Where's Dave? Director of HSUS NRRO

Dave spent yesterday working for the animals! He describes in his own words how the day went. All I can say is "Thank God for Dave". He shows that one committed person can make a real difference in the lives of many animals. Here is his account of Friday.

Where's Dave???

"Please join me on this one day virtual trip. It is the last Friday in January of 08 (Where did the month GO???) And a frosty 04:00 start of this trip which will include a drive from the homestead to the high school to drop off a daughter for her long bus trip to the MT State Debate tournament. But by 4:45 a.m. we are at the office and hoping to whittle down our email in-box and work on some project planning.

But we are rudely welcomed to the animal world... when the second of 200 emails received overnight announces the introduction of bill SB 170 in South Dakota as a foundation bill to loan a Million Dollars at low interest to anyone wanting to build a horse slaughter plant in South Dakota. And its first Senate Ag Committee meeting is already scheduled for next Tuesday. Yikes.... you immediately realize that this is not a good thing. You know you already have the largest equine feedlot in Montana that ships horses to slaughter in Canada to supply gourmet plates in France and Belgium. And you have all the resultant negatives of the long trucking, low height double deck trailers and mixing of foals, yearlings, adults, draft horses and studs in the same shipping trucks, pens, and final killing stalls. Everything else in your inbox becomes less important and you need to send off that first early morning email notifying your state and national team-mates that you have a priority situation that needs to be addressed.

Since most of the team will not have woken up or arrived at their respective offices on the east coast yet your scribble down a short quick to-do and needs analysis list:

SD Horse Slaughter: Jan2508

Who is driving this? Where would this plant be built?
Who could be get to go to the hearing in Pierre SD? on short notice
What are our other legislative commitments in SD?
Do I need to drop everything and drive over to Pierre?
What potential partners would we have in opposing this?
What potential opposition would we expect?

And what other top priority projects do i have to get done today despite this Emergency situation?


Well, its about 05:30 already...but still too early to catch many folks in DC (where's it 07:30 a.m.) or in South Dakota which is our same time zone. So we ( you & I) look to the obvious...what can we get answered on this list before waking anyone else up.

The decision is lets evaluate SD needs and this bill to see where we stand. We cover eight western states and that six of them have active sessions and a seventh (ND) has a ballot initiative. We had only tried since last July to promote one proactive bill for SD -- a felony animal cruelty bill. But that bill did not garner enough local commitment to get off the ground. So we have no professional lobbyist or even an animal specific legislative team...just our email lists of agencies and individual activists and to many of the agencies horse slaughter would not make their top priority list. So we will have to build a new coalition in 24-28 hours so that we can get some input into Tuesday's hearing.

Next I downloaded 48 pages of the 670 registered lobbyists in South Dakota with the almost impossible task of calling and finding one that would both have the ability to take on a client and one that would share our perspective and make the stopping of a unnecessary and inherently inhumane horse slaughter plant a priority. Whew !!! 670 names of people I don't know with only their name, address and city and the Client they represent. No phone numbers ( that would be to easy eh?)... So I grab two highlighters -- Green for lobbyists that might be sympathetic to our cause and Red for those who would oppose our cause. The colored pages were not looking good... over 60 Red highlighted agency whom would probably directly support the slaughter plant for jobs or ag expansion... and only SEVEN who might oppose based on environment, public health and safety or humane standards.

And that SEVEN was stretching it because it included some non-profit domestic violence groups. But my goal was to find phone numbers for all seven and make cold calls to each to see if I could find a potential
lobbyist. Now this may sound easy... but the master sheet does not give the title of the lobbyist ( attorney etc), only their name and the group they represent. So first we have to google the seven agencies and then leave early morning voicemail's or e-mails at those offices hoping they will make it a priority to get back to you. I was able to find two of them via the Internet Yellow Pages by matching their names and addresses.

After planting our seeds we get back to communicating with our internal network, I have called my two Billings teammates ( Sylvia and Suzi) and assigned them tasks for the minute they can get in... We have had several e-mail exchanges with our state legislative specialist from HQ ( Tami) and our National VP for Legislative Issue (Nancy) and by now the whole legislative HQ think tank is involved and asking questions and offering solutions and resources.

The agreement is in... for this issue in an ag committee in a ag state... we will need a lobbyist to follow this. And we also need to track the other two "bad" bills we have to react to: One wants to change the status of Mountain Lions from predator/furbearer to VERMIN...so that ranchers can shoot them on sight!!! The second was to lower the age that kids can hunt by themselves to an age lower than they can even complete a hunters education program. Two bad bills and now this Slaughter Plant Bill. Remembering that we now have close to 30 proactive(good) and reactive(bad) bills in our six active states... we know our team of four cannot do it all ...and will be counting on super support from Tami, Nancy and the rest of the national team....But WE need to find a lobbyist this morning or our other events might fall like a string of dominos!

By now Suz and Syl have arrived and are busy with their respective challenges...one to research background on the other major SD animal disasters ( a huge chicken city project in the 90's and a major pork farm project in 2004) to see if there are partners or lobbyists we might recruit; and the other to identify all potential partners that might side with us.

So I am now jumping back and forth between emails and phone... multi-tasking other incoming calls and emergency emails simultaneously... I am watching for emails or phone call from Team-mate Holly Tarry, our Colorado State Director because she is meeting with our amazing leader Wayne Pacelle in Denver with the Governor, his chief advisor, his legislative lead, and the CO commissioner of Agriculture in the final of five major meetings we have had concerning confinement of Hogs, veal calves and Chickens. The result of this meeting will dictate whether we have to run a huge and expensive Public Initiative Process to require farm animals to be able to stand up, turn around and stretch their limbs in their cages!!! I have been to Denver four times in negotiation meetings... and this final meeting will seal the deal.

So I finally actually reach a lobbyist for a non-profit... She was nice..but this is her first session and knows no one on the hill and only represents her non-profit as the executive director...so she is not a full time lobbyist and cannot take on clients. Another left a phone message on my cell ( so we are now working 3 phone lines a fax line and two emails accounts) that they are full for the session and were unaware of anyone who could take on a new client.

Things were not looking good and I started to spend some thinking time about canceling my Monday and Tuesday meetings with Ag , Wildlife and other groups in Helena, MT. This would not be easy for me as I was promoting as part of my appointed position on a state wildlife species classification committee to restrict the importation of any size turtle for pets , and a new novelty "pet store" species the spotted genet.

So I went back to the list and looked again... and it was fate... there was a lobbyist... a long shot ... that I had found the number for but not made contact... He was neither an environmental lobbyist or an animal interest lobbyist. He was the lobbyist for Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Why even highlight his name...I truly am not sure... but since I spent several weeks at the LAMAR-Dixon horse facility during hurrican Katrina ...I had heard many great stories about how the Lamar family loved horses... and h_ll - i was running out of options. So i called the number got a voicemail and simply stated my contact information and that I was fishing and cold calling because I saw he represented Lamar Outdoor Advertising and that I knew the Lamar family loved horses and i could use his help in finding a lobbyist.

Within a hour this lobbyist (Dick) and I played phone tag and then I finally reached him and asked if he knew of anybody available to take on a last minute client. He asked me WHY we wanted to oppose this bill and I was momentarily afraid that this effort was about to hit a brick wall. I told him of our national stand against horse slaughter for human consumption and of my many visits to our MT feedlot and of the inherent cruelty there. I think I spoke without breathing because i thought he was about to tell me he could not help because he would support the building of the plant. But YIPEE... he said "well i certainly agree with you on all that!!"

So, i jumped in... "can you think of anyone that can help us" ...and to my relief he said "YES, i think i and my associate can take this on and we can plan on attending the hearing once we get a letter of authorizing us to represent you". Wow.. a home run, an experienced attorney and registered lobbyist with an associate that can take on a client a few days before a major senate hearing.

I hung up the phone, and immediately emailed the HQ team of the good news. I pushed back my chair and felt thirsty thinking I had never run across the street for a juice or bagel for breakfast...and then it hit me.. IT was now 12:45 PM...now a full eight hours since i had sat down at my office computer and read that email. Eight hours straight ...and we had found a lobbyist, built some potential partners, and dealt with breaking issues in Colorado ( prairie dog rescue) , Idaho (felony dog fighting) , Alaska (felony cruelty) , and Utah ( 2/13 Lobby Day, A humanitarian award and Felony Cruelty Bill).

It was a fast eight hours... so i scooted across the street to the cafe in the bank and scarfed a bowl of soup and a bottle of juice and came back to the office... I was gone all of 22 minutes and had received 66 NEW emails... 3 emails a minute ... this was going to be a loooooong day.

So we settle back down ... and start pecking away... we let the Montana people know we are now again coming ( we had put them on standby that we might get diverted to SD), and we start building on our mornings work. One email was about a South Dakota environmental coalitions meeting tomorrow (today) so I quickly sent an action alert to them to ask them to discuss and oppose this horse slaughter plant for environmental, water pollution and waste management issues. This morning I have a half dozen emails of support from some of those groups who will join us in opposition.

In the meantime Suzi and Syl did some amazing work in pulling together history and potential support of horse, animal, tribal and other groups who also would be concerned.

So the next time I push my chair back it is now 4:45 p.m. exactly 12 hours after I sat down. For this Blog I went back and counted... on my two email accounts i had sent out 186 emails,( received more than 300) also 40 pages of faxes and tied up two phone lines all day long. We worked on cases in six states on about 13 different bills and authorized a ton of work for a lobbyist and several dozen volunteer citizen lobbyist. We also set up and authorized a prairie dog relocation project in CO with the National Prairie Dog Coalition for Feb 4-6 and touched on a dozen other issues.

Wow,... what a day. A day for us both to remember and cherish ( The CO meetings went very well and the pork and veal people stepped up to the plate and did the right things for the animals and their industry - the egg people, well are "chicken" to do the right thing and they will be dealt with on another day-- (Please buy and ask for CAGE FREE or Free Range EGGS) But for this Friday... the last Friday of this chilly month - we are going home with a warm feeling. A feeling that yes indeed we did do a BUNCH of things today that made life better for animals. So added to my to-do list is to affix a seat belt to my office chair... because I suspect we will have many more wild rides like today's as our six sessions progress until the end of April.

Thanks for your artistic role in helping us help them. And I would be remiss if I did not thank Sandra Merwin for a special holiday gift... a beautiful painting of our beloved and recently departed Lucy Dog. It is a cherished memory proudly displayed." Dave

PS

Here's a little up date on the foxes.

Here's a pair of swift foxes ( more red colored than most) that are now living freely in SD as endangered species. (For new readers last month
I participated in the humane capture of 39 swift foxes in Kansas (where they are trapped and hound hunted) to a native nation reintroduction project in SD where they have the full protection of endangered species status!!!

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Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO?

This is the second swift fox I live trapped and processed for release as an endangered species in South Dakota. My hand is covering her ( a three year old female in excellent condition) eyes to calm her down and to avoid having to chemically immobilize her.
Dave has been busy. Here in his own words is the latest information....




"Where is the World is......

I am sitting in a hotel in Casper, Wyoming heading for home and my daughters for the Christmas holiday. Last night was only the second night in eight days that I have slept on a bed. The week of trapping Swift Foxes found me bundled up every night in the storage area of the tack room in our equine rescue trailer. It was frigid the first two days with wind chills well below zero and my breath at night would coat my sleeping bag and the ceiling of the tack room with a thick coating of ice and frost. I LOVED IT and slept well until having to get up and load the truck in the darkness to prepare for running the line of live traps in Logan County, Kansas.

As I mentioned in a previous blog... I was assisting the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Wildlife Department with helping to reestablish the swift fox species which is considered endangered in South Dakota. The Lower Brule native nation and a Ted Turner Ranch project are the two efforts to help bring these smallest of the wild canids back to living the good life in South Dakota. In Kansas, this species in offered no protection and can be trapped or chased by greyhounds as many of the coyote hunters choose to do.

So I actually felt good trying to catch these critters before they pair up for spring, and to help them get some jewelry ( a microchip and a radio collar) to be safely transported to a vast area where they will be treated with the safety of endangered species status.

The Team, under the excellent guidance of a tribal biologist caught 39 foxes under a permit for 40. Half the foxes are already in South Dakota, and the rest are awaiting blood test results ( to ensure they are healthy and disease free) before they make the journey to the Lakota Nation lands where they will spend their Christmas in soft release acclimation pens. It is a great project that I was proud to have assisted in.



But I had to leave this wonderful event a few days early to make some historic and important meetings in Denver to help farm animals. HSUS president Wayne Pacelle and Farm Animals guru Paul Shapiro came out for meetings with the Colorado Governors Office, the CO Agricultural Commissioner (separate meetings) and others to help us promote more humane ways to house Colorado's beef calves, Layer Hens and Production Swine. We were treated to a partial victory already as the Colorado Pork Producers announced upon the day of our arrival that They are going to voluntarily ban hog gestation crates in Colorado within the next ten years. While the time frame is a few years longer than we would have liked... WE applaud the pork producers for the leadership and compassion to recognize that these inhumane cages where animals cannot even turn around need to be banned and changed to more natural group housing situations. The Veal Calf producers in CO have already committed to a FOUR year plan to eliminate veal confinement cages. The egg folks,however, have apparently decided not to follow the trend to allow layer hens the opportunity to stretch their wings, dust bath or perch and are instead just considering giving them a few more square inches inside a "battery cage" where they and their jail mates much spend their entire lives never feeling the softness of grass or the fun of throwing dust over their entire body. For full disclosure I must admit that I have ten laying hens living a free range lifestyle at my home outside of Billings, MT... and I can watch my feathered girls for a half hour as they pick, scratch, roll and jump around our yard. I simply cannot imagine them being forced to live an intensive confinement life in a area the size of about 2/3 the size of a sheet of typing paper. Please buy cage free or free range eggs and let the producers know that chickens and other farm animals destined for our human food chain at least deserve the right to as humane and natural of lifestyle as we can give them. Sadly the egg producers refusal is likey to consume lots of my time in 2008 as we may be forced to enter a ballot initiative to speak out for the chickens. We hope the hog and veal producers will voluntarily follow up on their good intent of banning intensive confinement by making their ban the legal law of Colorado. But again they get great kudos for moving their industry in the right direction.

I also had some side meetings with another state office on the Canned Hunting issue and then finished my amazing meeting day by meeting with the Prairie Dog Coalition administrator so we can plan some exciting events to celebrate prairie dogs in 2008.

A great week.... and now headed home to wife and daughters for the holidays. Those who remember my wonderful Lucy dog passing in September...will
be happy to hear that we have mourned and now celebrated her crossing the rainbow bridge.... and Lucy will be delighted to see that her beds and kennels will soon be filled with a crazy little puppy we are getting TOMORROW!. The little pup is a VERY distant relative of Lucy who was a German Wirehaired Pointer. This pup is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon... very similar to German wirehairs but their heritage comes out of France. I love these breeds because they are hearty and love to be trained to help me with my unique wildlife rescue chores like finding vehicle injured wildlife or training squirrel and raccoons NOT to trust dogs. It will indeed be a special holiday period with a new canine daughter in the household. ( Her working name is "One Spot" but we are leaning towards Penny or Lexi as a final name.

So happiest of Holidays to each of you!!! Thanks as always for your artistic support to our mission." Dave
Dave Pauli
The HSUS Northern Rockies Animal Protection Team

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Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO?

Where's Dave? He's been extremely busy and I think he must be exhausted. I am so delighted that we can help by supporting the AHAT rescue effort for the NRRO. So here the latest report from Dave Pauli, director of HSUS NRRO:

"Happiest of Holidays to each of you! My week has been consumed with breaking cruelty cases and scheduling traveling meetings. SO much to report. First of all...please allow some exciting personal news. In Sept I shared with you the not anticipated loss of our dear Lucy dog. We waited a long month in honor of her crossing the rainbow bridge before we began a search of shelters, rescues and recommended breeders to find a puppy or young dog to become the lead hound of our revolving rescue menagerie. After looking at dozens of potential rescues or adoptions we found a still unweaned puppy that will be available just after the Christmas holiday to come into our lives. She will be the third of three versatile hunting dogs that have joined our family in twenty years, so that she can be trained to assist me in our unique wildlife rescue efforts. In her first few weeks with us she will be exposed to this winters house guests including cats, parakeets, tortoises, frogs, raccoon, and whatever else comes our way so that she will learn to turn her hunting drive into a rescue drive and help me with future field rescue projects. She ( Lacy, Lexi, ?????) will soon fill the hearts and empty dog beds of the Pauli household and it will be a joy to again have a fulltime permanent Canine family member.
Future Pauli/HSUS rescue dog: Born 11/2/07

Well, those rescue tadpole frogs are turning out quite interesting. Remember these were part of the several hundred tadpoles ( & 36 turtles) we pulled from the muck and mire when a gravel pit pond was filled in to build a shopping center. Well most the tadpoles were native and released but there were two dozen that we were not sure were native so we held them. Some were too exposed or oxygen deprived and did not survive but a dozen were survivors and half of those have metamorphed into frogs and Toads. It is still most difficult to count and species key them...but we know we have at least some Spadefoot toads, three bullfrogs and one still to be determined species...possibly a chorus frog. All will over winter at our two sites (here and at a high school science lab) and will be released in the spring in Montana ( natives) or shipped to native Bullfrog habitat states for release.

We also just completed the fourth trip of a twenty day project to dart and contracept wild horses. This project was amazing and brought together many leading contraception and equine experts to help train and plan for some exciting future equine projects. We darted horses several days in sub freezing weather and high wind gust days and field tested some new marking darts and darting strategies which will help us on many animal projects.

I am packing today for another 7 day field trip...this time with a tribal fish and game agency to live-trap Swift Foxes for translocation to a tribal release site as part of an endangered species relocation project. I will be sleeping in the tack room of our Equine Rescue Trailer ( THAT Sandra and many of you helped us to acquire). The Stock trailer portion of the trailer is now full of almost seventy plastic and speciality live traps, bags of Billings leaves, and buckets of the bedding from my chicken house and The shavings of the litter trays from YOUR squirrel rescue. All these items will be used as fear removers and attractors for the wild fox traps to cover the floor of the cage traps. I also am bringing auditory lures, and some of my field proven feral cat and dog trapping humane techniques to help the tribal team to reach it goal to catch 40 swift foxes. It is an exciting and potentially COLD winter project.

I also have been spending some post Thanksgiving time lining up sponsors and potential sponsors for a bevy of 2008 animal rescue projects that will be at least partially funded through some AHAT account funding. This includes potential projects like:

#A May 2008 Wild Horse Equine Project in South Dakota that will bring in DVM's and DVM students to provide gelding and equine health services to several hundred horses on a south Dakota wild horse sanctuary.

# A June Wild Horse habitat improvement project for horses and wildlife on the McCollough Peaks Wild Horse Range near Cody, WY. This one will be the second annual and will involve a group of Montana Conservation Corp youth to help build water guzzlers, and other habitat projects on the horse range.

# An Alaskan Bush project to bring DVM services to remote Alaskan Villages.

# A native nation training project including a Habitat for Hounds component where we provide dog houses, cable runners, fencing, worming and other basic animal health care and comfort programs.

# A Grizzly Bear training symposium to bring together agencies and individuals to look at new ways to humanely control Grizzly (and Black) bears.

# Some private or public demonstration sites to show how to non lethally control prairie dogs or other urban wildlife species.

Yep... it will be another amazing year... and many of these special projects would not even get to the drawing board if not for support like the amazing Artist for Animals auction that is going on right now! So I want to conclude by thanking each of you for using your artistic talent to truly make a difference for the critters that form, shape and enrich our lives. I am honored to plan a miniscule role in helping to turn your efforts into some on the ground improvements for our nations wildlife. Happiest of Holidays to you and yours. I am not certain if I will have cell service in the fox trapping area...so it might be more than a week before I can update this Blog! Best !!!! Dave Pauli"


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Horse Contraceptive, Squirrels, CA fires and more...

Where's Dave?? Here's the latest words and photos from Dave as he travels for the animals area.

Me ( camo) and Dr Mark Johnson on a previous SD Darting trip. Horses are in background
eating off round bales. Andrew Merwin Photo

This "greenish" dart in the rump of this horse delivers 1 cc of vaccine (PZP) which will allow the mare not to conceive next spring but will not remove her (sterilize) from the gene pool. The darts are air propelled from distances of 15-45 yards. dpauli photo


"Where in the world is Dave: Good question!!! My apologies for being remiss in giving you updates. Speaking of which... I have a few. First OUR squirrels Scrat and Squeakers have been living back at their birth tree for about two weeks. Squeakers has gone wild and taken over her birth tree. Scrat the male, still comes down every day to the soft release cage they lived their last few months in confinement in. But both are back in their little niche being the squirrels that they were meant to be.

Also, those tadpoles that we rescued with Dr Hsia from Taiwan are now turning into ....... TOADS. Spadefoot Toads to be exact. To refresh memory we took about 200 out of the muck and mire in mid-August where we rescued the 37 Western Paint Turtles from the urban sprawl development of an old gravel pit. Most were obviously native frogs and they were released immediately but about two dozen were big enough to possibly be non-native bull frogs. So far six of those have morphed into frogs and are finally getting big enough to classify as Spadefoot toads. So they will now be over wintered and released in the spring.

OK... so where the heck have I been.... TRAVELING for sure. I have done public forums on dog fighting in Idaho, on banning trapping on public lands in Montana, and been involved in a few more rescues on raccoons, injured raptors and one project to translocate White footed deer mice from someone's house.

I also had the privilege to send our truck and equine trailer to the California Wildfires. Andrew Merwin ( Sandra's husband) was one of the three great team members who drove the truck and trailer to San Diego and did great work for the Animals.

I stayed home as I was leading a team of eight to South Dakota to dart ( contracept) wild horses. I leave again tomorrow morning to take the same team back to give the horses a booster dart that will help achieve the birth control. After this week we will have helped this sanctuary prevent births in over 125 mares. This will give the sanctuary another tool to help them manage their population of wild horses for the range conditions and hay prices.

I also have been spending lots of time preparing for an upcoming endangered species relocation project that I am helping a tribal fish and game department with. We have permission to live capture up to forty Swift foxes from near the Kansas/Colorado border and take them to a South Dakota native nation to reintroduce the species.

At the same time I have been working on upcoming legislative battles in Six of our Eight states. We have great bills on Farm Animals, Felony Animal Fighting, Felony Cruelty , Canned Hunting, Internet Hunting and Student Choice coming up in six states. It will be an exciting and draining January-May 2008.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I have sooooo much to be thankful for." Dave

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CA Wildfire Animal Rescue wtih HSUS NRRO

HSUS NRRO arrives at the Staging Area in San Diego


The Humane Society Disaster team from Billings, Montana left Wednesday around 2:00 to help with the rescue of animals in the San Diego area. Amy, a veterinarian, Wendy, a vet tech, and Andrew, a wilderness first responder make up the team. The team's mission was to bring the HSUS 30 foot horse trailer filled with supplies, dog crates, horse panels and more to the San Diego area as quickly as possible and remain as volunteers until the crisis was over. Driving through the nights and stopping only for refueling and short sleeps, the team reached the stage area today with the equipment.
A special thanks to the HSUS NRRO disaster team!!

Andrew and Wendy are greeted in San Diego by a rescued horse held in the HSUS rescue facility.
Photos are from Amy's cell phone. Stay tuned for more information about what the HSUS NRRO team in San Diego is doing.

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO

Dave's Rescued Racoon that now thrives at the Beartooth Nature Center

Dave is always busy helping the animals whether it's hands on rescues, educating people about animals or lobbying for new laws and law enforcement to protect the animals. It's wonderful to know that the animals have such a wonderful advocate. Here's his latest update:

"Can it really be nearing the end of October??? The past few weeks were a blur that included an excellent evening with your own Sandra Merwin, husband Andrew and a table full of other animal friendly supporters of the Humane Society. We attended the Beartooth Nature Centers annual Feast for the Beasts and a great educational program by Montana Wildlife Expert Vince Yannon.

We have a very active "animal fighting" week. First I sent two NRRO staffers to participate in the record making cock fighting confiscation in San Diego involving almost FIVE THOUSAND fighting Birds. Then I went to Twin Falls Idaho and held a town hall meeting on animal fighting and met with agencies and law enforcement to promote a felony animal fighting bill for 2008.

While in Idaho I conducted a day of board training for the People for Pets Magic Valley Humane Society, and met with some wildlife rehab folks about future projects. While traveling I was still able to work on cruelty cases in Montana (inhumane euthanasia), Colorado (abuse) and North Dakota ( canned hunting).

I also was a guest speaker for two workshops at the Mid American Zookeepers Association. I spoke to zoo management on how zoo's and humane societies could work better together and how zookeeper's can better prepare for disasters.

And finally I met with city officials to discuss a dog park planning committee and to see a demonstration of a new solar animal proof waste receptacle. Throw in a half dozen conference calls on wildlife issues, disaster preparedness and wild horse contraception and it was a well traveled and productive time for animals."

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO?

Dave has been really busy. Here is his latest email.

HELPING PEOPLE HELP ANIMALS

Another exciting week! I thought the week would be an office week where I could plan logistics for a whole series of October field projects including a number of power point presentations I will be giving at Senator Max Baucus's Faith Based Summit on Tuesday, two presentations for the Midwest Zoo Keepers Association; a daylong Board of Directors training in Twin Falls Idaho, and two public fireside animal forums in Pocatello and Boise Idaho...and all this in the next ten days!!!

HELPING THE WILD FELINES

But the opportunity came up to deploy a mobile spay neuter clinic on the Crow Reservation that would help address a neighborhood population of cats. We were presented with a problem that really did not have many good outcomes. But with some networking with an area DVM, and another animal welfare group, we figured out we could make this project a disaster training exercise and field test one of our mobile trailers as an emergency animal shelter.

Of course these projects don't just happen. So before the DVM and her team showed up at 10:00 a.m. on October 4th... all 35 suspected cats had to be captured , prepped , and a protocol for recovery designed.

So on the 1st, I drove the 86 miles to the site and set up 22 cats traps and wired opened the doors so that the cats could eat freely for a few days. Then on the night of the 3rd I drove back and set the traps and caught the 12 or so easy to catch cats and set them up with water in cages in a shed we prepared for them. ( this way the DVM was guaranteed to have some cats to begin surgeries on)
BAITING THE FELINE TRAPS
I returned at O-dark thirty the next morning and reset the traps and by the time the Veterinary team arrived I had caught a total of Thirty Two cats for surgery. The team of eight volunteers completed those 32 surgeries in about 3.5 hours and the cats were set up for another quiet night in the shed so we could check each one before they were released the next morning. This also allowed me to set up some special traps baited with catnip, beaver castor and other treats to catch the always difficult to catch last few cats. The next morning I caught the final five cats for a total of 37 cats. But these five I had to drive into Billings to have spayed, wait for them to become ready to travel and then make the final trip back to their home.

So I still ended up driving almost 900 miles in just three days of trapping... but the stress on the cats was much less than if I trapped and transported each one to Billings. We also learned that the trailer worked fine... and that we could use some different techniques on this type of agricultural cat colony. About half of the cats will eventually be removed from this farm site...but for now the population will not be growing and larger and the cats will be able to put all their energy into getting ready for winter and not into reproductive behaviors.


So while i am not quite ready with my series of power points I did get some quality field time in and was able to help improve the lives of both people and felines. So it was time well spent. Now I just have to survive the rest of the month!!! ( i will post some jpegs of the cat clinic later this week)

Dave

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO

Dave has had a busy week. Here is the update in his own words. He's included photos.


Scrat: Gettiing Ready for A Soft Release

"I closed last week announcing my trip to Kalispell to do a shelter inspection and then back down to Missoula for a meeting before deadheading back to Billings. I met a great transitional team in Kalispell who is trying to maintain the good and to bring improvements to a County Animal Shelter that recently transferred from the Sheriffs Department to the County Health Office. Even though I only spent a few hours walking through the building and interviewing a few locals I think I can give them them some goals to shoot for.

This last week has been a whirlwind of activity on prairie dog, bison, canned hunting and animal fighting issues. The Mike Vick case continues to be a driving force in Idaho and Wyoming legislative circles and I have been doing more interviews on dog fighting in the past few months than in the past few years combined. It is sad to think it takes a case of that magnitude to bring the publics attention to this repulsive activity…but at long last we will see all fifty states make dog fighting a potential felony offense when ID and WY take legislative action.

I have also been spending considerable time trying to bring some closure to several old cruelty cases and to place the animals into forever homes. This includes six horses and four cats that we have been paying for intensive care for since January of 2006. It is unusual for animals to be held up in foster care for this extended period of time…but the system moves slowly and does not change much because it is living evidence.

For rescues I had calls for a mangy fox (that has not been spotted since the original call), some help catching Bullfrogs, and for the release of the pictured Western Prairie Rattler that was found in a residential neighborhood. This one was truly a bit more greenish than most but was a perfect match for the sagebrush prairie countryside I released it in. I also held a volunteer work party at my storage area and we managed to get over 50 live traps for upcoming feral cat clinics and Swift Fox relocation projects cleaned and partially painted for the projects. I am whittling away every morning and evening at getting a few more painted, tagged and prepared for this upcoming projects.

Released: Western Prairie Rattle Snake


For next week I will be attending a Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Exotic Animal Committee meeting in Helena, a Day long class on Pet Loss Grief Support and attempting to convert some turtle traps into Bullfrog traps to try to catch some bullfrogs from a few private ponds. (Bull frogs are non-native invasive species and I get them relocated to agencies in states where the frogs are native. I am also including my second to last photo of Scrat. He and Squeakers are gaining weight daily and will be ready for soft release by October first. I will try to remember to get you a photo of their soft release pen screwed to their birth tree. Until Next time…." Dave Pauli.

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO?

Dave, Director of the Northern Regional Office of the Humane Society, got requests from the AHAA artists for more photos. Here's the latest information from Dave. Thank you, Dave!! for all you do for the animals!!

The Week in Review from Dave.

"Thank you for some feedback and follow-up concerning my previous postings. In response to your requests I am including a "top view" of a western painted turtle.




This week included several humane live-trapping issues, as the third photo showing the live-trap and KONG dog toy was part of a KONG company web-page article I drafted to teach wildlife trappers that they need to include a "worry toy" like a KONG inside the trap so that the captured dog, cat or raccoon will worry/chew on the worry toy rather than the wire cage. This greatly reduces the potential for facial, paw or tooth injuries to trapped animals. I also drove to Red Lodge, MT and trained a half dozen Beartooth Humane Alliance and Beartooth Nature Center volunteers on the tricks of the trade to humanely catch feral cats in volume. My simple tricks of buried bait, sight attractors, fear removers, worry toys and saturation trap deployment generally help local groups both improve the efficiency and humaneness of their trapping outreach. These two excellent groups will be trapping dozens of rural feral cat populations for a Spay Neuter Clinic in late September.

Life Trap with a Kong Toy.


The next day I got a call from a local animal shelter telling me they had a wild ferret! I asked what color it was and they said Black as coal with a white chin patch. I immediately told them it was a wild MINK, and that I would stop by to pick it up for release. Indeed it was a quite beautiful and quite upset subadult female mink. I suspect she was a larger juvenile mink , as she was in excellent coat, young teeth and no signs of litter rearing this spring. I mapped out her capture site, and plotted a upstream drainage release site so that she would be within 5-6 miles of the capture site on the Yellowstone river.

The rest of the week was consumed preparing for a potential wild horse darting trip and today's trip to Glacier Park area where I will be doing an animal shelter inspection for a County Health Department and then visiting the Blackfeet reservation to see if I can help them with their ongoing community animal care and control improvements. With my daughters involved in school and sports... this will be the last road trip that Scrat and Squeakers will have to endure. I have built a large final squirrel cage for them that has some ten feet long branches and a climbing gymnasium in it. When I get back mid-week they will go into this much larger pen to strengthen their climbing muscles and to both condition and fatten them in preparation for their release within a month. I have now fed them well over 100 meals with the first feeding being just one cubic centimeter of warm electrolyte to this morning's 04:00 feeding of Nine cc's formula each. I will miss them bounding into my lap for groceries...but will feel really great seeing them up in their birth tree barking at the big new world beneath their feet."

Updated photo of Scrat and Squeakers - but even this one is a few days old and not showing their continued growth. Both squirrels are gaining weight are partially weaned and are pretty much looking like a target soft release date of October 1st. We will, of course, be monitoring them and providing supplementary feeding them throughout the winter.

Where's Dave? Director of HSUS NRRO

Howdy… First an update. In my first note to you I reported that we had rescued 16 painted turtles from a Yellowstone county pond being filled in! Update: We ended up saving THIRTY FIVE turtles and a few hundred tadpoles from the pond. As artists I knew you would enjoy the natural beauty of our Western Painted turtles so imposed upon these two urban-sprawl victims for one quick shot of their beautiful carapaces for you to enjoy. Seconds later they were in the pond with their choice of pond life or river life!

Scrat and Squeakers are also growing quickly and getting rather…. err … “Squirrely”. I am planning their “soft” release under their birth tree as soon as they double their weight and show the skills necessary for survival. ( soft means they will have their current den cage and can decide to leave and live in a tree when THEY are ready)

I like to share the good stories with you…but for balance you need to know that my job is not always warm and fuzzy… this week I spent time on providing logistics for a dog fighting ring bust in Idaho; offered a $2500 dollar reward for some troubled people in North Dakota who are shooting big game animals in August and just letting them die, and offering a grant to South Dakota Agriculture to bring in a trainer to prevent a reoccurrence of the 2200 cattle that died from heat stress in SD feedlots last week.

But I still managed to complete a hands on recertification for Swiftwater Rescue (need to recertify every three years) and to be the guest speaker at a regional disaster conference with 38 folks in Billings from eight states.

And finally in the rescue department we took in a ferret and rehomed her, closed down the last of our wildfire emergency animal shelters, and did some planning for a huge project next month to contracept several herds of wild horses. But that is,indeed, a story for the next issue of Where in the world am ... I !!!

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO

I just received this from Dave (Director of HSUS NRRO - Northern Regional Rockies Office of the Humane Society. He's been rescuing wildlife all week. His rescue reminds me of the phrase "all creatures great and small". All creatures great and small are rescued by Dave. He was up rescuing turtles until almost 3:00 AM last night... talk about dedication.

(Near Billings) 8/18/07

Dr Hsia (Pingtung, Taiwan) and I worked with headlamps in two feet of mud and sludge until 22:50 last night capturing the last of the 35 Western Painted Turtles that were displaced by the filling in of the JTL pond this week. We ended up catching 17 in traps, 6 with nets, 2 with an huge end loader and ten by slipping through the toxic mud and catching by hand. 34 were treated with basic oil spill technique and released in park or private ponds. The last one has a partially split carapace and I have her on antibiotics... and will hold for a week and arrange for shell repair...it was near death last night...but better today in warm and clear water.... We also relocated about 200 tadpoles..but am holding them in my duckling tank until I can confirm species... from flashlight view it appears to be a mixture of non-native bull-frog, Northern Leopard and Western Toad tadpoles (or Pauli-wogs as we like to call them). Dr Hsia got great training during his visit but "he already say" the turtle rescue, baby squirrel rescue ( I am bottle feeding 3) and the bushy-tailed Woodrat rescue were the highlights of his ten day adventure in MT and CO.

Where's Dave, Director of HSUS NRRO?

If you think that the director of HSUS NRRO (Northern Rockies Regional Office of the Humane Society) wears a white shirt and sits at a desk, think again. I've asked Dave to tell us about where he is weekly and how he uses the special AHAT fund that is supported by ArtHelpingAnimals. The AHAT fund is used only for rescues. So here's the latest scoop on "Where's Dave?" in Dave's own words.

This week is typical. I have been in five states, if we don't count the state of confusion. Yesterday I responded to an emergency request to rescue some turtles and pond life under the blade of an end loader that was filling in the pond to make room for Billings shopping mall! In the last 20 hours we have caught 14 Western Painted Turtles , and some toads. This morning we expect both some more turtles and some fish in our traps. The construction workers were EXCITED that they did not have to be the ones to have to push the final load of dirt over these animals!

Two days before I was in Idaho (Henrys Lake) and Montana to visit a new environmental education center and the base camp of the Buffalo Field Campaign, and then off to a small Montana town to rescue a Bushy-Tailed Woodrat The Hutterite colony had tried everything imaginable to trap or remove the cute rodentia from a trailers ductwork. I and a visiting animal welfarist from Pingtung, Taiwan pulled up a floor grate in a bathroom and set a few live traps baited with cheese, peanut butter and one with a ball of plain aluminum foil. We sealed off the bathroom and within 25 minutes the B.T. Woodrat could not resist the treasure of aluminum foil and we had caught him and quickly transported him to a woodrat habitat containing brush piles, rock piles, a water source and some native food sources. Thanks for trying to keep track of me!!!!"
Click Here to see a Bushy Tailed Woodrat

HSUS NRRO and the Wild Horse Herds of SD - part 1

The Wild Horse Herd of South Dakota

HSUS NRRO UPDATE
I think it is exciting to know how our donations help our charities. HSUS NRRO - the Humane Society of the United States Northern Regional Rockies Office - serves a whopping eight state area. This mean that Dave Pauli, director, is often out in the field 7 days a week. For example, spring of 2007 found Dave and his two man crew of volunteers in SD. They were conducting a contraception program with a wild horse herd

This is a cutting edge process for maintaining wild horse herds without the dreaded "round ups". The annual wild horse round ups still occur many places and mean breaking up the herd creating untold stress on the horses and often taking foals from mothers. After all this the BLM offers the horse for sale trying to place the horses in homes or worse sending them off to slaughter.

But in SD this year HSUS NRRO made a difference - thanks in part to our donations. HSUS NRRO used an immunocontraceptive called PZP (porcine zona pellucida). The zona pellucida is a thick membrane that surrounds the unfertilized eggs of mammals. In order for an egg to be fertilized, sperm must first bind to, and then penetrate the zona pellucida. When porcine (pig) zona pellucida is injected into the horses, antibodies are produced which attach to the mares zona pellucida, preventing any sperm from attaching to the egg, therefore preventing fertilization. It is like putting super glue in a lock.

Stay tuned for more photos and the whole story about contraceptive darting the Wild Horse Herd in SD.