Wednesday, May 19, 2010
IT AIN'T OVER TILL IT'S OVER
Took a road trip this past week, my partner and I.
Went to fetch our animal transport cages over in San Antonio.
Well, two of them, anyway. Two others are over near Beaumont and six are up in Wisconsin.
When the illegal warrant was served and the illegal seizure took place, more than just the animals were illegally seized. They decided they needed all our empty cages as well as all our pet transport boxes, food and water bowls, and sacks of feed and bedding -plus tools and other equipment. The humaniac had been eyeing our 26' panel truck (an old U-Haul) for transport, but I'd refused to cooperate and dig up the paperwork on it, even though I'd made a show of trying. Plus, I'd had the nerve to just get a 10-day temp tag on it, which was expired anyway. Then I took the keys along with me when I went to jail. On top of it all, I was such a ninny that I'd gotten it stuck in the mud when we'd pulled in a couple weeks earlier and hadn't yet extracted it for them. So they had to ditch the plans on the truck.
The big cats were all in custom-built transport cages, which of course was cruelty. But since they had nothing to transport them in, let alone keep them in for a week or two till they could be sent elsewhere, it was a foregone conclusion that they'd just take the cages too. After all, with the cats gone, we'd have no need for those cages. We're bad people anyway and don't deserve them. And like Gleason said, "We kind of had the cruelty forced upon us, didn't we?" "We can't exactly go to Wal-Mart and buy some cages..."
But as part of our "get out of jail" agreement with him, he gave us 6 months to retrieve those transport cages, at our expense, or lose them too.
I wonder how well an agreement like this would hold up in court, anyway. They steal your property, send it from Texas to Wisconsin, wreck your business and drive you to unanticipated expenses, depleting whatever funds you still have, and then expect you to go get your property from wherever they sent it. Since the agreement was coerced, and misleading, plus a major part of it was immediately breached by him, it's most likely voidable anyway. And one major reservation I had on it was that it's between him and us, and whoever gets the cats -and the cages they're in- isn't bound by it. But the all-knowing and benevolent DA assured us that all we'd need do if we met with resistance would be to call him and he'd remind them that the cages are ours. Simple. -In theory, at least.
So anyway, according to our "agreement," we still have until mid-August to fetch those cages, from three different locations. We phoned the one in San Antonio, Wild Animal Orphanage, to let them know we'd be coming for the cages on Monday, May 10th. Got no answer and left a message to that effect.
Sunday evening we had some brake line problems with the truck, so called the WAO to let them know it'd be maybe Wed or Thu before we could get there. Finally reached a live person on Wed, who ID'd himself as Sam Sherwood, the new manager or something, who just took over on Monday. (Seems like everything happened on Monday!)
Sam says, the cages never came to WAO. They went to Marion for the cats and took their own transports. Says the local police (sic) destroyed our cages. Later, his story changes a couple more times. First he's looking for them, (this is before any confirmation that the cats and cages were brought to WAO by Marion County and WAO did NOT come here for them) then he says they were smashed up and hauled to the dump. So apparently, by getting rid of them, they somehow are no longer WAO's responsibility? And he himself confirmed they got rid of them on Monday, the same day we were first expected to come for them.
A little digging turns up that their man, Jamie Cryer (more on him later) or his brother took them to Great Western Recycling, and sold them for scrap metal. So where's the money he got for them? My guess is, most of it's in the till of the nearest saloon. Turns out as well, that this place WAO, as gallant as their goals are, and as dedicated as their help and volunteers are, is still "ripe for picking" and has seen a parade of CEO's and other management, all with sticky fingers and personal $$ signs on their eyeballs. The founders were double-dipping a bit, so their daughter got the board to 86 them and she took over. Then, true to her upbringing, like mother like daughter, she got caught. They gave her the boot at a meeting she missed, changed the locks, and poof. Also got rid of one BOD member who had a personal vendetta to turn the sanctuary into a theme park to vie with 6 Flags. Somehow, this guy, Sam Sherwood, ended up as the new CEO who was busy dusting off his new desk on Monday while the old (interim) CEO -Cryer- was selling stuff to the recyclers for his beer money. Apparently he missed the comforts of jail life and has a subconscious urge to go back...
Calls to the Marion County DA confirmed that there indeed was an agreement between him and both Texas animal orphanages that took two cats each. A copy was faxed to us, and WAO as well. Looking it over, it's not much of an agreement, and I have to conclude the Marion County DA would do well to have somebody else write up his "agreements." But however simple and brief it is, it still clearly implies that the cages are NOT theirs to sell off until after mid-August. Good old Jamie Cryer, caught outside their gates on May 13, before we left the place, said, "Well, you seizure people never get your equipment back anyway, so we junked them..." Sherwood offered us two of their "finest" cages, in return for ours. These were utterly unacceptable. for starters: door on one side only, and wrong size for our use; no way to lock door except with a chain; one with a flat tire; mesh on all sides, including tops and floors, offering no protection at all from sun or elements... And that's just for starters.
Automatic water bowls in them too. -Automatic bowls, that you hook a hose or pipe to, in a TEMPORARY transport cage? -And they called OUR cages "living quarters"? Those auto waterers are for the convenience of the PEOPLE, so they don't have to go fill them twice a day or more. In transit, there's no way to dump these bowls so they won't spill, as they are bolted to the side caging. But what do I know? I'm not the rescuer.
Anyway, we returned home empty-handed. Trip across the state a total waste of time and expense. Now we're concerned if that's what's in store for us at the other two places. Wouldn't that be fun to drive up to Wisconsin and find the cages aren't there?
One of our cages- One they offered-
Photo taken sometime after arrival at WAO. Photo taken when we were there.
Obviously, this one hadn't been cleaned Scrap plywood serving as a "floor" since Marion County! 3 food pans, never removed...
Straw that'd been placed by Marion DA, still there
3 weeks later
An email exchange with Jeff Kozlowski, of Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue, confirms that they indeed have the six cages, and no, they don't intend to recycle them for pocket change. According to him, they also intend to have the broken wheels fixed up by the time we come, so we won't have to use a fork lift to load them! If that's the truth, Thank You, Jeff. At my age, you begin to really appreciate little things like wheels!
Before this entry could be posted, I got word from a reliable source that another load of caging materials was sold for scrap iron this morning (May 18th) to the recycling facility by "someone" from WAO -very likely Jamie Cryer or his brother (or both?) . Their security camera and purchase log should say for sure. I guess theft is a hard habit to break. But at the rate all these people are looting their own animal orphanage, pretty soon there won't be anything left for a new CEO to manage, so it won't matter if he/she is trustworthy or not, since there'll be nothing to entrust to them! Considering the run-around and tall tales we got from Sam Sherwood, I'm not sure he's the man for that job either, unless the staff and board really do want it turned into a theme park -profits from which would benefit the Sherwood Foundation. That is, IF they could make a profit, considering their proximity to Sea World.
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