2007 Year in Review

THE FUND FOR ANIMALS @2005 Bebu and Kemu, the emus, were once abandonded but found lush grass and abundant food at their permanent home, the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch.

For The Fund for Animals, 2007 was a year filled with providing hands-on care to animals in need, building or renovating existing facilities, and fighting for animal protection in the courts. Your donations helped tens of thousands of animals by providing them with a voice and veterinary or rehabilitative assistance and funded advocates to be their voice in the courtroom.

The Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Tex.

• Older horses who need extra care and attention on the ranch now have a new 15-acre horse paddock made possible by the generous help of a private donor, who also financed the construction of the new bobcat enclosure this year. The bobcats now roam among grass and trees in an enclosure four times the size of their old quarters.
• To keep our animal residents healthy, we implemented a new rabies vaccination program for all hoofed stock.
• Babe, our African elephant, and her caretakers are now safer due to the installation of a new remote-operated gate.
• When wild animal residents are sick or injured, we can get them the necessary veterinary attention faster now that two of our staff members were trained to safely administer chemical restraint techniques.
• After visiting the animal residents and ranch grounds during our spring and fall Open House weekends, approximately 600 people helped raise thousands in donations to continue care and improve life for the animals in 2008.

Cape Wildlife Center in Cape Cod, Mass.

• We provided veterinary and/or rehabilitation services to nearly 2,000 injured or orphaned animals and provided educational, on-the-job training to more than 20 veterinarians, veterinarian technicians, and undergraduate students.
• The Cape Wildlife Center relocated to a new and expanded facility on the Cape. We are developing a Center of Excellence in wildlife care and training.
• With the launch of the Humane Wildlife Services (HWS) program for New England (in concert with the launch of HWS in the Washington DC metropolitan area), we will help protect wildlife by helping homeowners and businesses humanely evict and exclude wild animals from homes and businesses.
• We monitored animal populations in partnership with Tufts University and other groups. Our work included bird flu monitoring and establishing response protocols, rabies monitoring and field vaccination, establishing genetic baselines for the threatened New England cottontail, and mapping of threatened turtle species occurrences in Massachusetts and disease-related mortality in sea birds.

The Fund for Animals Wildlife Center in Southern Calif.

• The Fund for Animals Wildlife Center provided veterinary and/or rehabilitation attention to more than 1,000 injured, orphaned, or poisoned wild animals.
• We secured a $5,000 grant from the San Diego Foundation to repair of a non-functioning well and to purchase of a generator that will keep operations functioning if we lose power or during emergencies.
• We raised more than $20,000 to help animals with our annual charity golf tournament.
• We constructed two high security, wildlife enclosures with a previous grant from San Diego County. Staff and volunteers pitched in on the work to save more than $60,000 in construction costs.
• We helped animals impacted by the October wildfires. At the center non-emergency personnel and all animals able to be transported were evacuated when the flames threatened, but fortunately, none of the animal residents or staff were harmed by the fires.

Rabbit Sanctuary, Inc. in Simpsonville, S.C.

• The Rabbit Sanctuary renovated the rabbit health care building for the special needs and senior citizen rabbits. The increasing number of older rabbits in our sanctuary makes the refurbishments essential to provide the best veterinary care possible.
• The stories and pictures of three of our resident rabbits were featured in a new book, Rabbits: Gentle Hearts, Valiant Spirits by Marie Mead.

Rural Area Veterinary Services, Worldwide

• Our Rural Area Veterinary Services (RAVS) program provided more than 30,000 medical treatments to animals in remote areas of the country often underserved by veterinarians.

Courtroom Victories

Our team of Animal Protection Litigation attorneys secured four legal victories protecting animals with The Fund for Animals as plaintiff during 2007.

• Building on the 2006 victory in The Fund for Animals v. Hall victory in 2006 (which stopped dozens of refuges from being opened to sport hunting), a judge canceled a proposed 2007 mountain lion hunt in Arizona’s Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, as the hunt would violate the previous ruling. In a related matter, The Fund also moved the court to expand—and nearly double—the number of wildlife refuges considered in the lawsuit, as they were either opened or expanded to hunting after the lawsuit was filed.
• Then in a longstanding legal battle against Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a federal judge ruled in favor of The Fund, ordering the circus to go to trial on charges of abusing elephants in violation of the Endangered Species Act. 
• As a result of The Fund’s continued litigation of the listing status and critical habitat designation of the Canada lynx, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted that its existing rule was improperly influenced by politics, and it announced it will revise its critical habitat designation for the lynx.
• And in a key victory for the miracle horses at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch and all American horses, all of the remaining horse slaughter plants in the United States were ordered to close down, thereby ending horse slaughter in our country.

The Fund for Animals’ team of lawyers will continue leading the way in the courtroom, securing important rights and precedents on behalf of animals.

The Fund for Animals remains a lean nonprofit with dedicated staff working to improve the lives of animals every day. Your continued support means that we will be able to continue our lifesaving work helping injured or abandoned wildlife, domestic pets, working animals, and those who may suffer the effects caused by hunting, the agriculture and entertainment industries, the pet trade, bio-medical research, or battles over public lands.

With your support, 2007 was a great year for animals. Thank you for your interest and concern for the welfare of animals.