Transcript

12.4.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
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I will be reading the Smithsonian magazine dated December twenty
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twenty five. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading service
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intended for people who are blind or have other disabilities
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that make it difficult to read printed material. Please join
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me now for the first part of the article titled
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the Nation's biggest animal sanctuary operates under a mantra to
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save them all? How could that be controversial? Best Friend's
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Animal Society has a sprawling campus in the canyons of Utah,
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but its influence has grown to reach almost every shelter
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in the country. By Douglas Starr. In nineteen eighty two,
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a balding, bearded guy named Francis Battista drove through a
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canyon outside of Canab, Utah in a battered blue hatchback.
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He gazed up at the majestic red walls rising from
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the lowlands of junipers and pines. It's magical, he thought,
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lowering his eyes, he saw a locked gate with a
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sign three dollars for a tour map. He paid the
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woman nearby. The gate belonged to a ranch, and on
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an impulse, Batista asked the woman if the land might
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be for sale, Sure might, she replied. The area had
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once been a popular filming location for westerns. The TV
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series Gunsmoke had been shot nearby, as had many movies,
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and the property's owners, a group of business men from
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cannab had been running a tour business, but it wasn't
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going so well and some of the stakeholders wanted to
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unload the property. Excited, Batista drove back to a homestead
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in Arizona he shared with twenty six friends and two
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hundred dogs, cats, bunnies, burrows and birds. Batista and his
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friends belonged to a new religion called the Foundation Faith
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of God. The faith's founder was originally a sciontologist who
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broke off from the church and added elements of Christian
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millennialism and psychotherapy. The group ministered to children's hospitals, prisons,
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poor neighborhoods, and other places where they believed they could
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offer physical, mental, and spiritual help. It was all about
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how we get in touch with the angels in our lives,
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Batista told me. Batista and his cohort were in charge
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of an animal rescue ministry. They were a motley group
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architects Oxford and Cambridge graduates, artists, writers, college dropouts, an engineer,
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a CPA, a real estate agent, an heiress, a British
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stage actress, and an Afro Cuban bass player who chipped
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in to buy the small ranch in Arizona on behalf
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of the Foundation Faith. After taking in a couple hundred animals,
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they ran out of space, which was what motivated Batista
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to go looking for more. By nineteen eighty four, the
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group had scraped together enough money for a down payment
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on the ranch in Utah, and they moved in with
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their two hundred adopted pets. Throughout the decade, as they
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focused on building what would become the Best Friend's Animal Society,
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the religious group began to dissolve the Foundation Faith ran
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its course. Batista told me recently, everything was being oriented
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around the animals. Today. Best Friends is a secular organization
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that runs the country's largest sanctuary for neglected and abused pets,
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as well as a national network of like minded shelters.
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Its property in Utah covers nearly six thousand acres and
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houses around sixteen hundred animals, including dogs, cats, horses, pigs, bunnies,
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and birds. It's so big it has neighborhoods, dog Town, Catworld,
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Horsehn and others. Each animal gets individual medical and emotional care,
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ideally becoming healthy to be placed in a private home.
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More than three hundred employees are joined there each year
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by six thousand volunteers and forty thousand visitors, some of
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whom stay for weeks to play with and care for
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the animals. The place has become such a popular tourist
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attraction that the managers bought and refurbished a derelict hotel
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in town and a fleet of vans to transport animals
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and people. But Best Friends has also become a source
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of controversy. The group was among the earlier animal welfare
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organizations to come out against the widespread shelter practice of
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killing animals to relieve chronic overcrowding. Its call to action
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is direct, together, we can save them all. Increasingly, Best
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Friends has taken this goal nationwide, funding training programs, embedding
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its staff inside struggling shelters elsewhere, and offering grants to
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those that share its vision. In the process, Best Friends
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has become a major voice in the national conversation about
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animal welfare, alongside such groups as the Humane Society and
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the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
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Yet critics argue that its tactics are uncompromising and sometimes counterproductive.
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I give them a lot of credit for pushing the
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industry beyond its comfort zone, Julie Levy, an expert in
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shelter medicine education at the University of Florida, told me,
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But sometimes those strategies backfire and you have to step
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back and try a different method. Julie Castle, the society's CEO,
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responded to the criticism by reiterating the group's guiding principle,
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our pets are our best friends, why should we be
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killing them? The Red Rock region of southern Utah had
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seen a lot of residents over the years. Early inhabitants
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included an Ststral Puebloans who dwelt there thousands of years
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ago and carved mysterious petroglyphs on the rock walls. A
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Spanish expedition came through in seventeen seventy six looking for
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a trade route between Santa Fe and Monterey. A century later,
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ten Mormon families arrived and established the present town of
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Canab Then came the movie making days of the early
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twentieth century. By the time the Animal Sanctuary arrived, those
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days were largely over and the canyon was quiet. Cyrus Mahea,
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a co founder and board member of the group, recalled
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his first impressions of the ranch. There was nothing, he said,
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No infrastructure, no roads, no electricity, no telephone. The friends
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pooled their funds, got a couple of donated trailers, and
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started building a bunk house. They used do it yourself
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manuals to teach themselves construction. There's a good hearted debate
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among the founders about whether they used readers, digest, or
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a time life guide. They hired a local man to
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help them dig wells. Their plan was to take in
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animals that had run out of chances and would otherwise
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be killed. We wanted to give them space and time
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to heal. Maheas said. Soon animals started coming in, people
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would bring an unwonted pet. Local law enforcement would drop
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off a few strays. Everything changed after one dog ran
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away from the sanctuary and turned up at the local pound.
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The sanctuary members found it to be a grim ten
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footed cell block, boiling in the summer and freezing in
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the winter. A vet would come once a week and
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put down any unadopted creatures. Here was a prime example
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of the problem, right on their own doorstep. Batista spoke
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to the mayor of canab explaining that he and his
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friends were new to the area, had limitless land, and
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would be happy to take over animal control. Sure, said
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the mayor. It's just a tiny town, thought Batista and
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his friends. How bad could it be? They quickly found
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out the animal control district stretched beyond cannob It included
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all the towns and counties in the area, encompassing thousands
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of square miles. When word got out that a bunch
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of hippies were adopting animals, the critters came pouring in, strays, invaders,
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victims of hoarding, and pets that the owners could no
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longer take care of. One time someone called us to
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see about some cats under their trailer. Batista said, by
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the time we got out of there, we had sixty
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five cats. From the beginning, Batista and his friends were
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committed to doing things differently from conventional pounds, which had
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their roots in the mid nineteenth century and were established
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to protect the public's health. Pounds initially served as depots
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where stray dogs presumed to carry rabies were rounded up
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to be executed. Yes, it was cruel, but it was
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an improvement over letting people shoot or club dogs in
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the streets. In the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties, rabies
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vaccines for dogs became widely available, reducing the threat. The
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population crisis began to ease in the nineteen seventies thanks
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to low cost spaying and neutering. Cultural shifts also played
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a role, as people began to see pets as family
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members and became less likely to abandon them. Still, Americans
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shelters were so overrun that they killed at least thirteen
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point five million cats and dogs per year, according to
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the Humane Society. Best Friends adamantly opposed this approach. It
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is committed to rehabilitating every animal it possibly can, only
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putting down creatures a vet has deemed beyond rehabilitation when
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it comes to animals that are simply taking up space
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or need more time to heal. Best Friends argues that
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euthanasia is a weasel word. It prefers the frank and
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direct word kill. Because of this philosophy, it didn't take
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long for Best Friends to have two thousand animals, far
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more than the number of humans coming to adopt them.
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Money ran short, in danger of having their animals starve,
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not to mention going hungry themselves, the founders started begging,
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or tabling, as they called it. They'd drive hundreds of
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miles to Salt Lake City, Denver, Las Vegas, and other cities.
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They'd set up tables in front of grocery stores and malls,
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display photos of happy animals, tell their story, give advice
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about animal care, and set out a coffee can where
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people could drop a few dollars. It was a daily
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penny counting existence. Their luck changed one day in Los
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Angeles when Maria Borgell Peterson, the wife of the movie
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director Wulfgang Peterson, stopped at their table. Moved by best
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friends mission, she recruited her celebrity friends to publicize the
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cause and help raise money. In nineteen ninety two, one
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of the co founders, with the background in publishing, created
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a magazine with a subscription list and membership fees. Thousands
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signed up. Then, in the summer of nineteen ninety three,
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Caroline Marcus dog Walker to the Stars, stopped at a
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table manned by Batista and his future wife Silva. She
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worked with them to organize a fund raiser and invite
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a bunch of a list celebrities. That fall, Marcus and
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Best Friends hosted a benefit at Chateau MArmand, one of
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the swankiest hotels in town. Batista and his crew were
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so poor they had to borrow formal wear from their
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Hollywood acquaintances. We felt like the Muppets take La, he recalled.
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More events followed year after year. They were at all
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the best places, Silva Batista said, the Hollywood Roosevelt, the
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Hollywood Palladium. One time we had Charlise Theron, Laura Dern,
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Hillary Swank, and Deborah Messing all at the same event.
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Her husband added, still a little starstruck. In nineteen ninety five,
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Best Friends began holding local Strutyer Mutt adoption events in
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various cities. In nineteen ninety nine, it began an annual
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super adoption event in La. The most recent took place
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at the Rose Bowl. With donations and grant money coming in,
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the organizers could feed the animals and continue construction. Each
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section dog Town, Catworld, Horsehaven, Marshall's Piggy Paradise, bunny House,
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and Parrot Garden included multiple buildings and enough outdoor space
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to make the animals feel stimulated and at ease. They
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built a wildlife area, a veterinary clinic, and a welcome center,
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and they purchased a fleet of vans. They also hired
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more staff, and in two thousand and one began to
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hold conferences spreading their message and confabbing with other shelter
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leaders on how they could achieve their goal. Then came
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a tragedy that rocketed Best Friends to fame. In two
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thousand seven, police in Virginia rated the Bad News Kennels,
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the dog fighting operation co owned by NFL quarterback Michael Vick.
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The animals had been horribly abused, run to exhaustion, whipped
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with chains, starved, shocked, set against each other, and killed
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if they didn't act aggressively enough. People may have had
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vague notions about dog fighting, but this case, so extreme
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and involving a sports star, brought the issue to wide attention.
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Most people assumed that dogs trained for fighting were too
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vicious to let live. The Humane Society, among others, recommended
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they be put down. Best Friends had other ideas, and
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it took in twenty two of the most traumatized animals,
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a Bay Area pitbull advocacy group took ten others. The
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caregivers insisted that these dogs were frightened, not vicious. Under
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the supervision of Frank McMillan, an expert and animal behavior,
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best Friends evaluated each dog and created individual rehabilitation plans.
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Within weeks, some of them were coming out of their shells,
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having fun with toys and engaging with people. Michelle Weaver,
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who managed the project, said in the end, thirteen dogs
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were sufficiently rehabbed to be adopted, and nine lived out
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their lives at the sanctuary. None of the bad news
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rescue that went to the sanctuary had to be killed.
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National Geographics celebrated the program in Dogtown, a television series
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about best friends. As The Washington Post put it, the
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dogs became ambassadors, tail wagging proof of what's possible through
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rescue and rehabilitation. Visiting the sanctuary is like spending time
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in a national park, with its majestic scenery and rustic
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looking buildings. The welcome center offers exhibits, trail maps, a
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desk where you can sign up for tours, and a
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gift shop. A dirt road winds through the canyon with
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pull ins for the various domains and an award winning
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plant based cafe. Along the way, you'll see volunteers walking
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dogs or wheeling a trolley with a cat. Some tourists
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come for adoption and they get time to hang out
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and play with their future pet. Each animal or arriving
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at the sanctuary goes through an intake procedure that includes
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medical examination, vaccination, and any other care it may need,
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including surgery. It's also spade or neutered and quarantine to
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make sure it's free of disease. Then it's evaluated for behavior.
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Is the creature aggressive shy? Does it get along with
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its fellow animals and with people? Then it's treated with
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behavioral protocols therapy. In human terms, it can take weeks, months,
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or years for an animal to become ready for adoption.
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If that isn't possible, it lives out its life in
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a beautiful, low stress environment. During my few days at
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the sanctuary, I met Melissa McCormick, a senior manager at
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Dogtown who has a degree in biopsychology. She worked with
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an on site staff of around thirty who care for
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more than four hundred and twenty canines. Sizing social adjustment,
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we try to get them into a play group. She said.
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They bring each new dog to a small solo enclosure
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next to the larger group pen and watch its body language.
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If it seems okay, they'll put it in with a
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small pack and a greater dog, a highly social, low
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key animal that's good at making other dogs feel comfortable.
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A staff member is always present inside the yard. McCormick
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and her staff favor an approach known among dog trainers
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as LIMA least intrusive, minimally aversive. The idea is to
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reduce fear in an animal that's already stressed out from
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confinement or abuse. They use a training clicker paired with
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a treat to identify and reward positive behavior, such as
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coming when called, or to distract a dog from negative behavior,
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such as guarding its resources to aggressively. The absence of
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a reward might be enough to discourage negative behavior, or
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they might use a squirt of water to interrupt it.
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Staff members enter notes about each animal in a daily log.
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It's a gradual process whose pace depends on the dog.
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Sometimes the trainers put a dog on a leash outside
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the front door and give it a treat simply for
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staying calm. Days later, they might walk a few feet
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from the building, letting the dog slowly build confidence that
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they'll return and eventually go further. When a dog is
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really comfortable, the staff encourage volunteers to take it for
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walks or car rides. Gilmore, a chubby tan dog, had
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been attacked by other dogs at a shelter in New Mexico,
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and he still wasn't comfortable in a play group. Now
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he was staying in his own private kennel and outdoor
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run around humans. He was shy but not terrified. You
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can pet him briefly, but he doesn't love it. McCormick
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advised she and her team were building his confidence with nosework,
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among other things, hiding his food and letting him feel
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competent by sniffing it out. As they slowly exposed him
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to people and other dogs. He was making progress. McCormick
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said he was adoptable, but would need a special person,
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someone who wants a really shy dog. When I visited Catworld,
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around five hundred and fifty cats were living in its
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eleven buildings and outdoor areas. Each cat that needs rehabilitation
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is assigned a pathway to progress, a series of thirty
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sixty and ninety day goals, with daily milestones recorded in
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a log book. Pipkin, for example, was a well adjusted
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tabby who had an aversion to human hands. She'd come
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up and rub on you, but if you tried to
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touch her with your hand, she'd attack, said Amy Kulbecker,
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who was serving as the director of Catworld. Pipkin's thirty
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day goal was simply to allow a human to come
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near her. Sixty day goal was allowing a trainer to
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touch her with a plastic hand on a stick. Kulbecker
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said they used a fake hand to avoid being bitten
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and scratched. Eventually, Pipkin reached her ninety day goal letting
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some one pet her without a violent reaction, the ultimate
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goal getting her adopted to a calm, understanding home. Pipkin
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was adopted soon after my visit. Another cat, Charlie, had
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been part of a therapy program in a woman's prison
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until one day an inmate started kicking her until a
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guard intervened. That was more than a year before my visit,
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but Charlie remained traumatized. She expressed it by biting herself
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on the side until she bled. Charlie wore a plastic
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recovery cone like the ones you see on dogs after surgery.
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She loved to be petted and acted like any well
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adjusted cat. But the moment the caregivers took off the cone,
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Colbecker told me, Charlie would start biting herself again. We've
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done every test under the sun to find out if
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there's a physical issue, Colbecker said, it's more psychological now.
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Despite such cases, Catworld was a cheerful place. There was
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a house and outdoor space for every category of need,
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incontinent cats, cats with neurological problems, rescued ferrells, cats with
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feline leukemia virus, and healthy cats. Most of the animals
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were available for adoption. Colbecker was speaking to me in
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a room full of healthy adolescent cats when a tour
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group came in. They melted at the spectacle of kitties
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scampering over obstacles, running through tunnels, batting around toy tumbling
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over each other, sheer feline cuteness. Within moments, the visitors
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had cats in their laps. Oh look at these guys. Oh, mom,
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over here, they're so pretty, so precious. I love that
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black cat. If you fall in love with one of
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these guys, our adoption specialists will make sure that you're
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well informed about making that decision, said the tour guide.
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Exotic birds might be the least adoptable creatures at the sanctuary,
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especially the big parrot species. They're blessed with longevity. Some
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have life spans of fifty years or more, but that
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means they can outlive their owners, and some have difficult behaviors.
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Cockatoos love to yell. Their shrieks can exceed one hundred
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and thirty decibels, more than enough to damage your hearing.
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The bite of some parrot species has a force of
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more than three hundred pounds of pressure per square inch,
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which can partially finger. These birds are never truly domesticated,
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said el Greer, who oversaw parrot Garden. While dogs and
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cats have lived with humans for thousands of years, some
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exotic birds may be only a generation or two removed
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from the wilderness. You're talking about a wild animal that's
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extremely intelligent and has some of the most complex social
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dynamics that we've been able to study, Greer said. Putting
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these birds in solitary confinement in a cage makes them crazy.
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She said at least ten to fifteen percent of parrots
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in captivity exhibit self destructive neurotic behaviour. It may take
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the form of compulsive preening called barbering or plucking out feathers,
23:47
or a self mutilation to the point of drawing blood.
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Many caged birds develop physical ailments such as heart disease
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and osteoporosis from poor diet, as well as a lack
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of sunshine and excerpt size. Some one hundred and forty
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birds live in Parrot Garden in a cluster of indoor
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and outdoor aviaries. Their screeches are so loud that ear
24:11
plug dispensers are mounted along the walls. Like other trainers,
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Greer in her colleagues create progress plans for the animals,
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and they use positive reinforcements and stimulating games to distract
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the birds from destructive behavior. Matthew, a hybrid macaw, had
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been surrendered by an elderly woman who could no longer
24:33
take care of him. He was a two and a
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half foot festival of colors blue, yellow, red, and green,
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with a white face and black patterned rings around his eyes.
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He'd arrived with an assortment of symptoms, including seizures that
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caused him to fall off his perch and lie motionless
24:52
on the cage floor. He bit without warning, with the
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force that could cut through a piece of tin. If
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he was a dog, he'd have to be muzzled. Greer said.
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He was also engaging in feather picking, which his trainers
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aimed to prevent by giving him toys to distract him.
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They added stimulation by making him forage for meals by
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covering his food bow with shredded newsprint, a strange new
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experience for a bird that may never have seen shredded
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paper before. Matthew was lovable in his own way. He
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was musically inclined, and he liked popular nineteen nineties ballads,
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especially Whitney Houston songs. He'll sway to the music and
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go La la, La La la, Greer said, It's very cute,
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but Matthew's seizures and unpredictable biting meant he would be
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a difficult candidate for adoption. At Horsehaven, I met Emma Dean,
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a reddish brown mare who had survived an ordeal. She'd
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been grazing with her foal on the shores of Lake
25:55
Powell when fast rising water from a record spring runoff
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trapped them for weeks. Water in front of them, cliffs
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behind horses, as prey animals are naturally skittish, Emma Dean's
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experience made her doubly so. The foal survived and was adopted,
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But Jan Reed, senior manager of horses at the sanctuary,
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knew that Emma Dean's nerves were strung as tight as
26:22
a fiddle string. For weeks, Reed didn't even enter the pen.
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She'd drop in the hay for the horse to eat
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without making eye contact. She spent months gradually getting closer
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to the horse a step at a time, watching for
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subtle signs of distress. If she flicked an ear at me,
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I'd stop my forward progress, Reid said. Eventually she was
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able to touch Emma Dean with an eight foot lunge
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stick while keeping her distance. Weeks later stroke her flank.
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Months after that, slip on a halter. Still later, take
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her for a walk bit by bit, Emma Dean was
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learning to let go of her fear. When I met Emmedane,
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she had been at the sanctuary for a year and
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eight months. She showed a comfortable body language as we approached,
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soft eyes, non twitchy ears, relaxed mouth. She stood calmly
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as Reed stroked her face, slipped a rope halter over
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her head, and walked her around. It's sort of like
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meth Reid said, explaining the process. You start with one
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plus one, then one plus two, and you just add
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complications until eventually you're doing algebra and trigonometry. Best Friends
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is big, and not just in terms of acreage. In
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recent years, its annual revenue has been more than one
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hundred and seventy three million. The society has become a
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marketing juggernaut, with a sophisticated web presence and more than
27:56
nine hundred nationwide employees. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian
28:03
Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank
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you for listening, and have a great day.