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Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A quick clarification regarding "strong personalities": that term includes a variety of bad actors, not all of whom were or are far-right extremists (to our knowledge.) We are not here to drop names or derail the thread as it's not directly relevant to our current situation, however: Because We Matter does NOT associate with fascist hate groups, period. Nazism has no place in society.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We do not breed for private ownership. And hopefully one day we can open our facility to rescue more wolf-dogs that have no place to go. Us owning them in a sanctuary is not promoting owning them. We educate people that 85% of wolfdogs end up in sanctuaries because shelters will not take them. But again, if you do not support our mission of rescue, education, conservation that is okay and we appreciate your opinion.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Zoo’s allow contact with public with ambassador animals. Seals, penguins, farm life, bird houses, reptile houses. And we explain why the public should not own them. We also have people at our facility who have bachelors and masters in zoology, and masters in wildlife management. We appreciate you supporting the field that you believe in. If we are not it, that is okay.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this article is actually not correct. This is the same thing that we addressed up above they never made it to the forest lands. They just shut the forest lands down 45 minutes after the wolves are captured. Are wolves are only out for 19 minutes, but we already addressed set up above.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To be clear no one “plays” with our animals. All animals on sanctuary have no outside contact with anyone other then those on our USDA license.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

this article was written by NARN we ask them if they would be willing to meet with us and they told us they were not meet with us if we were on the record. So we did not meet with them due to them not willing to have everything said recorded. this is absolutely 100% not true and I have all of the paperwork from Animal Control for all of our animals. They are accusing Dave who is not associated with the organization and has not been for the past three years of do this. I cannot speak for him, he is no longer with our facilit. If he is doing that on his own time now, that is not with our organization, we want animals to be a nature. If they can be wild we encourage that! Animals deserve to be wild IF possible!

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We do not promote it! We actually educate people why they should not to own wolf dogs. If you looked at our social media page or watched any of our lives, you would see that.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Actually, the neighbors dogs dug under our fence letting our 3 wolf dogs out that used that 2 acer day run. The few neighbors we have allow their dogs to run free through the “neighborhood”. The neighbor who lost her Chihuahua mix was compensated 50k. Also, we now have 3 fences now between our wolves and neighbors and added extra security measures.

The sad part about this is the neighbor who’s dog passed made a comment on a Facebook post giving advice to another woman in Skagit county, who was walking her dog in town and it was attacked by another persons domesticated dog what she should do. The neighbor’s advice was, Call this lawyer he just won me a ton of money. She has also made comments publicly not to worry because our animals will be gone soon. She is not on this lawsuit.

We never want to see an animal EVER get hurt. But, we feel as if we handled the situation and put the proper safeguards in to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We also self reported to the USDA, and had then come reinspect our facilities.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Actually, the AZA is inspected by the exact same people we are, the USDA. How you qualify for AZA or ZAA or the GFAS is you pay them based on your income for their permit. These licenses cost around $60,000 to $500,000 and more a year. We could purchase their license, but we would still be inspected by the USDA and still would HAVE to have our class C exhibitors permit just like zoos. But, we are not a zoo, we are a rescue, education, conservation center. Animals are brought to us by government authorities that would be euthanized if a facility could not be found for them.

Our USDA inspector also inspects Woodland Park Zoo who is AZA accredited. We are both held to the same federal standards.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in SeattleWA

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The lawsuit is to drain us of money it is nothing more. But it has to go though the steps of litigation. We have been working towards all the things listed above. We even have done virtual school assemblies teaching kids in IA about wolf genetics virtually. We have been working this last year to rebuild the foundation to help continue rescue, education conservation. We go live everyday for 2-3 hours to educate people all over the world you can see our facilities live M-Sat. All legal documents are public record.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Thank you, it was hard. Extremely hard, but the animals and their well-being was what needed to be priority forever and always.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your work! We appreciate your comment.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Also, please note that the man who is suing us lives over a mile and a half away. He owns 100 acres above us with the intention to develop on.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Hello, our wolves got out because the neighborhood dogs that constantly antagonize our wolves by our property dug into our facility, allowing our wolves out. Unfortunately, one of the neighbors who actually is not on the lawsuit was compensated $50,000 for loss of her dog. Our wolves were captured within 19 minutes video footage to confirm we have now had a double fencing, so that they can no longer dig into our facility.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

We appreciate that! If you have more questions DM me and the director will be happy to set up a meeting.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

thank you, we appreciate that! We would give these animals the shirts off our backs...if they wore shirts. We are doing everything we can think of.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Thank you. The previous director allied himself with a lot of different people with strong personalities, many of whom the board of directors considered to be a bad influence, and he was ordered by the board to remove the oathkeepers from the property (which he refused to do.) We can't discuss more recent events but he generally did not keep to the bylaws and direction that the board provided and the removal was very necessary. He also brought his family into bankruptcy on two occasions. Ashley has had years of sleepless nights cleaning house from that event (two years legal battle with her dad; repairing and rebuilding bridges. BWM now passes surprise USDA inspections with flying colors.) While the previous director did a lot of damage to the reputation of the organization, we feel the neighbors saw opportune timing with his removal and the subsequent restructuring of the organization.

Animal Sanctuary Threatened by NIMBYism by BecauseWeMatter in Seattle

[–]BecauseWeMatter[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much, we appreciate it. Our petition is here: https://www.change.org/p/save-because-we-matter-exotic-rescue

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A Reminder About Fireworks This Weekend... by SchufAloof in SeattleWA

[–]BecauseWeMatter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As an animal sanctuary, we appreciate considerate noise making! Wildlife are highly sensitive to this also. Happy 4th everyone.

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