Gator hunters taunt protesters as season starts

BELLE GLADE - "Gator meat tastes like chicken," and "Going to get a
few of them right now" are some of the jeers tossed at a handful of
alligator-hunt protesters holding signs that read: "If you respect
them, protect them" and "Ban gator hunt."

Saturday was opening day of the annual Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission's alligator harvest. More than 100 hunters
gathered at the Belle Glade Marina with their airboats listening to
live country music and enjoying food and friends before the sunset.
That's when the hunt is on.

All the hunters passed by the seven Animal Rights Foundation of
Florida protesters who stood with signs at the road to the marina,
about a quarter mile away.

The protest might not change anyone's mind, demonstrators said, but at
least it let them know not everyone supports the hunt.

"It's bloody, it's brutal and it's barbaric and it's not necessary,"
said Don Anthony, animal rights foundation's spokesman. "It's about
placating a handful of people who are hunters."

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full story:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/sfl-protest-gator-hunt-p081509,0,2053683.story

Fire kills dozens of animals at Zoo to You in Paso Robles

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/695266.html


Fire kills dozens of animals at Zoo to You in Paso Robles
Tonya Strickland
A barefoot Anita Jackson fought urges to dash into the building filled with thick smoke and raging flames early Thursday morning to save the 62 Zoo to You animals inside.
“You don’t even have time to think,” she said, “You’re just reacting.”
Instead, the nonprofit educational director grabbed a hose and began pouring water on the flames. Just seconds before, she first learned the building on the eastern Paso Robles property was on fire, threw on clothes and ran from her home next door.
“It was engulfed in flames,” Jackson said. “The whole ceiling was just covered in fire. There was black smoke everywhere.”
No people were hurt in the fire, which started about 7:40 a.m., but nearly 40 animals died. Early indications were that the fire started from some kind of electrical malfunction.
Finding flames
Employee Angela Beolk, who first discovered the blaze and called Jackson when smoke billowed from a door she opened, was already on the phone with a 911 dispatcher to send help to 2445 Adobe Road when Jackson arrived.
Soon, other employees came, too — hosing the building down before County/Cal Fire and Paso Robles Emergency Services arrived within 10 minutes. The blaze was contained 10 to 15 minutes later.
Zoo to You is a nonprofit North County-based wildlife educational organization that takes in rescued animals and introduces them to schools and groups. About 250 animals live in habitats on its 40-acre site near the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, including mountain lions, a tiger, a bear, porcupines and alligators.
“Just looking at it,” Jackson said of the fiery building, “you could tell nothing was surviving in there.”
However, less than half the occupants did survive — primarily snakes, lizards, frogs and turtles from the reptile room where the door was always kept shut to keep the heat in for the climate-controlled environment. A total of 24 live animals were pulled from the charred building when the fire was out.
Those killed were 38 of the nonprofit organization’s monkeys, parrots, sloths, small kookaburra birds and others.
“Everybody is devastated,” Jackson said of the numerous helpers that spend hours each day caring for and interacting with the creatures.
“These aren’t just animals, they’re your best friends.”
Among the animals that died was a 50-year-old Macaque monkey named Lisa Lulu. Jackson said the 20-pound primate was a staff favorite and everyone is saddened to have lost her and the others.
Another animal Jackson spoke fondly of was a 10-year-old sloth named Mogee who recently traveled to Santa Maria to interact with hundreds of smiling children.
“He was such a sweetie,” she said. “He just wanted to be in your arms.”
Community help
The destroyed building was a one-story ranch house converted into habitat rooms for animals that needed to be kept indoors, Jackson said.
While about 95 percent of the approximately 1,200-square-foot building was used to house the critters in enclosures and aquariums, County/Cal Fire public information officer Clint Bullard said, one corner was used as an office with a desk, computers and a fax machine.
Officials reported $400,000 in damages to the contents and animal equipment kept inside the building, and about $80,000 to the structure itself.
Investigators said the cause was electrical and started in the office, and insurance investigators were still trying to determine the specific cause.
By about 8 a.m., Jackson said about 50 neighbors and passersby showed up to help.
The group saw an outpouring of assistance by the afternoon — neighbors brought food, two Atascadero veterinarians donated antibiotics to treat the surviving animals, Sylvester Winery lent out its climate-controlled wine container for a temporary reptile home, Paso Robles Waste Disposal set up a trash bin for debris and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio donated $5,000 to the fire-recovery effort.
how you can help
To donate to Zoo to You’s fire-recovery effort to build a new reptile structure, send checks to P.O. Box 1998, Paso Robles CA 93447. There is also an account set up at Rabobank under the name Zoo to You. Officials estimate a new reptile enclosure will cost the group $70,000 to $80,000.

State Officials Charge 17 in Illegal Animal Trade

By A. G. SULZBERGER

The smugglers moved their goods across borders using secret compartments, a
Maryland meat processing plant and the help of a corrupt Louisiana turtle
farm. Their lucrative product: rattlesnakes, snapping turtles and salamanders.

This was the portrait of a trade in illegal reptiles and amphibians that New
York State environmental authorities painted on Thursday, when a two-year
undercover investigation called Operation Shellshock ended with criminal charges
against 17 people. More charges were filed by officials in other states and
Canada, the New York officials said.

The case had the familiar ring of a drug bust, but it was instead built in
the unlikely world of herpetological shows and included charges against leaders
at organizations like the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society, the Long
Island Herpetological Society, and the pet Web site turtlesale.com, a
Florida-based company that is also facing New York charges.

"Our investigators began this operation with a simple question: Is there a
commercial threat to our critical wildlife species?" Pete Grannis, the
commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which
conducted
the investigation, said in a statement.

What they found alarmed them. "A very lucrative illegal market for these
creatures does exist, fostered by a strong, clandestine culture of people who
want to exploit wildlife for illegal profit," Mr. Grannis said.

In New York, 17 people were charged with 14 felonies, 11 misdemeanors and
dozens of violations. Six people were charged in Pennsylvania, and one in
Canada. The United States attorney's office for the Western District of New York
is pursuing charges against a Maryland meat processor, Turtle Deluxe, and a
Louisiana turtle farm that was not identified, the authorities said.

The authorities said that Emanuele Tesoro, a prison guard from Watertown,
Ontario, drove 33 endangered Massasauga rattlesnakes - hidden throughout his van
in door compartments, behind speakers and in the trunk hatch - across the
border to make a deal with undercover authorities in a parking lot in Niagara
Falls, N.Y. To reduce suspicion, his wife and children were also in the van as
he crossed into the United States, said Capt. Michael Van Durme, of the
environmental crimes investigation unit.

Two Long Island men, Adam C. Borisuk and Michael D. Brooks, sent tens of
thousands of young snapping turtle hatchlings, collected from ponds and lakes
throughout the area, to a turtle farm in Louisiana, Captain Van Durme said. The
farm's owner would then mix the illegally harvested common snapping turtles
with the alligator snapping turtles he was licensed to farm, for export to
China and eventually dinner plates, he said.

New York State law prohibits the illegal commercialization of wildlife and
possession of protected species, and a 2006 law specifically protects all
reptiles and amphibians.

The case began after an entire population of spotted turtles being studied
by students at the University of Buffalo simply disappeared, said Captain Van
Durme, who supervised the investigation. State environmental protection
officials had learned of cases breaking up reptile smuggling rings in other
states, and opened an undercover investigation. Officers made contacts while
pretending to operate a wildlife photography booth at reptile shows, then moved
to
buying and selling animals as they built their case.

Buyers included collectors who paid thousands of dollars to add highlights
to their collections with hard-to-get specimens, as well as Chinese consumers
with a well-known taste for snapping turtle meat, which can be had at roughly
$1 a pound.

Frank Indiviglio, a former keeper at the Staten Island and Bronx Zoos who
has written and spoken extensively about reptiles, said that while illegal trade
was well known, it did not reflect the reptile-loving community in general.

"The local herpetological societies are almost always conservation-oriented,"
he said.



ARTICLE SOURCE:

www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/nyregion/20smuggle.html

Pets or meat: Investigators allege reptile smuggling

Pets or meat: Investigators allege reptile smuggling
DEC, numerous agencies round up 18 following two-year operation
By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer

ALBANY - State officials today announced a two-year undercover investigation of illegal trade in snakes, turtles and other wildlife that stretched across eight states and as far as Germany and China. Eighteen people have been charged for allegedly selling protected wildlife though the Internet and at collectors shows. Investigators documented more than 2,400 illegal sales and are now holding 400 animals as evidence, poisonous snakes and snapping turtles. Most of the arrests took place within the metropolitan New York area and lower Hudson Valley, although a Ballston Spa man, Sean Kirk, 34, was among those charged. Kirk allegedly sold three Eastern Box turtles captured in New York state to a DEC undercover investigator for $550. Investigators showing off the animals seized in the probe say dozens of endangered rattlesnakes were hidden in the door panels of a minivan and smuggled from Canada in exchange for timber rattlesnakes, a threatened species in New York.
Several rattlers were on display at a morning news conference, and the sound of the agitated snakers' rattles could be heard. The DEC worked with wildlife officials from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida as well as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Service, Environment Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. The investigation was into the illegal wildlife trade was sparked in 2006, in part by a complaint from Buffalo State University, which had reported that a population of 30 turtles, some embedded with radio transmitters, suddenly vanished. Those turtles have never been found. Some of the animals found in the investigation were prized by collectors, particularly venomous snakes, while others, including turtles, were sold for meat, particularly in the Chinese market. State officials found that a legitimate turtle farm in Louisiana was "laundering" illegally captured turtles before shipping them to China.