Against all odds, Wildlife Watch negotiated a 3-way contract, and
raised $25,000 in a short period of time to bring the Catskill Game Farm
Cats to the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, MN. We needed $20,000 for
housing for the lions, and $5,000 for transportation.
The rescued cats included three African lions, one black panther, and
three mountain lions. We thank all of the generous donors and three
foundations that made it possible. The foundations were: Animal Welfare
Trust, United Animal Nations, and Ahimsa.
They all arrived well, with one exception. Shanti Deva’s mouth was badly
injured from the pole that the Catskill Game Farm used to tranquilize
the cats for moving. She is quite well now. Please see the Wildlife
Watch Binocular which is embedded in the C.A.S.H. Courier for more
information.
Wildlife Watch Turns The Tide And Puts The Kibosh On The Minnesota
Girl Scout Hunt This Year!!!!
Per posts Wildlife Watch had received regarding a Girl Scout hunt in
MN, we called the Girl Scouts of the USA in NYC and left a message of
protest on the phone of Rae Schopp whose title is “Consultant.” Rae had
been forwarding all of the negative e-mail they had been receiving to
the errant council. This morning our call was returned and a message
left that headquarters had “tried” to stop the hunt but to no avail. She
said this MN chapter would have the hunt this year but not in the
future. She then left the number of Lynn Vincent 507-645-6604 the CEO of
that particular chapter (council).
We called and spoke to Lynn and she repeated the story that they
couldn’t call it off this year, but wouldn’t have the hunt again. She
said they had raised $19,000 from this and that unless we could give
them $19,000 to compensate, they would have no choice but to go through
with it. After all, she said, hunting was a “cultural tradition” in that
neck of the woods.
We suggested that she re-evaluate the financial impact this way: They
would in fact be losing contributions for the many other chapters and
the Girl Scouts of America (or USA) by going through with this, as they
would all be blamed in the public mind. She paused for what seemed a
long time, and then surprisingly said that if GSUSA asked them to call
it off, they WOULD! We said we’d call GSUSA right away to place the
call.
Rae Schopp answered and we thanked her for returning our call that
morning and told her we had very good news for her. She almost fell over
when we said they would call it off if GSUSA would just call them and
request it. We told her that we had explained our financial rocket
science to them J and she understood. She said she would get someone
“higher up” than she, and would call me in the afternoon.
About an hour later, she called to say that the hunt was called off for
this year and forevermore.
