The Cowgirl Chancellor’s last campaign
When we read a recent article in the Merced Sun-Star about the city zoo threatening to close down, we could not help remembering the story of the baby bobcat commandeered by UC Merced for a mascot with a combination of willing and coerced help from public and private agencies. These agencies are mandated by laws and regulations to help rehabilitate injured and orphaned wildlife for release back into the wild rather than help UC get a mascot, particularly when it already had one. We include various newspaper articles through the years that mark the progress of the story in doting words. The McClatchy Chain’s Merced outlet stayed consistent to its goals of unconditional love of UC development and UC’s attitude toward the environment. If the biggest public institution of higher education in the world could stomp fairy shrimp, there couldn’t be anything wrong with it, right?
-- blj
5-27-05
Merced Sun-Star
University to adopt bobcat...Lorena Anderson
http://www.mercedsun-star.com/local/story/10568772p-11359224c.html
It'll be up to the first freshman class at the new University of California, Merced, to officially christen a 4-month-old bobkitten that will be the face of the UC Merced Bobcats. In the middle of April, the zoo's head keeper, Donna McDowell, found the abandoned bobcat. The zoo only takes in indigenous animals that cannot be released back into the wild, and McDowell thought he might be a candidate. He had medical problems, said local veterinarian Christine McFadden. Now, though, he's doing well. He's healthy and playful. Once the state department of Fish, Game and Wildlife deemed the kitten unreleasable, the zoo could plan on keeping him permanently. Pam Moody, an administrative assistant in the vice chancellor for administration's office at the university, heard about the bobcat. Moody started a fund-raiser to gather up at least $1,000 to make a bigger, better enclosure for the baby -- who will grow to about quadruple the size of a large housecat -- and help pay for his care and feeding. "It's fated timing -- a new university, a new freshman class and a new baby bobcat.
The writer of this fable was an editor at the Sun-Star at the time. Not content with simply regurgitating University of California flak, Anderson gave us that day six years ago another example of UC Cuddle Flak in a feature story on the bobcat kit. Note that in typical UC fashion, the bobcat kit's sentence to life served as a mascot for the biggest real estate boondoggle in California of its time, UC Merced, is presented as a done deal, when in fact the deal was as bogus as the name for the mascot, "the UC Merced Golden Bobcat," a creature that appears nowhere in Nature. However, it was the winning suggestion in a contest conducted among Merced County elementary school children, our own homegrown little Linaeauses destined, thanks to the arrival of UC Merced without its necessary federal environmental permits, to all get college degrees because, as was ceaselessly dimmed from UCM offices, "proximity is destiny,"
On the surface, the arrival in 2005 of a wild Bobcat kit, dubbed at first "Baby Boy" and later as "Boomer," seemed like just another typical example of abuse of wildlife in Merced.
Since 1962, Merced has had its own zoo, owned and operated by the city in its largest park. The zoo was an extension or outgrowth of the San Joaquin Valley custom of caging up some local wildlife and a few exotics if you could get hold of them and opening a "See the wild animals" roadside attraction. Most people over 50 who grew up in the valley remember seeing wretched coyotes and raccoons and maybe some beaver and turtles confined in small wire cages, usually without any shade -- all for the edification of the tourist driving to the Sierra. Merced's Applegate Zoo is better than that thanks to improved law and regulation and an active group in town that defends wildlife.
The Merced Sun-Star reported recently that due to budget shortfalls the local zoo might be closed and the animals sold or euthanized (killed nicely with a Greek accent). City flaks denied the City had any intention of euthanizing the zoo animals but would like the Merced Zoological Society to contribute 50 percent of the operating expenses and move toward financial self-sufficiency. In fact, the story did look like a bit of zoo propaganda, perhaps animated by the zoo's new treasurer, Kenny Mostern, a UC Merced faculty spouse who has been dabbling around the backrooms of local affairs for several years. We haven't seen any follow-up stories, so we assume the affair has disappeared into city hall backrooms.
Residents of the community committed to rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife so that wild species can be released back into their natural habitat (where UC, residential and agribusiness development have left a patch or two) favor closure of the zoo on general principles. It is badly kept up, and it is a magnet for anonymous dumping of injured or orphaned wildlife, which it neither rehabilitates, sends to proper rehabilitation centers nearby, or releases into the natural habitat. The zoo is no match for the Merced-based San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, which pioneered the rescue, rehabilitation and release of wildlife in California. Only 22 breeding pairs of California condors remained alive when the Center was formed nearly 40 years ago to rehabilitate and breed them in captivity for release. California condors are now reported to have 140 breeding pairs.
When the Merced zoo gets too far out of line in its treatment of its animals or retention of animals that should be being rehabilitated for release, the Raptor Center has often intervened to alert state and federal agencies of the animal abuse. Through the years, the Center has caused the Applegate Zoo to be closed down several times for improper care and handling of the animals in its control.
There has been no public mention of "Boomer," the 5-year-old mascot Merced mascot. Presumably, propagandists from the zoo, the city and the university are meeting to concoct an appropriate fiction if the bobcat mascot is now in the way. It will be an all-UC affair, the treasurer of the zoo board being a faculty spouse and the city's top flak, Mike Conway, being the child of UC Berkeley faculty.
On May 26, 2005, the 11 pm local TV news reported that UC Merced had a baby bobcat for a mascot and was raising money to house it at the Merced City Zoo. An article in the Merced Sun-Star followed the next day.
5-27-05
University of California, Merced, is adopting an unnamed 4-month-old bobcat and is raising money to go toward bettering his habitat at the Merced Zoo.
By Lorena Anderson
LANDERSON@MERCEDSUN-STAR.COM
Applegate Park Zoo's newest baby has no name.
It'll be up to the first freshman class at the new University of California, Merced, to officially christen a 4-month-old bobkitten that will be the face of the UC Merced Bobcats.
In the middle of April, the zoo's head keeper, Donna McDowell, found the abandoned bobcat. The zoo only takes in indigenous animals that cannot be released back into the wild, and McDowell thought he might be a candidate.
He had medical problems, said local veterinarian Christine McFadden, who helped nurse the 2-pound kitten back to health. She removed foxtails from the roof of his mouth and between his teeth, treated the abscesses that had formed and rid him of worms.
"If there's a parasite to be found, apparently he'd been exposed to it, which I wouldn't have expected from the wild," McFadden said.
Now, though, he's doing well. The bobcat McDowell calls "Baby Boy" has gained more than 11/2 pounds in the past couple weeks, and is due for his next set of kitten vaccinations. He's healthy and playful and McFadden and McDowell both talk about him with obvious affection.
When Pam Moody, an administrative assistant in the vice chancellor for administration's office at the university, heard about the bobcat, she was inspired.
Once the state department of Fish, Game and Wildlife deemed the kitten unreleasable, the zoo could plan on keeping him permanently. That's when Moody started a fund-raiser to gather up at least $1,000 to make a bigger, better enclosure for the baby -- who will grow to about quadruple the size of a large housecat -- and help pay for his care and feeding.
The zoo allows its animals to be "adopted" for fees that vary by animal, and she has been advertising for the fund-raiser among university staff and faculty.
However, anyone can donate to the bobcat cause through the university, Moody said.
He'll remain on display at the Merced zoo.
For now, McDowell will continue to take him home at night -- she doesn't want anyone trying to swipe him, though he has a microchip for identification. He's just a feisty kitty who uses a litter box at McDowell's house and likes to chase shadows and feathers now, but he's still a wild animal and will grow to be able to protect himself.
And when the first freshman class arrives in August, its members will get to select the cat's official name.
"I'm looking for the young, creative students to come up with a good name," Moody said. "It's fated timing -- a new university, a new freshman class and a new baby bobcat."
Help with housing
To donate to the fund-raising drive for the baby bobcat, call Pam Moody at the University of California, Merced, at 724-4414.
---------------------------------------------------------
What follows is an account of how wildlife rehabilitators fought a fierce, battle to try to defend state law and regulation to save the bobcat kitten from life as an incarcerated UC mascot. Members of the Badlands Journal editorial board were present as the scene unfolded.
Raptor Center President Lydia Miller was bemused by the May 27 Sun-Star article. She found it curious that the zookeeper McDowell, just coincidently “found the abandoned bobcat” and kept it for six weeks before announcing the fact. It should have been sent immediately to a rehabilitation facility competent to assess its condition, care for it and if possible raise it for release. There is such a facility that specializes in bobcats in Morgan Hill. There are rehabilitation centers in Merced, Stanislaus and Fresno counties that zookeeper McDowell was required by law to contact immediately.
Starting at 8:15, Miller made a series of telephone calls. First, she called the Fresno office of the California Department of Fish and Game and left messages for top officials there: Bill Loudermilk, director; Jeff Single, assistant director; and Dale Mitchell, aquatics program manager.
Miller reached Cathy Gardiner, director of the Fresno Wildlife Center, who told her she'd heard nothing about the bobcat at the Merced zoo and that the Morgan Hill facility specializing in bobcats, run by Sue Hall. Miller left a message for Hall and another message for the California Council of Rehabilitation Centers in Santa Rosa.
Miller then called Renee Rhoy, coordinator of the Stanislaus Wildlife Care Center. Rhoy informed her that no one had notified the Stanislaus center about a baby bobcat in Merced. In fact, she informed Miller, the Stanislaus center had been holding a wildcat, assessed by a certified veterinarian as being unreleasable, for a year waiting for Nicole Carion, wildlife rehabilitation coordinator at CDFG to finalize papers for the transfer and for the Merced zoo to raise the money for a permittable cage. Rhoy referred Miller to center Executive Director Christine Nicasio for more comment. Miller left a message.
At 11 a.m., Miller called Ryan Broddrick, director of the CDFG. Broddrick was a volunteer for the Raptor Center in his youth. Miller explained to his secretary that she had been unable to contact Carion or any officials in the Fresno CDFG office. The director's secretary said she would contact the Fresno office and soon after Miller was on the phone with Jeff Single, assistant director, CDFG District 4, Fresno. It was a short call. Single told Miller he'd seen the article about the baby bobcat.
"Oh God, Lydia," he said.
Miller told him that no rehabilitation center was notified. Single said he would look into it immediately. He called Miller back shortly to say that he had talked to Rick Notini, director of environmental affairs at UC Merced. Notini had told Single to "keep it out of the media." Miller told Single that there was already a bobcat at the Stanislaus rehab center that was supposed to go to the Merced zoo two weeks earlier.
Single, clearly flailing as it was dawning on him just exactly how many wildlife laws had been and would be broken by the City of Merced and UC Merced to appease the lust for a cuddly baby mascot, plaintively inquired: "Switch bobcats?"
The California Council of Rehabilitation Centers returned Miller's call and notified her that the following weekend, the council would be meeting with CDFG officials in Los Angeles.
Next Miller talked with Noreen Borba of the City of Merced Department of Recreation, whose duties include monitoring the zoo. She told Miller that the zoo had the baby bobcat and would keep it. The situation is all approved and legal, Borba said.
Miller asked Borba why the baby bobcat had not been transferred to a rehabilitation center. "You already have a bobcat at the Stanislaus rehab center. Are you going to keep this one and that one?” she asked Borba.
“I'm not going to argue with you," Borba replied.
Miller said she would submit a public records act request with the city to see what actually happened.
Who at the CDFG approved this? she asked Borba.
"Catherine Kline," Borba said.
Miller learned from other sources that Kline had some agency jurisdiction over zoos. She also discovered, through a state Public Records Act request filed with the City, that it was a CDFG warden who dumped “Baby Boy” at the Merced zoo.
Christine (not sure of Christine’s last name – blj), chairman of the board of the Stanislaus Wildlife Care Center called Miller. She was angry about the situation because the Stanislaus center had fed, medicated and kept its bobcat a year waiting for the CDFG paperwork to transfer it to the Merced zoo. Christine said that the center now knew that its bobcat would probably have to be euthanized. The Merced zoo knew they had this bobcat that was habituated to humans and therefore could not be released into the wild. However, if the Stanislaus center had been able to put the baby bobcat in with its older, habituated bobcat, the two bobcats would have bonded and reversed the habituation of the older one. This is an ordinary practice among rehabilitators, she said. "The zoo is being irresponsible about this. Stanislaus has been working with Nicole (Carion) at the CDFG on this permit. We had the last chat with Donna (McDowell) a week earlier about the transfer.”
But, according to what McDowell told the Merced Sun-Star, she had already been keeping the baby bobcat for several weeks when that chat took place.
At this point, Miller looked up from her desk and said: "What do we do? UC is (according to the newspaper) collecting funds for a facility for the baby bobcat in the Merced Zoo. Does the zoo even have an adequate facility for it now?"
Her next call was to Nicole Carion at CDFG. Carion explained that CDFG was "just slow on process paperwork."
While she is talking to CDFG, Jim Marshall, city manager of Merced, called and left a message that he would like to speak with Miller.
Next, the state rehabilitation centers council called to say that it wanted to get the Merced bobcat situation on its Saturday agenda. The council's executive director told Miller that she needed to come to LA for the meeting. She also said that a new committee was forming on watchdogging rehabilitation centers. Miller replied to this news by saying that the council was enlisting volunteers to do something CDFG should be doing itself but won't spend the funds to do.
Miller next called Gardner, the Fresno-area wildlife rehabilitator, and asked if she knew anything about the rehab council's plans for a watchdogging committee. Gardiner did not know and either did Christine at the Stanislaus center.
The executive director of the rehab council told Miller that she should write the council about the situation and fax the letter. She added that Miller would be "perfect" for the new committee.
At 4:15 p.m., Miller and a colleague, Steve Burke, head of Protect Our Water!, sent a letter protesting the situation to CDFG Director Ryan Broddrick with copies to the Fresno and Stanislaus rehab centers, and the two CDFG officials Bill Loudermilk (director of Division 4 -- the San Joaquin Valley) and Carion, who was in charge of zoo transfers.
RyanBroddrick May 31, 2005
Director, California Department of Fish and Game
1416 Ninth St., 12th Floor Via facsimile and email
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 653-7667
Fax (916) 653-7387
Dear Mr. Broddrick,
We are writing you to express our deep concern regarding a baby bobcat, presently under the control of the Merced City Zoo, which the University of California, Merced has chosen to be its live campus mascot.
Our concern begins – but by no means ends – with the fact that the CDFG has been processing paperwork for about a year on an older bobcat, resident of the Stanislaus Wildlife Center, for transfer to the Merced City zoo. This older bobcat has been properly deemed unreleasable due to imprinting. Stanislaus center officials report that up until a week ago they thought they were in the process of doing this transfer and were quite surprised by the Merced Sun-Star article (May 27, 2005), “University to Adopt Bobcat.” If the baby adopted by UCM remains in the zoo, there is no place for the older one. In fact, no other place has yet been found for the older one, and its immediate future seems to end in euthanasia, perhaps because UC Merced prefers cuddly “Baby Boy.”
The newspaper alleges:
“In the middle of April, the zoo’s head keeper, Donna McDowell, found the abandoned bobcat. The zoo only takes in indigenous animals that cannot be released back into the wild, and McDowell thought he might be a candidate … He had medical problems, said local veterinarian Christine McFadden.”
Our understanding is that both McFadden and State Veterinarian Swift have deemed “Baby Boy” unreleasable, without any consultation with three Region 4 wildlife rehabilitation centers or a bobcat specialist in Morgan Hill.
Dr. McFadden is not under any wildlife rehabilitation permit. Swift didn’t examine “Baby Boy.” We do not want this animal to be deemed anything by a state veterinarian with a reputation for anti-rehabilitation ideology. State and federal rehabilitation centers are well aware of the CDFG’s tendency to hire incompetent and obstinate veterinarians who lack respect for the agency’s mission, the Public Trust, and who refuse to comply with the agency’s mandates. We are also skeptical that McDowell personally found “Baby Boy.” Based on 26 years of experience with the Merced City Zoo and wildlife rehabilitation, we find it more credible to assume “Baby Boy” was turned into the zoo by a member of the public for rehabilitation, whereupon it should have been transferred to one of two rehab centers in Region 4, or to the Morgan Hill facility, which specializes in mammal rehabilitation. A second immediate solution would be to put “Baby Boy” together with the Stanislaus bobcat, so that both could bond with their own species.
The City of Merced was made aware of proper rehabilitation protocols and the limits of zoo protocols (started at least 10 years ago) when the San Joaquin Raptor/Wildlife Rescue Center and the Merced Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals forced the closure of this zoo for non-compliance with its existing permits, and for animal abuse. Meetings were held with CDFG, the city, and one permitting federal agency to bring the zoo into compliance. Since that time, the zoo (directed by Melissa Smith and Donna McDowell) has continued to collect wildlife species and keep them in illegal conditions. Smith routinely failed to notify the Center that she was keeping birds at the zoo and at McFadden’s office. McFadden and McDowell (then Smith’s assistant) frequently notified SJRRC to pick up and care for injured and orphaned birds. SJRRC notified the director of city Parks and Recreation and City Manager Jim Marshall, whenever this occurred. The City of Merced bears much responsibility for this unfortunate situation.
We question the judgment of the zookeeper, McFadden and Swift concerning the non-releasability of “Baby Boy.” If the newspaper account can be believed at all, the baby is too young to make such a determination.
We object strongly to the de facto CDFG administrative policies at play in this situation:
1. Zoos, universities and similar institutions must not be allowed to collect live mascots at will for display and fund-raising purposes.
2. Eggs, baby, immature and/or mature native wildlife species must not be deemed unreleasable by public or private veterinarians without review by experts licensed for wildlife rehabilitation. The practical consequence of this apparently ideologically driven administrative policy is that all rehabilitation of injured and orphaned wildlife young would be rendered null and void.
3. We oppose unequivocally the cupidity of UCM and the City of Merced for cuddly local wildlife babies and their fund-raising potential. CDFG, whose mission is to protect state fish and wildlife, must not allow a university, especially one with such an allegedly deep commitment to environmental concern, to appropriate local wildlife babies for fund-raising purposes.
The situation boils down to this: a healthy yearling bobcat, deemed unreleasable due to imprinting (habituation) according to correct procedures, faces death in Stanislaus; while cuddly “Baby Boy,” too young to be deemed unreleasable without overturning the entire array of procedures enabling and regulating the state’s rehabilitation centers’ work with young wildlife, is deprived of his right to potentially return to the wild.
We must fight this decision, which we believe is illegal, because it undercuts the entire corpus of law and regulation under which wildlife rehabilitation work in California is lawfully carried out. It also violates the rights of two bobcats – one probably to life itself, the other to its opportunity to a life in the wild. Our research since May 28 suggests there was a large disconnect in the CDFG bureaucracy, right hands not knowing what left hands were doing (for example whatever role Kathy Kline played in this mess), improper omissions and commissions, deceit and pressure, as well as political lobbying by the UCM “Baby Boy” set.
We are requesting an immediate meeting with CDFG.
This is also a request pursuant to the California Public Records Act. We seek all public records within your agency pursuant to Government Code Section 6250, et seq., concerning the following:
1) All materials relating to the transfer of the Stanislaus bobcat to the Merced Zoo.
2) All materials pertaining to “Baby Boy” including but not limited to any correspondence between the zoo, CDFG, the City of Merced, the state veterinarian, Dr. McFadden, and UC Merced; all regulations and protocols that govern the Merced City Zoo and the University of California regarding the exploitation of wildlife species for mascots.
We would like to review these records at a time and place to be arranged, prior to any copying taking place. As provided by the Public Records Act, you have ten days to determine whether you have records subject to the Act. We look forward to hearing from you regarding this arrangement. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.
Respectfully submitted,
Lydia Miller, President of San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center
Steve Burke, director of Protect Our Water (POW)Reference:
University to adopt bobcat...Lorena Anderson
http://www.mercedsun-star.com/local/story/10568772p-11359224c.html
“It'll be up to the first freshman class at the new University of California, Merced, to officially christen a 4-month-old bobkitten that will be the face of the UC Merced Bobcats. In the middle of April, the zoo's head keeper, Donna McDowell, found the abandoned bobcat. The zoo only takes in indigenous animals that cannot be released back into the wild, and McDowell thought he might be a candidate. He had medical problems, said local veterinarian Christine McFadden. Now, though, he's doing well. He's healthy and playful. Once the state department of Fish, Game and Wildlife deemed the kitten unreleasable, the zoo could plan on keeping him permanently. Pam Moody, an administrative assistant in the vice chancellor for administration's office at the university, heard about the bobcat. Moody started a fund-raiser to gather up at least $1,000 to make a bigger, better enclosure for the baby -- who will grow to about quadruple the size of a large housecat -- and help pay for his care and feeding. "It's fated timing -- a new university, a new freshman class and a new baby bobcat." “
Cc: William Loudermilk, Region 4 Director, Department of Fish and Game
Marjorie Beazer, Assistant to the Director
Nicole Carion, Statewide Rehabilitation Coordinator
Jim Marshall, City Manager, Merced
Interested parties
At 5:15, Carion, from CDFG called Miller and initiated an argument that lasted 45 minutes. As statewide rehabilitation coordinator, Carion felt that part of her job description is to harass and try to intimidate wildlife rehabilitators, particularly if they dare to stand up to CDFG and UC Merced. She began by announcing that no laws were broken and that she was a warden for eight years.
“This is supposed to give me confidence?” Miller replied. Next she reiterated that the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and the SPCA had closed down the Merced Zoo for being out of compliance with its permits. “There has been a continual problem with just this issue—holding species that should have been released to licensed rehab center. They have worked with us and Stan center. You were handling a bobcat transfer from Stan center,” Miller said.
“Donna McDowell and Christine McFadden,” Miller explained later, “had no excuse for this behavior. Both of them called the Raptor Center on numerous occasions to report that former zoo director Melissa Smith routinely received wild animals from the public and failed to turn them over to wildlife rehabilitators as directed by both state law and city policy. I discovered that at least in 2005 Donna is now doing the same thing.”
Carion replied that Miller was correct but that zoos have a “take” permit. (“Take” is resource-agency jargon for a permit to take wildlife from its natural habitat.)
Miller corrected Carion: “No they don’t. I sat on the committee to revise the Merced Zoo’s permits.”
Next, they went through the articles in the Merced Sun-Star together. Miller pointed out:
“A vet OKs the bobcat for the zoo. But the vet works for the zoo, she is not licensed to work with wildlife. She must be under a licensed rehab center. In Merced Raptor is that center and she is not under Raptor. Her office calls Raptor to pick up injured and orphaned raptors. There is something wrong here. Who did the vet talk to at CDFG?”
Carion: “Catherine Kline.”
Miller: “There is a disconnect going on at CDFG.”
Miller next called Jeff Single, assistant director of CDFG District 4 in Fresno (Carion is from CDFG office in Redding.) She told him, “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
Single agreed: “It’s a real mess.”
In another call from Carion to Miller, Carion reiterated that Kline, a veterinarian for CDFG in its head office in Sacramento, had authorized the take of the baby bobcat by the Merced Zoo and “it’s all legal.”
Miller replied: “Why can’t this bobcat baby be released. It is new-born? Is it missing an eye or something? If Kline can just authorize this, it means that no wildlife any rehab center has is releasable. All orphans are now fair game for zoos. Who told Kline to release the baby bobcat to the zoo?”
Carion: “The State Veterinarian Cathy Swift. CDFG can’t release till state vet approves. You won’t question that, will you?”
Miller: “This is a baby. It has a good chance to go back to the wild. The state vet is supposed to be working to protect wildlife. What we have here is a state vet that doesn’t support rehabilitation.”
Carion went ballistic, saying that Miller, a rehabilitator, had no business questioning CDFG.
Miller replied: “We had one vet in our rehab center that was so bad we kicked her out. CDFG hired her as a state vet. Her name was Jan White.
At this point, Carion stated that everything concerning the baby bobcat was “confidential.”
Miller told Carion that the Raptor Center and Protect Our Water would submit a state Public Records Act request for all documents and notes regarding the baby bobcat mess. She said that she had already contacted the CDFG director and that this would not be decided at Carion’s level.
At this point, Carion gave up harassment and intimidation and asked Miller how she thought they might be able to work together, since Miller didn’t cave under the usual thugging agencies dish out when they know they’ve been caught not enforcing laws and regulations regarding wildlife.
Miller made three suggestions:
1. Transfer the baby bobcat to the Morgan Hill rehabilitation center that specializes in mammals like bobcats.
2. Establish a protocol for the Merced Zoo and UC Merced on how they will handle wildlife.
3. The bobcat at the Stanislaus wildlife care facility should be held – alive -- until the Merced Zoo has proper facility for it.
Carion remarked that the Stanislaus center should know what would be an adequate facility for the bobcat. Miller told Carion that she was the proper CDFG official in charge of knowing if the facility is up to par or not.
Carion said she hadn’t been there.
“Has Catherine Kline (the CDFG veterinarian) been to the Merced Zoo?” Miller asked.
Carion thought not.
“So,” Miller concluded, “you couldn’t give the Merced zoo a year-old bobcat, but you can give it a baby?”
In the ensuing silence, Miller outlined what she thought had happened:
1. Baby bobcat taken from the wild. From where? By whom? Who knows?
2. Zoo gets it. Zoo thinks: why not a baby instead of the older one at Stanislaus center? Babies have charisma. Good for fund-raising.
3. They take it to a veterinarian who has just had her four children murdered. Vet has established a fund for UCM student financial support in the name of her kids and there may be a floor of the library named for them.
4. They see a bobcat baby for UC Merced.
5. CDFG has created a firestorm in Merced. All you had to do was follow the proper rehab process, evaluate the baby and put it in Morgan Hill.
Carion’s replied, “Let’s keep this quiet and have a meeting. In LA?”
Miller said the state council of rehab centers was meeting in LA the coming weekend to create committee to establish rehab center protocols.
Carion replied, “They’re the experts.”
Miller asked, “What’s really going on?”
They’re establishing protocols for licensing, state inspections, and maybe some payment, Carion said.
Miller asked: “So, you’re asking us to do the very same thing we are trying to do with this zoo, here and no?”
Carion: “No!”
Miller said that eight years earlier CDFG had asked her to take a paid position inspecting rehab facilities. She said she’d refused because it would have taken her out of the Raptor Center, her own facility. But, she added, the meeting of the rehab council in LA looked like a priority and apparently no one else in the San Joaquin Valley knew anything about it.
However, at 6:40 p.m. the director of the rehab council called Miller to say that she could not attend the meeting but that they would really appreciate a letter from her on the Merced bobcat situation.
Later Miller explained that she didn’t want to write the letter although they kept calling for it because she didn’t want them representing this issue without her there. She was willing to travel, but then they asked her not to come until they had committee approval. The council was still calling about the letter on Saturday, May 28. Sue Hall, who ran the Morgan Hill center, sent the council the McClatchy article on UC Merced, the zoo and the baby bobcat.
The council and Carion discussed the Merced bobcat issue in LA. Miller received word that the council decided it would not take on CDFG but would support Miller and put her on the watchdog committee. .
On Monday, May 30, 2005 Miller and Hall of the Morgan Hill mammal rehab center talked. Hall said that a debate was going on among the parties involved with the UC Merced mascot situation. The Stanislaus County rehab center expert was saying that their bobcat was already habituated to interaction with humans and therefore could not be released into the wild, Hall told Miller. “Others say let it go.”
Miller’s position, which she’d stated adamantly to try to cut through the surface politics to the underlying problem, was that if the rehabilitation community would not stand up to the state Department of Fish and Game at that point with that kind of provocation, “We lose our credibility as rehab specialists.”
Hall replied that her center could take the baby bobcat but had no place for the yearling from the Stanislaus center.
That’s where Miller and Hall left it.
Next, Miller called Crystal Norris at the statewide rehabilitators’ council. Norris informed Miller of the results of the past weekend’s council conference in Los Angeles. Two board members who knew zoos agreed with Mille that zoos can’t be left to collect wildlife at will without challenge from the rehab community. Therefore, the council apparently supported Miller’s position in what is a gray area in Fish and Game regulations concerning the power of zoos. However, the council’s full position, Norris explained, was that proper process is for rehab center to have rehabilitation-certified veterinarian do an evaluation and that the baby was too little to evaluate on release now.
In other words, the statewide rehabilitator council lacked the courage to stand up against the state Department of Fish and Game, particularly when the issue involved the University of California, which many scientists and those doing science-related work regard as a potent religious institution. After all, UC is the largest insitution of higher learning in the country, and the best armed with nuclear weapons.
Norris went on to say that the council was, however, very interested in the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center’s land-use work. “We don’t do habitat and we need to,” Norris said, apparently blissfully unaware of what can happen when members of the public bring California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits against the University of California – something more damaging to social status than displeasing Fish and Game bureaucrats.
“No, Miller replied. “You need to partner with existing experts including Fish and Game. Sometimes we work with them, sometimes – like now – we work against them.”
In a subsequent interview with Badlands Journal, Miller explained that because of the Raptor Center’s concern about the general loss of all wildlife habitat in the San Joaquin Valley, it committed 14 years of its existence to caring for and rehabilitating all injured and orphaned wildlife. “Although we have once again focused almost completely on raptors, we still get other wildlife that we get to the appropriate rehab center,” she said.
She also explained that rehabbers are always working a little in the gray area, which is why they don’t like to go public and are afraid of CDFG. The gray areas include: practicing veterinary medicine without a license; the attitude that quantities of rehabbed animals equal quantities of financial contributions (not always best for animals and burns out rehabbers); keeping species for which they have no permits to rehabilitate; being unable to bring themselves to euthanize; and providing inadequate facilities and diets.
All this happened more than six years ago except for the zoo’s announcement a few weeks ago that it faced having to shut down for lack of funds. As we noted above, no mention was made of UC Merced or either of the bobcats. It was as if UC, the newspaper, the board of the zoo and the City of Merced had all forgotten about “Boomer,” ne “Baby Boy,” and the hapless and to our knowledge nameless Stanislaus-rehab-center yearling bobcat. We investigated and found two bobcats in a special cage and a zookeeper who confirmed that one of them was “Boomer,” the UC Merced mascot.
In short, the political power of the University of California won and a cuddly baby bobcat was denied his rightful opportunity to release into the wild after proper rearing and rehabilitation by experts.
The primary resource agency involved in enforcement of the pertinent laws and regulations, the California Department of Fish and Game, was muscled by UC into breaking those very laws and, in turn, thugged the state’s wildlife rehabilitation community into silence, tearing up a number of fragile working agreements between CDFG and the rehabbers that had taken decades to develop.
But special recognition goes to the UC administration, and most of all to the founding Chancellor of UC Merced, Carol Tomlinson-Keasey. The chancellor was called “T-K” by her friends and employees, and “the Cowgirl Chancellor” by those who watched her repeatedly lying to state legislators, members of Congress and resource-agency officials. “Baby Boy” was the Cowgirl’s final campaign before leaving the campus. If you consider its true impact on higher education, particularly scientific higher education, you will agree that it was a magnificent campaign. First the Cowgirl established the “Golden Bobcat” as the campus mascot. Second, she transformed an ordinary bobcat kit into a “Golden Bobcat.” While we expect the UC Merced-boosting burgermeisters of Merced, speculating on rising real estate values, to support the golden kitten, the Cowgirl’s real achievement was getting the UC administration and the CDFG biologist and veterinary bureaucrats to go along with the gag.
The Cowgirl chancellor committed grand act of creationism. She created an entirely new wildlife species, the Golden Bobcat, which still does not occur in Nature, and rammed it down the throats of a bunch of gutless biological bureaucrats in Sacramento and the administration of UC, an institution that boasts 55 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences.
Evolution didn’t stand a chance against the godlike powers of the Cowgirl chancellor’s last campaign.
“And these are the smart ones,” Miller said.
After all this, UC Merced still lacks a protocol for handling the wildlife into whose habitat the campus has intruded.