[FEL-L] Palm Springs in running to become wildlife waystation

[BigCatSimba at aol.com]

Palm Springs in running to become wildlife waystation
 
By JULIA GLICK
The Press-Enterprise 
Bubba the baboon, Nyeri the lion and a cougar named Miss Carson City could 
soon be making their home in the desert, educating its residents and visitors, 
if officials realize plans to move a vast wild-animal refuge to Palm Springs.  
Wildlife WayStation, a 160-acre nonprofit sanctuary and hospital for 
maltreated and abandoned wild animals, hopes to move at least some of its facilities 
and animals from the mountains of the Angeles National Forest above the San 
Fernando Valley to Palm Springs. Ron Oden, the mayor of Palm Springs, has met 
with WayStation founder and animal-services director Martine Colette, and he 
promoted the move to the City Council last month.  
"You need to go where you are wanted, where you can do service for the 
community," Colette said on a recent day as she made her daily rounds, greeting, 
singing to, feeding and nuzzling many of the hundreds of animals in the 
organization's care. "I think it would be a very good resource for the town if the 
WayStation puts in the facilities we are talking about. It would be a great 
gateway to the city."  
The organization is looking for 80 acres or more to build a sister facility 
in Palm Springs that would further the group's mission of providing medical 
treatment and rehabilitation and finding homes for exotic and native wildlife. 
The new location would ideally feature large tracts of enclosed space for 
animals to roam, lush landscaping as well as features for the public, such as 
regular visiting hours and a primate center for people to interact with the center's 
dozens of apes, Colette said.  
The WayStation is seeking another location because Los Angeles County wants 
new, costly studies and improvements as part of the renewal process for the 
site's conditional-use permit, Colette said. The organization, which boasts 
celebrity supporters such as actresses Sharon Stone and Nicollette Sheridan, has 
been at its current address for more than 25 years, but might soon have to 
downsize, she said.  
The refuge would prefer to move to Palm Springs but is also considering 
locations near Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and in New Mexico and Arizona, Colette 
said.  
The current site houses about 400 animals, far fewer than usual because the 
permitting process is consuming money and time, she said.  
As Colette made her rounds, peacocks roamed freely along leafy paths. 
Volunteers doled out "bloodsicles," a frozen treat made from blood and gristle, to 
dozens of lions, tigers, bears and wolves in their enclosures.  
Oden visited the refuge last year. In a telephone interview, he said it won 
him over.  
"You could hear all the lions communicating back and forth, and the bears 
grunting and the birds and the monkeys," he said. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be 
incredible to have this experience in Palm Springs?' "  
Further talks will be needed to pinpoint a good location and to determine a 
timetable for the organization to move to the area, Oden said.  
The organization's current sprawling location grew somewhat spontaneously, 
Colette said, but a new location would benefit from decades of experience and 
careful planning. She is already considering unique architectural designs and 
other solutions to ease the sweltering desert summer for certain animals.  
Colette, the daughter of a diplomat and avid naturalist, grew up in dozens of 
countries and remembers caring for injured animals in Africa as a girl.  
She created the nonprofit organization in 1976 and found herself and her 
staff of veterinarians flooded with calls to assist abused, sick and neglected 
animals that, in many cases, people had tried to keep as pets.  
"At the time, the thought was it was very elegant to walk an ocelot down 
Hollywood Boulevard," she said, adding that some pet stores even sold monkeys, 
lion cubs and other wildlife. "There was no facility that was addressing the 
problems for these exotic animals."  
Since 1976, the WayStation has helped more than 75,000 wild animals free of 
charge and its mission is to never turn one away, she said.  
Colette, who knows almost all of the animals' names, has special affection 
for Nyeri and Moran, two lions the staff thought would never survive their harsh 
beginnings.  
About 10 years ago, the U.S. government called the WayStation to rescue 
dozens of lions that had escaped from fetid, ramshackle cages at a home in Idaho. 
Colette and staffers rescued 27 sickly lions, the ones that had not already 
been shot by residents and police, Colette said.  
Among them was a pregnant lioness. She died soon after giving birth, but her 
malnourished, sickly gray cubs, Nyeri and Moran, defied everyone's 
expectations, living and flourishing at the refuge.  
The Coachella Valley would be an ideal home for the WayStation, and its 
residents are known for their generosity in donating time and money to charitable 
causes, Oden said.  
Since he mentioned it at a City Council meeting, many have stopped him in the 
grocery store or the gas station to encourage him to work to bring the refuge 
to the city, he said.  
"When the stars line up, things can move at lightning speed," he said in a 
telephone interview. "That is really what I am hoping will happen because I 
think it will be in all our best interests."  
Reach Julia Glick at 760-837-4418 or _jglick at PE.com_ (mailto:jglick at PE.com)   
_http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_wildlife06.3d66437
.html_ 
(http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_wildlife06.3d66437.html) 



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