IF NOT HERE, WHERE?! Urgent! - Stop Ventura County Government's Forced Disposal of Wolves!

IF NOT HERE, WHERE?!

Lockwood Animal Rescue Center's (LARC) sanctuary was deliberately founded in a remote northern corner of Ventura County, where there's fewer than 200 permanent residents in a 50 mile area.  We wanted to find the most remote spot that would allow us to rescue wolfdogs without disturbing anyone.  We are more than ½ mile from our closest neighbor.  Being new to wolfdog rescue (even though we have been rescuing parrots for over 20 years and have the parrot sanctuary at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles serving disabled veterans) we thought we purchased all the necessary County permits and variances to operate our sanctuary in Lockwood Valley.  We even invited the local media here to document all of our rescues.  We certainly never thought we had anything to hide.  However, some residents in Lockwood Valley – just as in other neighborhoods surrounding almost every other wolf and wolfdog sanctuary in the country – do not like wolves and would like to see them dead.

Wolfdogs are a controversial creature as witnessed by the newly vitalized wolf kill in Western states. People are driven by fear and outdated fairy tales that wolves are going to kill and eat their children – even though there are only two documented cases in all of North America of a wolf ever attacking any human (fewer than bee sting deaths in any one summer).

The County is naturally very "complaint driven" and they received a "petition" from a local rancher  who was pushing people to sign by telling them the wolfdogs are going to get out and attack livestock and that they should be forced to move from here.  Having complaints – whether substantiated or not – can possibly affect our ability to succeed in obtaining a "Conditional Use Permit" or CUP.  We hope to be able to present our final CUP with letters of support from you…our dear supporters and lovers of animals.  Oddly, the County of Ventura has given us a violation for having fences that are too high!  On one hand we need to protect the neighbors from wolfdogs getting out and on the other hand we have to abide by rules that say fences shouldn't be over eight feet in height.  Ventura County laws seem to neglect their northern, mountainous communities where it can easily snow three feet in one day (and has every year since we've been here).  Fences must be over eight feet tall in this community!

ACTION STEP! YOU CAN REALLY HELP

We will need your help in this fight!  Please petition the County of Ventura:

Voice your support of Lockwood Animal Rescue Center's wolfdogs by writing a letter addressed to:

Ventura County, Code Compliance
c/o Lockwood Animal Rescue Center (or LARC)
P.O. Box 1510
Frazier Park, CA   93225

During this trying time we also had to meet Ventura County's Code Compliance requests which were due, in part, by August 1st.  Unfortunately, what this means is, for now, we can not have any volunteers come to our ranch.  This includes all of the veterans who were benefitting from socializing the wolfdogs that we could adopt out.  This, of course, effects our ability to have community involvement with the many neighbors who love coming to help the wolfdogs and destroys one of our best avenues to show that wolves are NOT the vicious creatures they are portrayed to be (mostly by ranchers and hunters).