Local animal rescue operation gets permit to expand : Nonprofit is devoted to helping injured, orphaned and abused wildlife
JEREMY FOSTER, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
June 30, 2008
Julia Di Sieno has devoted more than 20 years to the cause of rescuing and rehabilitating animals in the Santa Barbara area. Thanks to a permit from the state Department of Fish and Game, her efforts to expand her operation to the Santa Ynez Valley were recently expedited.
'This is a big step for the local wildlife to the north,' said Ms. Di Sieno, executive director of Animal Rescue Team Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to helping injured, orphaned and abused animals. 'We needed a permitted facility up here.'
That, she added, was what prompted her to move to Santa Ynez from Santa Barbara in 2000 and to co-found ART last summer. Ms. Di Sieno currently runs Animal Rescue's rehabilitation facility from her home, which is fitted with a quarantine area, a medical treatment room and a recovery room where the animals are held before they are released.
'Our main goal is to provide a relatively close facility for animals that have been injured, abandoned or abused, to go,' Ms. Di Sieno said. 'Authorities have regulations in place to respond to needy wildlife, but they lack their own facilities to care for them, so the animals had to be sent out to someone who had a permitted and qualified facility to handle them.'
Previously, the officially sanctioned wildlife rehabilitation facilities closest to the Santa Ynez Valley were in Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo, according to Ms. Di Sieno.
To focus her attention on the Santa Ynez Valley -- which includes Solvang, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, Buellton and Ballard -- Ms. Di Sieno recently resigned her position with the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network.
Rife with exotic wildlife, the valley is an ideal place to start a rescue and rehabilitation facility, Ms. Di Sieno explained.
'When you live close to the mountains, and your town populations are small, you're living side by side with wildlife,' she said. 'And a lot of people living up here are animal lovers, and they appreciate what we do up here.'
Rescuing animals is what sets ART apart from many of the 106 permitted wildlife rehabilitation facilities in California. Most take in animals from the general public and nonprofit and governmental entities, according to Fish & Game officials. But ART, with its six-member board of directors and five volunteers, rescues the majority of animals it will take in for rehabilitation. Ms. Di Sieno said she is on call around-the-clock, ready to hop into her sport utility vehicle -- equipped with rescue equipment including catch poles, nets, tranquilizer guns, and a stretcher -- and rescue an animal in need, whether a fawn or a squirrel.
'She has a wonderful way with animals,' said ART co-founder and President Dr. Michael Behrman. 'She has guts, ability and compassion. She goes out and is willing to deal with any animal. A lot of times, law enforcement and animal control will give her heed to take over a situation in which an animal needs rescue.
'Once I went out on a rescue with her, and there was a deer caught in a gate,' he recalled. 'Everybody was asking her to do something, and she was able to take control of the situation. Another time she bottle-fed a bobcat. They're not big animals, but they're almost all muscle, claws and fangs. And the first day she felt the sting of those claws. But she continued to feed it, granted with gloves,' he added with a laugh.
A typical rescue occurs when an animal in need is reported to authorities who then contact the team. Ms. Di Sieno said that she is listed in the 911 system and has developed a close working relationship with law enforcement, especially Fish & Game and the fire department.
The new permit allows ART to rehabilitate most animals in the Santa Ynez Valley, with the exception of mountain lions and bears.
While getting her facility permitted was an important step in helping wildlife in the north, she also wants to expand her operation to do even more. Already, ART is preparing to transform a large, donated pick-up truck with a covered back into an animal ambulance. Eventually, Ms. Di Sieno wants to buy an acre on which to build a refuge and educational center where animals that cannot be released back into the wild can live. She said such a center would cost an estimated $1 million and would require a special permit from Fish and Game.
'We want the center to be as natural and free-roaming for the animals as possible,' she said.
'No bars. No wire. We want to build enclosures with moats around them and big concrete walls and Plexiglas. I have a problem with animals behind bars,' she added.
Ms. Di Sieno expects to have a busy schedule for the next few months. Spring breeding season has come to a close for the wildlife population, meaning a lot of calls will be reporting orphaned animals.
'We'll have no life outside of helping animals through September,' she said.
'But it's worth it. There's nothing more heart-wrenching than coming across an animal that is injured or abandoned. We want to ensure that we can return as many healthy animals to their habitat as possible.'