Michigan shelter bear escapes

[Emily]

from the Muskegon Chronicle
http://www.mlive.com/muskegon/stories/i ... xml&coll=8

both a bear and a serval cat wrere on the loose. the bear was not a native black bear.


Shelter owner: Animals let out
Saturday, May 10, 2008
By John S. Hausman
jhausman@muskegonchronicle.com

A co-owner of an Egelston Township animal-rescue sanctuary says she believes "somebody purposely released" a bear and an exotic African cat from the facility last week.

The serval cat still was missing Friday afternoon, at least 10 days after escaping the West Michigan Society for the Protection and Care of Animals shelter at 6806 E. Evanston.

The bear, which had been missing for about a week, was recaptured Tuesday evening by SPCA volunteers.
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A Michigan Department of Natural Resources official said the serval, a meat-eating predator like all felines, might pose a danger to small domestic animals such as chickens and pet cats.

But SPCA co-owner Brenda Pearson says that's probably not the case with this serval, which has been declawed.

"The serval that is missing is not much more than a small animal itself," she wrote in an e-mail to the Chronicle Friday afternoon. "Although he is leggy, he only weighs about 20 pounds. Their diet would consist of rodents the size of mice."

Brenda Pearson's e-mails, sent in response to a reporter's query, came after repeated telephone requests since Wednesday morning for comment.

Both the serval and the bear are believed to have escaped April 28 or 29. Numerous residents in Fruitport Township reported seeing the bear early this week before it was recovered.

Brenda and Jim Pearson own the Evanston Avenue facility, a 34-acre sanctuary for injured or orphaned wild animals and abused or abandoned exotic animals and other pets.

The DNR is investigating the facility and executed a search warrant Wednesday night to see whether it holds the proper permits for all the animals lodged at the shelter. DNR spokeswoman Mary Dettloff said the agency probably will seek a misdemeanor charge against the owners for failure to report the missing bear, as required by the SPCA's permit.

In an e-mail to The Chronicle, Brenda Pearson stated her belief that someone deliberately freed both animals, possibly a disgruntled neighbor or someone connected with an unhappy volunteer.

In the case of the bear -- Sammy, a one-eyed animal the Pearsons flew in from California to spare it from euthanasia -- Brenda Pearson said she had mistakenly used clips, rather than padlocks, to secure each of the two fork latches that secure Sammy's pen. She said "people with bad intentions" removed the clips, allowing the bear to flip the two fork latches up and escape.

Pearson disputed Dettloff's published statement that SPCA officials told investigators that a wooden framework supporting the pen's gate had deteriorated, allowing the bear to push the gate open.


"The pen is in fine shape and the gate he exited is made of metal with heavy duty chainlink," Pearson wrote.

She said the DNR earlier approved the pen as a temporary holding area for a bear, and Sammy was going to be removed from it after he was neutered and could join the SPCA's other two bears, one of which is female.

She said the facility has added locks to the back gate of Sammy's pen, with a chain wrapped around the gate and fence pole, and nailed a board across the whole gate. The front gate is now the only access point and is kept locked at all times, she said.

In the case of the serval, she said a difficult-to-open window to the room in which the servals are kept had been pushed up about 8 inches, which the cats could not have done.

Pearson acknowledged the operators were wrong not to notify anyone of the serval's release.

"We should (have) notified people, but my biggest worry was that people would think he was a pet and approachable," she wrote. "He is very much afraid of people. It is a mistake we made and apologize for."

Pearson said the only other animal escape since the couple moved to the Evanston Avenue property a decade ago was last fall, when someone released the deer they were rehabilitating -- "then nicely latched the pen so the goats wouldn't get out." About 12 years ago, before moving to Evanston, the Pearsons had two wolf dogs get out, she said.

She disputed Dettloff's published statement that the SPCA was legally required to report the serval's escape to the Michigan Department of Agriculture. Pearson said the state does not consider servals large cats, and therefore requires no permit or license, and there is no legal mandate to report an escape or release.

Pearson also said the West Michigan SPCA holds the proper licenses and permits for the animals it holds, the main issue the DNR was still investigating Friday. She said they also had the proper permits for importing Sammy and another bear from California, and those were shown to the DNR.

Of the two California bears, she wrote, "In both cases I got a call that stated these bears were scheduled to be euthanized unless we could take them. Their stories pulled on my heartstrings and we agreed to take them."

[Emily]

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story.as ... c9&rss=785
DNR: Bear Roams Neighborhood for Week

Last Update: 5/08 4:44 pm
MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) - The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says a bear prowled a rural western Michigan neighborhood for a week after escaping from an animal-rescue shelter that never notified the agency about the missing animal.

Volunteers from the shelter located, tranquilized and recaptured the bear on Tuesday, said DNR spokeswoman Mary Dettloff.

The next day, state conservation officers assisted by the Muskegon County sheriff's office executed a search warrant at the West Michigan Society for the Protection and Care of Animals facility.

The bear escaped April 29 from the 34-acre shelter in Egelston Township that is a sanctuary for abandoned or abused pets, injured or orphaned wildlife and exotic animals. Witnesses saw it wandering in nearby Fruitport Township before it was recaptured.

The California-bred animal did not appear to be a black bear, a species native to Michigan, but perhaps a brown bear or some other nonnative species.

"Basically, the whole situation is, the bear escaped and they tried to go and find it and recapture it without reporting it to the DNR," Dettloff told The Muskegon Chronicle for a story published Thursday.

"They were not upfront with us about the fact that it escaped at all. They didn't inform us at all."

The agency probably will seek misdemeanor charges through the county prosecutor's office for that "fairly minor" violation of state wildlife laws, Dettloff said.

Shelter operators Jim and Brenda Pearson could not be reached for comment. A message was left Thursday at the shelter's telephone number, which appeared to be the same number as their home phone.

The West Michigan Society for the Protection and Care of Animals is a nonprofit organization founded in May 1999, according to its Web site.

During the search of the shelter, investigators performed an inventory of its animals and seized paperwork to determine whether the operators were licensed to keep them there. The facility had three bears as well as several other wild and exotic animals.