By Juliana Di Leonardo
An animal sanctuary is a safe place or refuge where various species are protected and cared for. These places are created to accommodate neglected, abused and abandoned animals. They provide housing, space to roam, proper nutrition, vet care, and enrichment. The people who typically run these facilities put their animal residents first and are often non-profit organizations, which usually ensures that the animals’ well-being is their main focus, however some may have you fooled.
Recently, as an animal advocate with Humane Long Island, there have been two major animal neglect cases on Long Island where businesses have been found to be lying to the public about their intentions for the animals they've “rescued”. After thorough investigative work, we found that both places failed many of the animals they've taken in by allowing infection, inadequate medical care, and premature death to occur on their premises. These pseudo sanctuaries continue to refuse to surrender their sick and dying animals because they want to continue making money off of them and use them for clout to inflate their ego.
In the case of ego and pride, the Holtsville Ecology site takes the cake. This place is a roadside zoo run by the Brookhaven Highway Department. Not only do they neglect animals but they also don't seem to care about the safety of the roads. Animals languish at the zoo while pleas about town road safety are continually ignored. Brookhaven has made it very clear that they are very comfortable sinking taxpayer money into an unnecessary and shameful menagerie rather than taking care of their constituents. At Town Hall meetings where several former employees have spoken up against the Ecology Site, the highway department continues to disappoint as male paid employees were sent to boo and cat call the women who've come forward in effort to get these animals placed at the real sanctuaries we've already secured their placement with. As of now, our biggest hurdle is to get people to accept that this place isn't safe, the employees don't care, and to finally let go of this long standing insufficient home for captive wildlife and domestic animals.
The other site where animals suffer, also located in the town of Brookhaven, is Double D Bar Ranch. There lives a man who scams the public by taking their unwanted animals for a price that will only line his pockets while never reaching the starved, sick and neglected animals that inhabit the poorly built shelters adorning rotten wood and filled with copious amounts of feces. Rich Devoe doesn't respect animals, he sees them as dollar signs. Pay him to “rescue” an animal and pay him to sell you an animal, their lives are inconsequential. Some of his animal enclosures sit right next to a neighboring slaughterhouse with no buffer in between. Animals can and will cross over the dividing fence and he doesn't care if his “saved” birds get slaughtered. While working with authorities to shut him down, we found cannibalized birds, mite and lice infestations, frostbite, overgrown hooves, prolapses and more, and because he refused to cooperate with us the authorities charged him with 112 counts of animal cruelty. We are continuing to fight to get these animals solace while also making sure this animal hoarder gets shut down.
For this week's anuvrat, I encourage you to reflect on aparigraha– non-attachment. Is there a practice or habit that you find yourself doing that might be causing harm to yourself or others? If so, see if you can work on letting it go. Try not to hold onto the things that don't serve you or your community. You may find yourself feeling lighter or maybe you'll make room for positive things to enter your life. What will you let go of?
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Juliana Di Leonardo is the Vice President of Humane Long Island. She is a yoga and ballroom dance instructor, model, and artist. Her advocacy for animals exploited by the fashion industry was credited in the 2021 documentary “The Face of Fashion is Fear” and recognized by PETA with a Hero for Coyotes award. (Photo provided by the author)
