State Wardens Raid San Gabriel Wildlife Center : Animal care: Department alleges improper treatment of wild creatures. Owners vigorously deny the charges.

Nearly a dozen wardens from the California Department of Fish and Game raided the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society and Wildlife Rehabilitation Center on Saturday, alleging that the operators of the private, nonprofit facility were illegally housing and mistreating wild creatures. The owners vigorously denied the charges.

The state agents, backed up by two San Gabriel city policemen, seized 20 wild animals and birds at the center. Included were an arctic fox and a coyote that have been at the facility for years. One of the four raccoons bit a state warden as it was taken away, officials said.

Wardens said they were not taking the 275 domestic pets housed at the facility. The center is a contract animal shelter for several nearby cities. It also has a small petting zoo and sells impounded dogs and cats as pets to help finance its operations, officials said.

The center, at 851 E. Grand Ave. in San Gabriel, has been used for years by area police departments and state fish and game wardens as a refuge for lost, stray or wounded wildlife. Wardens said the facility’s wildlife permits have expired and it is no longer used by the state.

The state will seek five misdemeanor complaints against Joan Coleman, executive director of the center, and her son and assistant, John Coleman, said Lt. Joe Peci, the state department’s area supervisor.

The Colemans are being charged with operating without permits and holding animals and birds in cages that are too small to meet state regulations, Peci said. He said large hawks and owls were confined to small cages suited only for parrots or parakeets.

“I’m distraught,” Joan Coleman said in a telephone interview. “We are applying for new permits, but they (wardens) wouldn’t listen. They are taking (wild) animals that we’ve had here for 10 years or more. . . . I don’t understand it. Twice before they’ve said (the center) was OK and it was OK for us to keep (wild animals).”

According to Peci, the department had conducted a monthlong investigation of the center after getting a telephone tip that wild animals were being mistreated. Investigators found hawks and owls in cages so small they could not spread their wings, he said.

Investigators also determined that the center was not trying to return animals to the wild, as required.

The Colemans deny that this is true. They said they have a veterinarian who cares for the injured animals and they have routinely released crippled birds and animals as soon as they were healed.

Animals such as the arctic fox and coyote and several permanently crippled birds of prey have not been released because they are not capable of living in the wild, Joan Coleman said.