I am glad people share our feelings in regards to the decision not to release Lena, as she is a prime candidate for living in the wild. This is what we do, we raise injured/orphaned animals and return them to the wild. In 16 years of existence we have been denied that route only three times, once with a litter of wolves, once with grizzly cubs and now with Lena. We do everything we can on our end to ensure that the animals we care for are ready to take on life in the wild. There are no guarantees that they are going to make it, but at least we give them a fair chance. The Ministry of Environment decided from the start that they would not want to release Helena. Regardless we prepared her for a life in the wild, hoping we could change there minds. But it was not to be, the answer remains "No"! So now we have a dilemma, the cat is not habituated to humans, she is very shy and gets extremely stressed out when confronted with people she doesn't know. A life on display would be torture and we are not willing to kill her either. So we are trying the only solution that is left, raising the funds to give her a home in a remote corner of our property. If we can raise more funds, we will certainly make the enclosure bigger and we are hoping that we can do so, but at least she has a chance at a life this way. We would applaud any effort to change the rehabilitation rules for so called dangerous wildlife, which includes wolves, grizzlies and cougars.
Angelika Langen
Northern Lights Wildlife Society