Saving camels, porcupines and kangaroos
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Agua Dulce:
On her website, Tia Torres describes her 10-acre rescue compound for pit bulls off Sierra Highway a soothing refuge where dogs “who have suffered in silence will never hear another gun shot or the siren of a pursuing car.” But Sunday night, she and her 175 dogs had other scourges to battle -- fire and wind.
Shortly before midnight Sunday, the fire came within a mile of her Villalobos Rescue Center, she estimates, then passed by, moving south. Still, it came close enough to a smaller refuge she runs, also in Agua Dulce, that she decided to evacuate. She easily herded 15 pit bulls into crates. “They’re happy; they don’t care,” she said of her pooches on Monday morning.
More difficult was the task of rounding up a friend’s several wolves at a Vasquez Canyon location. “The wolves panic. We had to chase them into kennels,” Torres said.
The Agua Dulce area is filled with ranches and devoted owners of pets and exotic animals. “In this community, animals get taken out first,” says Torres, a well known pit bull rescuer and trainer.
And when fire whips up, everyone jumps in to help everyone else. “You don’t have to make any calls,” Torres says. “People just show up with vans, trucks, trailers.”
That’s why it was frustating when sheriff’s deputies prevented her from going up to a neighbor’s exotic animal compound. “I know one guy in Vasquez Canyon who has kangaroos, porcupines and camels. He does work in the film industry. The firefighters wouldn’t let him back in. They said Animal Control would take care of it. I said, ‘Really?’ Animal control is not equipped to deal with that. I saw county Animal Control zooming around in their little white truck. Where are you going to put a camel in that truck?”
-- Carla Hall
