| ROSARITO, Mexico -- Distinguished since 1926
by the presence of the landmark Rosarito Beach Hotel, one of
the first facilities built to draw tourists to the Baja California
coast, Rosarito recently acquired another landmark: the first
no-kill animal shelter serving northern Mexico.
But the Baja Animal Sanctuary isn't yet a visible landmark,
and that is perhaps the biggest problem the two-and-a-half-year-old
shelter has. To get there from Boulevard Benito Juárez,
the main street of Rosarito, you have to cross the tollway to
Ensenada, turn a tight hairpin turn at the old town graveyard,
and follow the bulldozed but otherwise unimproved future route
of a long-rumored four-lane highway out through three miles
of developments that don't yet exist. You turn off in the middle
of nowhere, continue past a bankrupt and unoccupied condominium
complex whose scenic vistas of sea and mesa evidently couldn't
compensate for inaccessibility and lack of water, and descend
a steep hill down a road that threatens to become a gully.
When you see the dogs, 270-to-300-odd transients in crudely
fenced runs with half a dozen longtermers lounging in the road
and driveway, you're there. Just turn in through the adobe brick
arch.
A real estate salesperson in her previous career, Baja Animal
Sanctuary founder Sunny Benedict knows location is everything.
Opening a thrift store and adoption center on Boulevard Benito
Juárez is among her ambitions. But the rented house and
surrounding acre the sanctuary now occupies are, for the moment,
the only location available. Benedict tried to buy an adjoining
parcel once, but was thwarted when the owner chose to gamble
instead that the someday four-lane highway will be completed
within his lifetime.
Rosarito spread rapidly north from the Rosarito Beach Hotel
in recent years, as word spread of the now reknowned surfing
beach. Continued growth at the pace of the past 20 years could
increase the present regional population of about 100,000 people
to four times as many by 2020. With the coast now developed
from Tijuana to well south of Rosarito proper, expansion into
the foothills toward the Baja Animal Sanctuary has become inevitable.
The town itself owns most of the land between the sanctuary
and the fringe of the present community. Sooner or later, deals
will be cut, roads will be paved, signs will go up, and development
will turn the now remote sanctuary site into a prime location.
But then the sanctuary will be unable to keep it. As the land
and building are rented, they can easily be priced out of affordability
for an animal shelter. That discourages investment in permanent
site improvements--like renovating the old building, bringing
in electricity, and drilling a well.
The Baja Animal Sanctuary in-house clinic sees to it that
all animals are neutered prior to adoption, and neuters several
already owned pets per week at cost--or free--for impoverished
Rosarito residents. They even do early-age neutering. Yet staff
veterinarian Carina Toledo does most of her surgery by unaided
daylight, finishing by propane lantern if necessary. There is
no X-ray machine, no autoclave, and no electric cauterizing.
Living in a travel-trailer at the sanctuary during her three
days of duty each week, Toledo is engaged to marry another veterinarian
in August. Benedict fears she may depart to enter private practice,
and wonders where another vet may be found who has comparable
patience with the difficult conditions.
The present sanctuary water source is a stock tank situated
at the highest corner of the lot, refilled weekly by a truck
from town. There is no pump, and therefore no hose. Gravity
pushes water into the sanctuary taps.
Permanent site improvements could increase donor support.
But they could also hasten the day that the landlord decides
to use the property for more lucrative purposes.
Any way Benedict and supporters figure it, they need their
own site in order to follow up their progress. The question
is how to get it. Benedict hoped the town might donate use of
municipal land, in trade for a formalized animal care-and-control
agreement. As the only shelter for hours' drive in any direction,
despite a much-ignored Mexican law requiring communities to
have animal control, the Baja Animal Sanctuary now provides
"animal care-and-control" by default. The former mayor of Rosarito
honored the sanctuary with a certificate attesting to the value
of their work, on the day that he left office. But land has
never been offered. And a formal deal with the town could also
be precarious, between the strings that might be attached and
the possible transience of political favor.
The Baja Animal Sanctuary does not yet have any wealthy patrons.
The sanctuary began when Benedict placed a newspaper ad, asking
anyone interested in forming a humane society to attend a meeting.
Eighteen people came, contributing $10 apiece to open a bank
account and begin nonprofit incorporation. None had prior experience
in humane work; before getting into real estate, Benedict was
a ballet dancer and teacher in New York City.
Benedict admits they weren't prepared to handle the volume
of animals they soon received. Neither were they prepared for
the extent of neglect some animals had suffered. But it was
only after the Baja Animal Sanctuary began to attract notice
beyond Rosarito that they realized they were taking on a job
that experts with major international organizations had already
declared impossible.
Now the sanctuary motto includes the phrase, "In a place where
they said it couldn't be done."
They were wrong.
Doing the Job
Whatever "they" said, however, was wrong. Resolutely no-kill,
the Baja Animal Sanctuary is doing the job, with results readily
evident. Though Rosarito still has stray dogs and cats, they are
conspicuously fewer than in Tijuana, Ensenada, or Mexicali. Dogs
and cats seen at large are also less likely to be pregnant or
nursing.
Observed the late Mary Melville, in a December 1998 letter
telling ANIMAL PEOPLE about the Baja Animal Sanctuary, "In our
immediate community of San Antonio Del Mar [just north of Rosarito],
there are leash laws, and you don't see many dogs running loose.
Those who are loose usually just belong to people who let them
run. Since the streets are all paved with stones, cars move
slowly, so the dogs are rarely in danger of getting hit. Outside
San Antonio, in the towns and up in the hills, dogs are everywhere,
but most of them look well-fed. I offered a few begging street
dogs Milk Bones, and they didn't even eat them. What you come
to realize is that a lot of them have owners, whose attitude
about letting dogs run all over the place is very casual. Those
who are completely on their own apparently prefer leftovers
from the omnipresent food stalls. If you offer the dogs burritos,
or canned dog food, they will hungrily gulp it down, but offer
dry dog bones and they just sniff and walk away. The most pitiable
cases are dogs who have skin disorders, but we have seen relatively
few serious cases. We haven't seen a lot of cats," whose numbers
are apparently suppressed by the free-roaming dogs."
Melville, a longtime Michigan animal rights activist who was
the very first ANIMAL PEOPLE subscriber, repeatedly urged us
to visit and write about the Baja Animal Sanctuary--but died
of a sudden severe asthma attack on Easter 1999, just before
we did.
There are four private-practice veterinarians on Boulevard
Benito Juárez in Rosarito, whose competition may help
to encourage neutering among those who can afford to pay. But,
though Baja California is among the more affluent parts of Mexico,
affluence is relative. Dire poverty, by U.S. standards, is still
a constant presence.
Outreach to the poor, according to a 1998 article for the
Baja Sun by another local realtor, Audre Pinque, began in 1993
via Dorothy York and Veterinarians for World Animal Health,
a group of eight volunteer vets who began making annual visits
to the Templo Christiano Elim-Mexico in Colonia Santa Anita,
the village nearest to the Baja Animal Sanctuary. The small
church, for a day, became a makeshift clinic. The sanctuary
operates in a similar spirit.
PETsMART assists
Difficult though the location is, Rosarito residents find their
way out to the sanctuary often enough to have dropped off more
than 1,200 dogs and cats so far, of whom more than 80% have been
placed in new homes. Most of the rest are still in residence,
many of them likely to find new homes as soon as they seem healthy
enough to take to the PETsMART Charities Luv-A-Pet Adoption Center
in San
Diego.
The sanctuary dog population is normally within 10-20 either
way of 300; the cat population is around 55-60. Other residents
include a flock of pigeons and a hen. There are semi-isolated
facilities for dogs with skin diseases, of which mange is most
common, and cats with upper respiratory infections. Huge dogs
are scarce in the desert climate. The majority are small-to-middle-sized
mongrels, of conspicuously friendly temperament.
Conventional belief holds that keeping dogs in large groups
results in some eventually packing up and attacking the rest.
But--as at the Best Friends sanctuary in Utah, which also keeps
large groups in pens--the Baja Animal Sanctuary has had little
such trouble. Benedict has no explanation why. The dogs may
take their cue from Sabado, a large dark-muzzled, yellow-bodied
mixed-breed who seems to maintain a benign monarchy. He has
been adopted out several times, but always unsuccessfully. The
sanctuary seems to be Sabado's home of choice; he will not be
adopted out again.
Some of the free-roaming long-term residents serve as Sabado's
sentries and greeters. He seems to accept their counsel with
a nod: these folks are okay. Those need to be barked at. Who's
that coming? The sentries go to sniff. His top general is Cazador,
a German shepherd mix who was adopted to a farmer but ran back
to the shelter. Ambassadors are Tripod, who lost a leg to a
car, and Tesuku, an English sheep dog.
"The remarkable thing one notices about Mexican-born dogs,"
volunteer Stephanie Moore told ANIMAL PEOPLE, "is their sociability.
Most run in packs on the street. There are few displays of aggression."
The Baja Animal Sanctuary dogs definitely get along better
than certain since-departed volunteers. During late 1998 and
early 1999, Benedict weathered an attempted hostile takeover.
Styling herself "director," one U.S.-based ex-volunteer sent
poison pen letters to various organizations, including one that
perplexed ANIMAL PEOPLE because we had no idea what it was about.
Help, so far, has come mostly from the U.S. side of the border.
Volunteer Marie Elias, for instance, handles email communications
and newsletter production from her home in San Pedro, California.
San Diego-area volunteers Moore, Lisa Watson, Terry New, and
others bring supplies. Other volunteers haul food, take animals
to PETsMART, groom animals, and are setting up a web site.
The American helpers have at times run afoul of Mexican bureaucracy.
For example, recounts Moore, "Not long ago, the North County
Humane society generously donated a van. While a mechanic was
checking the van in Tijuana, the equivalent of the Mexican IRS
pulled it over and confiscated it. Despite having paperwork
proving ownership, Sunny did not prevail. The van now sits in
a fenced yard with other foreign-plated late-model cars, vans,
and trucks in Tijuana. No one has been able to help Sunny get
it back."
As few Rosarito residents are affluent enough to be able to
volunteer substantial time, the Baja Animal Sanctuary anticipates
relying on U.S. visitors and retirees for most hands-on help
for years to come. But since the rapidly expanding retiree population
is driving the economic growth of the region, that suggests
an increasing opportunity, rather than a problem--and, as the
community becomes more familiar with humane services, greater
Mexican involvement is sure to develop.
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