunt while three were for it. Chairman Flowers showed a 2″ thick folder of emails the board had received. “There are hundreds here, almost all against the hunt.”
During comments the board was shown nearly 5000 signatures gathered on paper by the grassroots organization NoBearHuntNV.org. Organizer Billy Howard told the board that people signing the petitions even at that moment. “We don’t just ask for people’s signatures, we ask them to take a sheet and get some, too.. They are pouring into our mailbox. Together with our online signatures we have over 13,000 people signing on against the hunt.”
“This is a painful topic. I think the people against the hunt should have at least one more chance to air their feelings and I’m not sure they will have another recourse if the hunt is made permanent. I don’t see how we can ignore the 13,000 or so signatures,” mused Reed.
The Wildlife Commission voted for the bear hunt regulation in December, but Nevada law states the ruling could only be considered temporary because the Legislature was in session at the time. Once the Legislature disbands agencies then make their temporary regulations permanent. The Nevada Legislature convenes once every two years.
Chairman Rex Flowers supplied the sole yes vote. “I feel the regulation is well thought out. If the hunt does not go well it will come to an end.”
But Smith countered, “If we don’t approve making the hunt permanent we’re sending the message to the Commission that we can come up with compromises on this issue and work it out.”
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