Support of PAWS and ARK 2000

On behalf of Earth Island Institute, Free Willy Keiko Foundation, One Voice France, and the Dolphin Project and Action for Animals, I want to state our total and unequivocal support of Pat Derby and Ed Stewart and the sanctuaries Paws and Ark 2000. We have worked with both Pat and Ed for the past 16 years on a number of animal issues including public presentations on marine mammal issues at Paws Wildlife Conferences. We know first hand that Pat and Ed have dedicated their lives to saving and caring for wildlife both
captive and in the wild. The Paws sanctuary sparked the idea for development of a captive dolphin/whale retirement sanctuary to house surplus animals that are no longer performing or candidates for release to the wild. Pat and Ed were advisors to the Free Willy Keiko Foundation for Keiko's rehabilitation and release.

We believe that Pat and Ed did all they could to take care of
Tinkerbelle the elephant relocated to Ark 2000 from the inadequate conditions at San Francisco Zoo. It must be known that the SF Zoo and the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. must take responsibility for Tinkerbelle's death. Tinkerbelle arrived at Ark 2000 with a very late stage of foot problems that was not the fault of Pat , Ed. or their staff.

We are very disturbed that Deniz Bolbol has distributed comments in the media attempting to place blame on Pat and Ed over the death of Tinkerbelle. There is no merit to this claim as far as we are concerned. The captive industry will certainly use these comments directed at Pat and Ed in their own campaigns to keep elephants and other exotic animals from being sent to sanctuaries. We applaud the work of Pat , Ed , Paws and Ark 2000!


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Mark Berman
Assistant Director
International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island
300 Broadway #28
San Francisco CA 94133 USA
415-788-3666 X 146
Fax 415-788-7324