Wish Foundation to Reexamine Policies

Buffeted by objections from animal rights groups and some of its own national chapters, the Make-A-Wish Foundation on Tuesday said that it will reevaluate its policies to avoid another controversy like the one surrounding a dying boy whose desire is to shoot a Kodiak bear.

The nonprofit foundation’s promise that “our wishes are only limited to the child’s imagination” came back to haunt it a week ago when animal rights activists learned that the Minneapolis teenager’s dream of stalking a big bear in Alaska was being fulfilled.

Seventeen-year-old Erik, whose last name is being withheld, suffers from a brain tumor. To assist in his quest, he has received a rifle and outfitter from the Safari Club International, as well as donated airline tickets and taxidermy services.

Critics across the nation, including the officers of foundation chapters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver, have been pleading for the hunt to be called off--and for new guidelines prohibiting the granting of any wish involving cruelty to animals.

In what has become a public relations nightmare, entertainers including Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Nealon and Earl Holliman--all of whom have supported the foundation--also are criticizing the fulfillment of this particular wish.

Stopping the 10-day hunt is out of the question, said Douglas Elmets, one of 25 directors of the Phoenix-based organization that has granted 38,000 wishes since it was established in 1980.

“We have made a commitment to this young man,” he said. “Who is going to look him in the eye and tell him, ‘No. We are not going to grant your wish after all?’ ”

However, Elmets added, “we understand the concerns of animal rights organizations and others over the granting of a wish of this nature.

“We will certainly review our policy . . . at some point in the very near future. We want to get this situation behind us and look to the future.”

For right now, Elmets said, “we want this young man to have a good time--have the wish of his lifetime. And we hope people can have some respect for his childhood dream.”

Animal rights advocates reacted to the announcement with mixed emotions.

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“Spectacular. That’s what we’ve been urging them to do,” said John Grandy, a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States. “That they are going to reevaluate their policies is a recognition that, for a foundation committed to charity, this is a terrible blunder.”

But Lisa Agabian of the Ark Trust Inc., a Sherman Oaks-based organization, said: “It’s not quite enough.

“We want them to issue a public apology for the actions of their Minneapolis chapter, which granted this wish, and to disenfranchise them unless they are willing to publicly adopt the foundation’s new policies.”