Settlement Reached with Maryland Woman Who Rehabilitated Foxes

BETHESDA, Md., March 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --On March 26, 2009, eight
criminal charges were dropped against Maryland animal welfare advocate
Harriett Crosby for rehabilitating injured foxes without a permit. In a
settlement, Crosby pleaded guilty to one count of refusing to obey a lawful
order to turn off her car and she agreed not to sue the officers who seized
the animals. Upon approving the settlement, the District Court judge fined her
only ten dollars, sending a clear signal to Maryland Department of Natural
Resources ("DNR") that the criminal charges were unwarranted.

On December 12, 2008, a DNR officer, in a written warning, gave Crosby 45 days
to get rid of the foxes. In essence, this gave her permission to retain
possession of the foxes during that 45 day period. However, after just three
days, the officer and two others returned and forcibly seized and killed the
animals, disregarding Crosby's due process rights provided under Maryland
statutes and an order by a Circuit Court judge enjoining the DNR from harming
the animals.

"The people of Maryland are very interested in wildlife, so we need laws that
promote the coexistence of people and animals," said Crosby. "Archaic laws
that consider animals merely as a resource for consumptive industries or a
nuisance or danger to people need to be changed." Crosby is dismayed that
those who take care of animals without a permit are branded as criminals while
hunters and trappers are allowed easy access to permits to trap and kill
unlimited numbers of fur-bearing animals. Her case illustrates that there is a
serious problem in Maryland with regard to the treatment of wild animals and
those who try to protect and care for them. Wildlife rehabilitators deal with
individual animals and care for each one, whereas wildlife biologists tend to
look at the numbers and see their job as controlling populations. Success is
measured in the number of dead animals. The killing of wildlife is largely out
of sight. Thousands of raccoons, foxes, coyotes and beaver are trapped and die
horrible deaths every year in Maryland.

Following the settlement, Crosby demonstrated the types of traps used to
capture wild animals. "The reason I brought traps along was to show the cruel
ways that animals are caught and killed," said Crosby. "It takes a long time
for a mammal to die in a foot-hold trap or a snare. Sometimes he will chew his
leg off and bleed to death. The sanctioned methods of killing mammals include:
blunt force trauma, gunshot, cervical dislocation, and carbon dioxide. These
are horrible ways to die. The body-crushing trap is even worse. It slowly
squeezes the life out of an animal and can take 45 minutes to die. This is
cruel and constitutes torture. If our pets were treated this way, we would be
outraged. Animal cruelty laws should be extended to wildlife. After all,
wildlife, as part of our natural heritage needs protection. This slaughter of
innocent animals is a great injustice that needs to be addressed."

"It is time for us to enlarge our circles of caring from our pets to wild
animals." Crosby continued. "Like our pets, wild animals have personalities,
intelligence, feelings and rights. They deserve respect. But they are not
treated respectfully by the state government officials who have authority over
them. They are not seen as individual animals but as populations that need to
managed, by trapping, hunting, culling whole herds and flocks when necessary.
The means of killing are brutal, cruel and barbaric. The unjustified killing
of God's creatures is morally wrong. I am standing up and speaking out on
behalf of these animals because I believe the wildlife laws and regulations in
Maryland are antiquated and need to be revised to reflect public concern for
wildlife."

"The red fox that DNR confiscated from my home and killed was named
Munchkins," Crosby said. "He was a very special fox -- intelligent,
sensitive, engaging and playful and he was a wonderful surrogate parent for
the young fox that was also killed. At first, the young one, not knowing how
to behave, would attack Munchkins. Surprised, Munch would jump up on a box and
observe him, figuring out what to do. Then he'd go back, let him attack, move
away a little and get him to follow until the little fellow was chasing him,
just fast enough, turn around and chase him. It was fascinating to observe
them play. When I brought food in, Munch would take the tastiest morsel in his
mouth, make a guttural whining sound and get the young one to follow him until
he dropped it at his feet. He would do this several times until the young one
would come right after him when he made that whining sound. Even if he was
hungry, Munch wouldn't eat himself until the exercise was over. He was clearly
training the young one."

Crosby is sharing this because Maryland law prohibits rehabilitators from
possessing adults of any rabies vector species. Wildlife rehabilitators should
be allowed to keep adult surrogate foxes and raccoons to train the young ones
before they are released into the wild.

As a rehabilitator, Crosby had the privilege of observing the complex
interactions of wild foxes before release. She did not trap them, they were
brought to her, injured. She did not make pets of them and never brought them
into her home. But she observed them very carefully and saw how sensitive,
aware and responsive they are, which makes the way our agencies, cooperators
and trappers treat them especially outrageous. In Maryland, under current law,
wildlife is treated as game to be hunted and trapped, as a nuisance to be
eliminated, or as a resource to be managed.

It is for us to reexamine our values and priorities and reorganize our
government agencies that deal with the welfare of wildlife. Wild animals are a
national treasure and should be treated as such. This insight will lead to
major restructuring of the government agencies responsible for wildlife.

SOURCE Maryland Animal Welfare Advocate Harriett Crosby

Maryland Animal Welfare Advocate Harriett Crosby, +1-301-320-5051