Discovery
Foxes, coyotes removed: Officials removed a half-dozen red foxes, three coyotes and other animals from an unlicensed rehabilitation center in western Michigan where the owner’s 2-year-old granddaughter lost an arm after reaching into a pen that housed two wolf-dog hybrids.
State conservation officers searching the Howling Timbers facility in Muskegon also found 47 dogs that are believed to have been crossbred with wolves or other wolfdog hybrids, according to Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources.
The agency said it learned in August that a girl had been bitten in July after putting her arm into a cage.
“No person should be allowed near those dogs,” conservation officer Anna Cullen said in a release. “It’s not fair to this child who lost an arm. We are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of anyone who may encounter any animal at Howling Timbers, including the health and safety of all the animals at the facility.”
The Natural Resources Department, Muskegon County sheriff’s office, and the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development are investigating owner Brenda Pearson for operating the facility without required permits.
The DNR revoked Pearson’s wildlife rehabilitation permit in 2010.
Pearson, 59, said that Cullen told her in July that she could start taking in wildlife at Howling Timbers and that she was licensed. But Cullen claimed after a surprise visit in September that she didn’t have the authority to say the license was approved, Pearson told The Associated Press via telephone.
Pearson said she has been in business 27 years and continues to care for the wolf-dog hybrids because they can’t be released into the wild. Pearson said the animals are not bred at Howling Timbers and that her organization collects them from inside and outside Michigan. It is illegal in Michigan to crossbreed wolves and dogs without a permit.
Her granddaughter may have reached through a chain-link fence for the collar of a penned animal when she was attacked, Pearson said.
“We ran over and picked her up and her arm was missing from the elbow down,” she said.
There were no bite wounds on the arm when Pearson picked it up a short time later, she said.
The girl was rushed to a hospital where she underwent surgery on her right arm, Pearson added. (AP)
EPA grants Stitt request: The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved a request from Oklahoma Gov Kevin Stitt’s administration to allow the state, not tribal nations, to regulate environmental issues in Indian Country, even those lands that may be inside historical tribal reservation boundaries.
Stitt, a Republican, requested the authority in July, shortly after the US Supreme Court determined that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remains a Muscogee (Creek) Nation Indian reservation.
In the July 22 letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Stitt requested state authority to administer all EPA programs in areas of the state that are in Indian Country, with a few exceptions.
Wheeler approved the state’s request in an Oct 1 response. It applies to more than two dozen federal environmental programs overseen by several state agencies, including the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Water Resources Board and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
The federal law allowing states to seek environmental oversight in Indian Country was authored in 2005 by Oklahoma’s Republican US Sen Jim Inhofe, a staunch ally of the oil and gas industry.
“As Administrator Wheeler’s letter correctly points out, the State of Oklahoma did not seek to expand or increase its regulation over new areas of the state, but rather to continue to regulate those areas where the state has consistently implemented these environmental programs under the steady oversight of the US EPA,” Stitt said.
The decision drew a swift rebuke from some tribal leaders. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr said he was disappointed that the EPA ignored his tribe’s request to consult individually with the agency about the change. (AP)