Volunteer Spotlight
Donna Nayduch

Donna Nayduch has been a volunteer with Wolf since May of 1999. She is being highlighted this quarter because of her dedication to our mission, most notably with educational programs. Over the years Donna has endeared herself to most of the animals at the sanctuary and has become one of our most senior and knowledgeable program volunteers.

Donna moved from North Carolina to Colorado to work as the Trauma Coordinator for Banner Health. She immediately discovered Wolf and began volunteering. Recently Donna’s new job, still involved with trauma centers, has taken her all around the country for the majority of her time. Even though she is not in the state as much, Donna has made sure to be here when we really need her. Whenever she is in town, she is either at the facility or at programs. Although she isn’t able to volunteer as much as she would like, she tries to get in as much time as she can.


At some of our programs we do Reiki sessions with the animals and people that come to the programs. Donna is a Reiki Master and usually leads the sessions. With her work taking her out of the state this has affected us in this area as well. Fortunately, Donna makes every effort to be here for those programs in particular. Recently we had one program that was unavoidably rescheduled to the following weekend and Donna even changed her flight so that she could be here for the program.

Donna can do just about everything involved with our programs. She has handled animals and answered questions from the public. She is also one of our volunteers that does the merchandise sales at public events. She has even assisted with giving the formal educational presentation. In addition to all of her volunteering at programs she also makes several of the items that we sell at our public events. It’s always nice to be able to tell people who are looking at our merchandise, that it’s made by one of our volunteers.

Donna also volunteers at the facility whenever she can. She has a great relationship with the animals. This relationship allows her the opportunity to accomplish things with the animals that not all volunteers can do. This has really come in handy when we’ve had emergency medical needs.

Donna, we are happy you found us and thankful for all the time and energy you give to Wolf.

Fun Stuff for the Holidays


           

The pumpkin on the left was carved by one of our volunteers from Turning Point. The one on the right by one of the Wolf staff. We thought they were kind of fun and wanted to share them with you.

If you have fun, wolf-related photos that you would like to share with us, we would love to see them. Depending on how many we receive, we will try to get them in our next newsletter.
You can send them to Wolf , Post Office Box 1544, LaPorte, CO 80535.

Thank you.

Wolf Files
To Get County Restrictions Changed

On November 10, 2004, Pat Wendland, Cofounder of Wolf and Wolf Attorney, Bonnie Mandell-Rice met with David Karan, Planner II, for Larimer County. This was a preliminary meeting to apprise the County Planning Department, of Wolf’s intention to seek relief from some of the conditions imposed on Wolf in January 2001. These conditions were part of the approval of the Wolf Special Review. This meeting was also to have Mr. Karan advise Wolf representatives what would need to be supplied to the County by Wolf for consideration of amending the Special Review.

Among the items contained in the original special review, that Wolf would like to see changed are; the number of animals Wolf is allowed to keep, the number of acres of land Wolf can use to house the animals, the restriction of not being allowed to have public tours and educational programs at the Sanctuary and the number of days Wolf has to notify the County of an animal’s death.

As to the number of animals offered sanctuary at the facility, Wolf has housed 42 animals in extremely humane conditions in the past, without affecting neighbors rights. Due to the demand for placement of these magnificent animals, Wolf will ask the County to increase the allowable number from 30 to 60. Wolf has cooperated with the County and neighbors in an effort to establish the facts about Wolf. We hope that over the past 10 years county officials and neighbors have learned more about Wolf and the people who run the organization. In that regard, the cofounders and people who make up the staff and core of volunteers are responsible and have cared for the animals in a safe and healthy environment. There have been NO detrimental effects on the neighbors, personally or in general. Since the approval of the Special Review, there have been NO complaints. There have been NO animal escapes, NO cattle or livestock killed, NO polluted water, NO feces piling up, NO insect infestations, and land values in the area have gone up, NOT down as was suggested. In fact there have been NO problems either at the facility or with the organization in general. The cofounders and staff know that they currently have the ability to care for as many as seventy five animals.

One of the concerns expressed, at the time of the original special review, was traffic. Wolf was restricted to having seven vehicle trips per day. With the exception of veterinary visits when a veterinary team would be coming to the facility to insure all of the animals were healthy and for them to be inoculated with the proper vaccines. With the exception of a wildfire emergency, when the animals had to be evacuated, the vehicle trips per day have remained well under the seven allowable. Due to carpooling and scheduling only a certain number of volunteers per day, Wolf can continue to care for the animals without the need of additional vehicle trips.

In order to accomplish our goals of keeping the animals in as normal surroundings as is possible for captive wolves, Wolf will need to use more of the land available to them. The County currently restricts Wolf to using only five acres of 182. We would like to get that number changed to 25 to 30 acres. Being able to use that amount of land will enable Wolf to add new enclosures and enlarge existing ones, insuring the animals at the Sanctuary even more humane living conditions by creating even larger natural habitats. This would still leave a “buffer” of land around the facility. As a holding facility for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, this would also allow for the eventuality of DOW being able to place wolves at the facility without having to be concerned about going over the magic number.

This is a project that will need to be phased in. There is no way Wolf can get the approval needed and the next morning have sixty animals. Enclosures are very expensive, running approximately $15,000 per enclosure. Time is also a consideration as the enclosures can take weeks or months to build.

When Wolf originally received the special review approval, there was concern there would be people driving up and down the road, uninvited, looking for the Sanctuary. In addition, it was thought there would be Greyhound Tour Buses and School Buses driving up and down the road on an hourly schedule. This, of course, was not the case. When Wolf was originally established, the cofounders allowed visitors on a limited basis. These visitors included small private groups and small educational visits. Wolf would like to be able to re-establish these programs. We will attempt to explain to the County Commissioners that they have a premier educational facility in their back yard and should be working with that facility, especially now that wolves are returning to Colorado. As an example, recently members of the National Park Service came to Wolf on a fact finding excursion to learn how to better identify wolves in the wild because of the increase in reported wolf sightings. Some Park Rangers have never seen a wolf in the wild because of wolves absence from Colorado during the past 69 years.

The final request we will be making to the County Commissioners will be to allow Wolf additional time in notifying the County when an animal passes away. We currently have five business days to send notification by certified mail. Wolf will be requesting ten business days to send a hard copy, certified mail, but is willing to contact the planning department by phone within forty eight hours. This will enable the volunteers and staff to go through a more normal grieving process.

The cofounders of Wolf are hopeful the process will go more smoothly this time around, but we have already been told the special review will take approximately twelve months. Wolf will need to supply the county with all the reports and studies we supplied for the last special review. This is going to be a very long, time-consuming and expensive attempt to get relief from the original conditions. As the process continues over the following months we will need your support and will keep you posted as to how things are proceeding.