Tag: wolf

Illegal Wolf Kills Spiking in Michigan’s UP

  • Some hunters in Michigan's upper peninsula say the wolves' "sacred cow" status is causing more animosity toward the animals. (Photo courtesy of www.isleroyalewolf.org)

No other wildlife species, it seems, causes such extremes of emotion as the wolf.

Some people want to protect it at any cost.

Others want to shoot the animal on sight.

And in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula illegal wolf kills are spiking.

Wildlife officials say they can defuse the situation if they can just get gray wolves removed from the endangered species list.

Bob Allen reports.

More about the history of wolves in Michigan

More about removing Michigan wolves (included in the western GL wolf population) from the Endangered Species List

Michigan’s Wolf Management Plan

More on Michigan’s Isle Royale Wolves (the longest study of any predator-prey system in the world)

Transcript

The return of gray wolves to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula more than twenty years ago was not cause for alarm, at first.
But that’s changed drastically in the last few years as more sportsmen are convinced wolves are now decimating the white tail deer population.

Larry Livermore manages the 35,000 acre Hiawatha Sportsman’s Club, about an hour’s drive west of the Mackinaw Bridge.

LIVERMORE: “There was no hatred of wolves until people created the hatred by not allowing them to be managed.”

As long as the wolf is under federal protection it can only be killed if it’s causing imminent threat to human life.
The wolf population in Michigan is more than six times the goal set for them under the Endangered Species Act.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now trying for the fourth time to remove gray wolves from the protected list in the Upper Great Lakes states.
So far, national wildlife protection groups have managed to block those efforts in federal court.

The groups contend wolves still need to expand into northeastern states before protections are removed.
Larry Livermore says while all this legal wrangling is going on members at the eighty year old Hiawatha Club are giving up their memberships and selling their places because the deer hunting has become pathetic.

LIVERMORE: “You have a whole bunch of honest law abiding citizens who have finally had enough and say, you don’t care about us, you don’t understand our dilemma here and so we will take it into our own hands. And that’s happening here. People who I never dreamed would say I would shoot a wolf are telling me that they will shoot one.”

There was a spike in illegal wolf kills in the U.P. last year.
Wildlife officials found fifteen collared wolves shot out of an overall population pushing near 700.
And the Department says poaching is on the upswing again this year too.

But Brian Roell is not alarmed about it.
He is the go-to wolf guy for the DNR in Marquette.
He says illegal kills are not reducing the overall population.

And Roell says once federal protection is gone people will stop feeling like the wolf is being treated as a “sacred cow”.

ROELL: “Being able to empower people to actually take some control back is going to go a long way in helping people come to live with wolves.”

DNR officials have a management plan ready to go once the wolf is delisted.
The plan would give people the authority to defend against attacks on their pets and livestock.
And it would allow them to cull wolves in places where they’re putting a lot of pressure on deer.

But some sportsmen’s groups want to go further than that.
They want the state to open a hunting season on them.
Sportsmen say if wolves are treated more like bears with limited harvests then the animals will have some value to people.

But Nancy Warren thinks the top predator has its own value in the natural order of things.
In the summertime, she takes visitors out at night to howl with wolves on her property in the western U.P.
She says the number of deer killed by wolves and reported threats to humans are being exaggerated.
But she agrees the state ought to be able to manage problem wolves.

WARREN: “Let people see that the state is able to manage these wolves. And we could get rid of some of these myths and the misinformation and see that, yeah, we can live with wolves.”

Warren fears a return to the bad old days when wolves were considered varmints and poisoned or shot on sight.

But Brian Roell with the DNR doesn’t see wholesale slaughter of wolves coming back into play.
Because once the wolf comes off the endangered species list, he says, no one is going to want to risk having to put it back on again.

Open Season on Wolves

  • Idaho Fish and Game sold 1,825 wolf tags in the first hour. By mid-afternoon the first day, about 4,000 tags had been sold. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

Transcript

It’s open season on wolves starting
today. Lester Graham reports
Idaho has issued tens of thousands
of hunting permits for the first
wolf season since the animal was
taken off the endangered species
list:

This is the first time a state has allowed an open hunting season on the wolf since it was protected by federal law.

Jon Rachael is state game manager for Idaho’s Fish and Game. He says there are about 1,000 wolves – far more than the original plan when the wolves were reintroduced.

So, hunters can kill as many as 220 of them.

“The intent of that is to reduce the population slightly. But that would leave us in the neighborhood of about 800 wolves at the end of the year.”

A Montana hunting season would allow another 75 wolves to be killed.

Environmentalists say it’s outrageous to kill so many wolves in the northern Rockies so soon after they were taken off the endangered species list.

The Environmental group Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop the wolf hunting season. A federal judge has not yet ruled on whether to stop the hunt.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Some States Planning Wolf Hunts

  • In some states, there are plans for a wolf hunting season (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Some states plan to let people hunt wolves. Rebecca Williams reports that’s happening because the US government is taking gray wolves off the federal endangered species list in two places:

Transcript

Some states plan to let people hunt wolves. Rebecca Williams reports that’s happening because the US government is taking gray wolves off the federal endangered species list in two places:

This decision means states in the western Great Lakes and several Rocky Mountain states will have control over wolves.

Some states are calling wolves a protected nongame species.

For example in Michigan, a wolf can only be killed if it’s attacking people, pets or livestock. But in other states – like Idaho and Montana – there are plans for a hunting season for wolves.

Jonathan Lovvorn is chief counsel for the Humane Society of the United States. His group and several others are planning to sue.

“Essentially what we’re worried about is that this is basically going to be a declaration of open season on animals that have been protected for decades.”

The federal decision to take wolves off the endangered species list could be overturned in court. That happened last fall.

If the decision sticks, then the Fish and Wildlife Service will be keeping an eye on wolf populations for at least the next five years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Usda Kills Wildlife

  • USDA Wildlife Services Killed 90,000 Coyotes in 2007 (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

More than a hundred environmental
organizations want the incoming head of
the US Department of Agriculture to stop
killing wildlife. The agency has an office
that kills wild animals to save livestock.
Jennifer Szweda Jordan has more:

Transcript

More than a hundred environmental
organizations want the incoming head of
the US Department of Agriculture to stop
killing wildlife. The agency has an office
that kills wild animals to save livestock.
Jennifer Szweda Jordan has more:

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and dozens of other groups signed on to a letter to Tom Vilsack. Vilsack is President-elect Obama’s pick for Agriculture Secretary. The environmental coalition is upset about the department’s Wildlife Services Agency. That agency removes or kills animals that threaten crops, farm animals, or cause other nuisances. Wildlife Services agents reported in 2007 that they killed more than two million animals, including 90-thousand coyotes, sometimes through poisoning.

Tom Vilsack did not return a call seeking comment about the letter.

The environmental groups say the poisonings and killings disrupt the balance of nature, and can leave persistent chemicals behind.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

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Wolves Make Mark on Yellowstone

  • The wolves in Kinna Ohman's report as seen through a spotting scope. Wolves have helped strengthen several species of plants and animals in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Marlene Foard)

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:

Transcript

Scientists are surprised by the changes one animal can make in America’s first national park.
Since the wolf returned to Yellowstone, the predator’s had wide-ranging and unexpected effects
on the ecosystem of the park. As Kinna Ohman reports, top predators such as wolves might be
more necessary than previously realized:


Yellowstone National Park holds many wonders, but few things capture a visitor’s imagination
like the wolf:


“Whoa, I can see their eyes.”


Marlene Foard lets me peek through her scope and see members of the Slough Creek wolf pack
tearing into a recent kill. As we watch, we hear another group of wolves howling in the distance:


“Did you hear ’em? Yeah, did you hear that? Oh my God…”


(Sound of wolves howling)


Visitors are not the only ones fascinated by the wolves. Lately, scientists have been caught up in
the excitement too. Not just by the wolves, but how the wolves are changing Yellowstone.


(Sound of creek)


It’s a cold yet sunny day in the park. I’ve met up with Doug Smith, the project leader of
the park’s wolf recovery program. But we’re not going to look for wolves today. We’re about to
see how wolves are changing the landscape:


(Sound of footsteps)


“This is Blacktail Deer Creek that we’re walking up on. And it’s surrounded by willows.
And these willows about ten years ago were not growing as luxuriantly as they are right
now.”


This new willow growth happened after the wolves’ reintroduction to Yellowstone, and many
scientists are making a connection. Willow can be a food for elk especially in the winter, but
since the wolves have returned, elk would rather be on hillsides and open areas where they can
see wolves coming. And once they leave the river valleys behind, plants like the willow are
recovering.


The willow’s recovery is important because it helps other wildlife. Beaver eat willow and use it
for building dams. And ponds created by beavers are great habitat for endangered birds, like the
warbler. Doug Smith says the fact this could be caused by wolves caught everyone by surprise:


“Nobody thought of this. I was around at the beginning. There were many studies done
looking at what the impacts of wolves would be. And I can’t remember reading about this
at all.”


And it goes beyond the willow. Bill Ripple is a professor of Ecology at Oregon State University.
He came to Yellowstone in 1997 to study why aspen trees were declining. Ripple wasn’t thinking
wolves, but one day, when studying tree ring data, he saw the aspens’ problems began just when
the last wolves were killed off in Yellowstone. He was equally surprised:


“I didn’t see anything in the record. It wasn’t on my radar to see how wolves may be
affecting aspen trees. That was not even considered at all. And all of a sudden, it appears
that this one animal can have this profound effect on the entire ecosystem.”


And this got Ripple thinking about the top predators a little differently. He says these effects
might even extend to other animals:


“I think that this effect of predators would probably go well beyond just cougars or wolves.
You know everything from black bears to grizzly bears to lynx to wolverines. They may all
play important roles that we don’t even know about at this point.”


Not everyone thinks predators are needed for ecosystems to thrive. There are hunters who
consider wolves unnecessary and even competition for animals such as deer and elk, but Doug
Smith says it’s important to realize the contribution of wolves goes beyond what hunters can do.
Willow and aspen re-growth depends on wolves changing elk behavior. And this has to happen
year round:


“Human hunters, well known this fact, and I’m a hunter and I know this, prey behavior
changes during the hunting season, and before and after they go back to doing what they
want. Having a carnivore on the landscape changes prey behavior year round. A totally
different presence than human hunting.”


But there’s a caveat. Smith says there has to be a certain number of wolves on the landscape for
these changes to occur. And the number might be more than humans are willing to tolerate:


“You know, just having wolves on the landscape does not do it. And that’s a very, very
important point because some people are using wolves to argue that we’re going to get this
ecosystem restoration, this ecosystem recovery. But they need to be at a certain minimum
density. And that might be in some places at densities that are too high for humans to
socially tolerate.”


So, ultimately, ecological recovery could depend on humans, not the wolves. Human tolerance
needs to be high enough to allow top predators like the wolf to return to ecosystems, otherwise,
full recovery might never happen.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

Related Links

Wolf Kill Permits Trigger Lawsuit

  • Gray wolves are listed as endangered in most states. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Humane Society has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the permits two states use to kill problem wolves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The Humane Society has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the permits two states use to kill problem wolves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Wisconsin and Michigan have had programs to euthanize gray wolves
that are destroying livestock. But in January, a federal court returned
the wolves to endangered status and halted the two states from
killing problem wolves.


A couple months later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued new permits for Wisconsin and Michigan. But Humane Society attorney Patricia Lane says federal officials didn’t allow enough public input.


“They basically issued these permits under the table without any notice.”


Lane says the lack of public debate sets a bad precedent.
But the Fish and Wildlife Service says Wisconsin and Michigan were
told they could resume killing problem wolves, because the new
permits were similar to ones issued in the past.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Attitudes Changing About Wolves

People’s fear of wolves led to a steady practice of bounties, poisoning, and trapping until the wolf pretty much disappeared from this region by the 1960’s. But a new survey confirms that these old attitudes have changed. A five-year study of people’s opinions about wolves was recently completed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

Transcript

People’s fear of wolves led to a steady practice of bounties, poisoning, and trapping until the wolf
pretty much disappeared from this region by the 1960’s. But a new survey confirms that these old
attitudes have changed. A five-year study of people’s opinions about wolves was recently
completed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:


More than 600 people in Michigan and Wisconsin responded to a survey about wolves. The
survey was done by Northland College Sociology Professor Kevin Schanning. Schanning says
people from both states feel the same way: more than half think wolves should be protected, and
most of the respondents appreciate wolves as a natural part of things:


“When you ask people ‘are wolves the symbol of the beauty and wonder of nature? Do we need
wolves to help manage the eco-system?’ 75 percent to 80 percent of respondents are saying ‘yeah,
we need wolves. They’re a part of our state now and we need to manage them, we need to protect
them.'”


Even so, 62 percent of those surveyed said they worry about wolves being dangerous. And 41
percent are in favor of hunting wolves to manage their populations.


For the GLRC, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Living Out Aldo Leopold’s Legacy

  • Aldo Leopold found fame by writing "A Sand County Almanac"... but even sixty years after his death, scholars say his theories about living in harmony with nature are influencing conservation practices today. (Photo courtesy of the Aldo Leopold Foundation Archives)

If you feel you just cannot live without wild things, you have something in common with a conservationist who’s still influencing conservation practices almost sixty years after his death. Scholars say the theories of Aldo Leopold continue to help shape wildlife management and land preservation, especially in the Upper Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

If you feel you just cannot live without wild things, you have something in
common with a conservationist who’s still influencing conservation practices almost
sixty years after his death. Scholars say the theories of Aldo Leopold continue to help shape wildlife management and land preservation, especially in the Upper Midwest. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Aldo Leopold is probably best known for writing A Sand
County Almanac. That’s a collection of essays about finding harmony
with nature. His ideas about preservation changed while working for the
Forest
Service in the southwestern U.S. Rick Stel of the Aldo Leopold
Foundation
says one day in the early 1900’s Leopold shot a wolf thought to be a threat
to
cattle. The female had pups with her.


“And he says he got there in time to see the
fierce green fire die in her eyes… and it was at this time he realized
we’re going about this in the wrong way… we really need to look at all
creatures and everything as a community.”


Leopold’s epiphany led to writings that won him national attention. he
eventually moved to Madison, Wisconsin – first to work in forest
research and later at the University of Wisconsin. There, he taught the
nation’s
first course in game management.


In 1935, he bought an abandoned farm in the sandy floodplain of the
Wisconsin River. It became the inspiration for many of the essays in A Sand County
Almanac.


(sound of unlocking door)


Most tours of the site start at an old chicken coop that was the only
building left when Leopold bought the place and is the only structure
now. The shack, as Leopold called it, has no electricity or furnace.


(sound of fire)


On chilly days tour guides light a fire in the fireplace and talk about
the ideas Leopold developed while visiting the shack with his family.
The Leopold Foundation’s Buddy Huffaker says Leopold worried about
becoming disconnected from nature.


“His February essay talks about the two spiritual dangers of
not owning a farm. One is to assume food comes from a grocery store, and the second is that heat comes from a furnace.”


Outside the shack Leopold and his family worked to return the land to its
pre-agricultural state. They planted thousands of pine trees. The also undertook
one of
the first prairie restorations. The Leopold family spent a lot of time
discussing how
people were damaging the environment.


(sound of brushing)


About one hundred yards from the shack Buddy Huffaker brushes off
a plaque that’s set in the ground. at this spot, Leopold sawed apart a
lightning-damaged oak tree that he called the good oak. He wrote
about the experience in a famous essay that Huffaker says is really
about natural history.


“As he and his family saw through the growth rings of the oak, he
goes back in time to see how people have disregarded other natural
elements in the landscape – the decimation of turkeys and other
species that we hunted into extinction locally or entirely.”


But turkeys, sandhill cranes and a few others species have come
back–in part because of Leopold’s conservation ethic. Now his
followers are trying to protect more things.


To spread Leopold’s message some groups have started sponsoring
readings of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. At a library in Lake
Geneva
Wisconsin Jim Celano reads from the essay about the good oak.


“Now our saw bites into the 1920’s the Babbittian
decade when everything grew bigger and better in heedlessness and
arrogance – until 1929 when stock markets crumpled. If the oak heard them
fall, its
wood gives no sign.”


Celano is a former commerical real estate developer who now heads
a land conservancy group. He says he’s trying to convey Leopold’s
ideas to other developers.


“That we’re not here to say no to development… but to ask
they be sensitive to what they’re developing. And when you step on
their parcel, after their development is done, that the first thing you
notice is what they’re preserved and protected.”


(sound of woodpecker and traffic)


But even Aldo Leopold’s famous land around the shack is not immune
from modern threats. As a woodpecker hammers overhead, the noise
from a nearby interstate highway intrudes into the scenery. The
Leopold foundation’s Buddy Huffaker says Aldo Leopold knew the future
would bring new threats to the natural world.


“But I think that’s Leopold’s challenge to us. He
understood progress was going to continue. He just wanted us to
contemplate what we wanted that progress to be. And how far it
should go.”


And with sales of A Sand County Almanac bigger now than when it was
published in 1949, it ‘s a future Aldo Leopold might be helping to
shape.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Wolf Hunting Shouldn’t Be Taboo

  • As wolf populations are increasing, an old question arises: whether or not to allow wolf hunting. (Photo courtesy of the USGS)

In 2003, federal protections for the gray wolf in many parts of the country were downgraded. But last January, a federal district court in Oregon struck down that decision. In this region, the court ruling meant that wildlife officials lost the legal authority to kill problem wolves. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Bob Butz thinks these courtroom battles are delaying the inevitable… and that hunters should have a hand in managing wolves:

Transcript

In 2003, federal protections for the gray wolf in many parts
of the country were downgraded. But last January, a federal district
court in Oregon struck down that decision. In this region, the court
ruling meant that wildlife officials lost the legal authority to kill
problem wolves. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Bob Butz thinks these courtroom battles are delaying the inevitable… and that hunters should have a hand in managing wolves:


Today over half the entire wolf population of the continental United States can be found right here in the Upper Midwest. Around 3,000 in Minnesota. Roughly 800 more split evenly between Michigan and Wisconsin.


Some biologists think that Michigan’s wolf population might actually double within the next decade.
So why are so many people acting as if wolves in these parts are still teetering on the brink of extinction? Why this push for stronger federal protection when is seems what we really should start thinking about is how we plan to keep wolf populations responsibly in check?


With every new courtroom delay, I’m beginning to understand that for some people no amount of wolves will ever be enough. But very soon some judge is also going to figure that out, and finally wolves will be taken completely off the federal list of endangered animals. Then it will be up to the states to manage them.


Yet right now no one is talking about how we’re going to do that. Or where the money to sustain a healthy management program will come from – all because of a dirty little word – hunting.


Wolves… hunting. Remember in public to duck and cover when you say that.


But for the sake of the wolf, somebody needs to start talking about managing them as a big game species. Up until the latest court ruling, some government trappers had a fulltime job killing an increasingly number of nuisance wolves.


Minnesota officials are killing an average of a hundred and fifty wolves every year. In Wisconsin and Michigan each they kill a couple dozen more. Why are these wolves dying for nothing? If biologists used hunters to control the population, each wolf taken out of the system could result in money,lots of it, necessary for managing the species.


While most state biologists sit on the sidelines apparently without a plan, some people are taking matters into their own hands… killing the wolves illegally. In the Upper Midwest, poaching has reached levels unheard of a decade ago.


The reasons for this are simple: As one biologist told me, when an animal becomes too prolific it becomes devalued. As wolves make more and more trouble for farmers, ranchers, and locals, people are starting to wonder where all this is headed.


If brought into the management loop, hunters could easily outshine courtroom environmentalists as the wolf’s biggest hero and financial benefactor. Think of the giant Canada goose, believed to be extinct in North America until their rediscovery in 1965.


And how about all those shrub-eating, bumper bending whitetail deer? Call it tough love, but if anything when hunters get behind an animal recent history proves that the species will flourish.


But first biologists need to come up with a plan that gives the public a stake in helping with the long-term survival of the wolf. Wolves might be endangered elsewhere in the U.S., but not here. It’s time for leadership, time for a vision. Time for game managers to actually get out there and manage. It’s time for biologists to stop playing wait-and-see and, in the spirit of the wolf—for the sake of the wolf—get out in front of this issue and start leading the pack.


Host tag: Bob Butz is a hunter and author of the book “Beast of Never, Cat
of God: The Search for the Eastern Puma.” He lives in northern Michigan.

Related Links

A Home for Unwanted Big Cats

  • A tiger sits inside a cage at "Valley of the Kings Sanctuary and Retreat" in Sharon, Wisconsin. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

When you think about lions or tigers, you probably think of African savannahs or Asian jungles… or the zoo. You probably don’t think about exotic cats living in the
house next door. But the number of big cats in homes has grown over the
years. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on one woman who has turned her home into a sanctuary for big cats that need a place to live:

Transcript

When you think about lions or tigers, you probably think of African savannahs or Asian
jungles… or the zoo. You probably don’t think about exotic cats living in the house next
door. But the number of big cats in homes has grown over the years. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on one woman who’s turned her home
into a sanctuary for big cats that need a place to live:


“Hi, handsome… hi, handsome. He loves to be scratched. He has absolutely no teeth.
He had every single one of his teeth taken out and he was declawed by a movie producer
in California. So he’d be safe to sit next to stars. Isn’t that sad? You can scratch and
cuddle him. He can’t hurt you in any way.”

Charlie is a big black panther.

He lives at “Valley of the Kings Sanctuary and Retreat” in the little town of Sharon,
Wisconsin.

About fifty big cats live here, along with bears, wolf hybrids, goats, foxes, chickens,
domestic cats, geese, ducks… and pretty much anything else that needs a home.

Before they got here, some of the animals—like Charlie— were altered so they’d be less
of a threat to people.

Others were mistreated in circuses… or zoos simply couldn’t take them in. Nearly all of
them would have been killed if they hadn’t found a home here…

Valley of the Kings is a private non-profit run by Jill Carnegie and her husband Jim Tomasi.

They live in a modest farmhouse on the sanctuary grounds. But even that has been partly
turned over to the animals.

At least five domestic cats roam the main floor, and Charlie the panther lives in a room
that’s been modified into a cage.

Jill Carnegie says animals have always been important in her life. She says they fill a
void. Carnegie says in her big family, she didn’t always get the attention she felt she
deserved.

“I never felt loved, but I always felt it from the animals. Their love was unconditional.
They didn’t lie to you. They didn’t betray you. They didn’t stab you in the back. They
didn’t hurt you. They were always, always 180 percent there for me. Always.”

Then, when she was about four years old… Carnegie says she came to believe she had a
gift.

“I remember going out into our side yard, and sending a message to the squirrels to come
and they would all come. And I would have bread and treats for them. And they would
eat, and we would just be really happy.”

Carnegie believes everyone has the ability to communicate with animals, but most people
choose to ignore it. Carnegie says it has helped her understand the big cats in her care.

Out on the sanctuary grounds, it’s clear that every big cat has a personality, like Kia.

Block: “She has a thing about women. She doesn’t like them (laughs).”


(Kia growls)


Chris Block has been volunteering at the sanctuary for about eight years. He says some
of these animals come from people who wanted to keep them as pets.

“But she’s this way to basically most people. She’s very antisocial. (cougar hisses) She
was owned by a truck driver, a cross country truck driver who wanted to get a baby
cougar and wanted to take her in the cab with him.”

Block says average people who buy exotic animals as pets don’t know what they’re
getting into. The cats can attack unprovoked, need special food, and get a lot bigger than
they are when they’re young.

Jill Carnegie, the sanctuary owner, has allowed some big cats to roam free in her house,
including a spotted Asian leopard.

Carnegie would sometimes even let the leopard sleep in her bed at night.

But at least one expert says this is going too far.

Richard Farinato is the director of captive wildlife programs at the Humane Society of the
United States.

“Every time you come into direct contact or you allow someone to come into direct
contact situation, with a big cat, you’re just playing the numbers game. It’s only a matter
of time before someone’s going to get hurt. Badly.”

Carnegie says she knows the cats are dangerous. But she says her bond with the big cats
and her experience working with them sets her apart from the rest.

“Again it goes back to common sense. I’ve been doing this for 32 years. We’ve never
ever had an injury, ever. And again, we’ve only had a handful of cats that have been safe
in the house, that I would trust anybody with.”

Authorities and neighbors have had some concerns about the sanctuary. Jill Carnegie
says she’s not even thinking about giving it up.

But, partly because of the concerns, Carnegie wants to find a new location for Valley of
the Kings.

She says then she’d have more room to expand and take in additional animals that need
homes and care.

For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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