UNASKED QUESTIONS 2

posted by James Reel

    Arizona Daily Star reporters and their editors continue to parrot press releases instead of digging up facts independently. Example: Monday’s article announcing that “Animal care officials hope new rules will put an end to the breeding of wolf-dog hybrids in Pima County.”
    The proposed rules—at this writing, the Star hasn’t bothered to follow up this story with a report on the Board of Supervisors’ action—arise from ignorant hysteria about the nature of wolf hybrids. The problems with these animals have more to do with bad owners than with animal nature, but attach the word “wolf” to anything and people grab their rifles. (Note: There has never been a properly documented wolf attack on a human being in North America.) The excuse for banning wolf hybrids is that the rabies vaccine has not been proven to be effective on them. Well, actually, it has been proven effective, but the USDA has refused to approve the vaccine for political reasons. Furthermore, rabies vaccines have been used successfully in wild wolf reintroduction projects in North America and Africa, so what’s the problem with hybrids?
    You won’t learn any of this background from the Star article. Instead, reporter Erica Meltzer relies on three sources with very narrow perspective: Pima Animal “Care” Center veterinarian Bonnie Lilley, local Humane Society director of operations Pat Hubbard, and Linda Searles of the Southwest Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Foundation. Searles deals with wild wolves, hardly any hybrids, and so isn’t really qualified to speak on this subject. Hubbard can talk about wolf hybrids being abandoned at her shelter, but her remarks have to do with owner malfeasance, not problems with the animals themselves.
    Then there’s Lilley, the primary source, who gets to state her case without the reporter providing background or finding an opposing source (which would not be difficult). Had reporter Meltzer dug into her own newspaper’s archive, she would have noticed an article from Aug. 28, 2005, reporting that “Problems at Pima Animal Care Center involving animal care and customer service have prompted officials to replace the facility's manager. Veterinarian Bonnie Lilley was hired as manager last winter, but she has been criticized by animal rescue groups that said she is thwarting adoptions and failing to properly care for animals. … Rescue-group leaders said that when they are being offered animals, they were often very sick and have languished untreated at the center for days.”
    In other words, Lilley was removed from her administrative post for incompetence and obstructionism. Presumably she is also the person who recently withheld treatment from Clay, the dog found stuck up to his neck in a muddy wash, during the pound’s standard three-day countdown to euthanasia. Perhaps Lilley was too busy masterminding her wolf-hybrid witch hunt to tend to the animals in her care.
    Oh, and here’s an interesting tidbit: “There have been at least three cases nationwide in which vaccinated wolf-dog hybrids contracted rabies, Lilley said.” Three cases over how many years? Which vaccine was used? Are there any cases during the same period in which vaccinated domestic dogs contracted rabies? Without any of that information, Lilley’s “three cases” are statistically meaningless.
    Why does Meltzer allow this source, with her unscientific agenda and questionable integrity, to go unchallenged? Because the Star lets its reporters get away with repeating, rather than reporting.