Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 13:55:39 +0900
From: greg leisure <greg_leis@ybb.ne.jp>
To: greg leisure <greg_leis@ybb.ne.jp>
Subject: KEI THE WOLF: Address and Update


Topic:

Kei is a 13 year old female North American Eastern Timber Wolf who
has lived virtually her entire life on a 7 x 4 meter concrete slab in
almost total isolation from others of her species at the Okinawa City
Kodomo no Kuni Zoo in Okinawa, Japan. There, she is routinely barked
and howled at and spends most of her time pacing in the hot sub-
tropical climate of Okinawa.


============================================

Address and Update:

Hello Everyone,

Welcome all new supporters.
The status of Kei has not changed. The zoo has still not agreed to
let her go.


As you know, I went to the zoo at the end of July. Well, Kei looked
in horrible condition. Actually, I thought she was going to die
right then in front of us. It broke my heart. She would struggle to
get up and take about 4 steps on wobbly legs like a newly born deer,
and then circle around and flop down to the ground. Then she`d let
out a terrible whining howl. Then she`d lay her head on the ground
and get convulsions. The convulsions is what scared me and made me
think she was near death. It was sad. I stood there for an hour and
just watched her do the same thing over and over.

I got still pics and shorts of it. During these last 2 months I have
just been not knowing what to do from here. Listen, we could
continue the campaign as it is, but there is no way the zoo will even
consider letting her go now, seeing how bad she is. And you know
what? -- She wouldn`t even make it to the airport in a crate in the
condition she is in now. Also, she couldn`t be sent to any of the
sanctuaries now because of the onset of winter and she didn`t have a
chance to put on a winter coat or adjust to that climate slowly in
the summer.

I am sure this will be the last summer she makes it through. With
cooler weather coming on, she may make it to next spring, but there
is no way she will survive another Okinawan summer. We are looking
at Kei in her final months here with us.

But, we have nearly 800 persons between the Care2 site and Kei`s
official databank who are very concerned about her and who have been
following her. It is because of this large number we were able to
move the zoo to improve her enclosure, which they did and thus giving
her a somewhat bettter place to end her days in. This never would
have happened if we had never pounded the zoo and Peta and other
groups to help out. Which they did along with many others.

So, with our strenth of one voice wrapped in 800 people lasering in
on this zoo, what do we do? Where do we go from now? If you all
want, we can still continue calling for her release, but I think that
is futile at the moment for the two reasons I just stated: (1) The
zoo won`t release her due to her age, and (2) She wouldn`t survive to
the airport in anykind of holding crate.

But, this zoo is sensitive to many people targeting it since they did
improve her enclosure. And, if we had started on Kei 5 years ago, we
would have had a much better chance at success. When I first started
the campaign a little under a year ago, Kei was still very healthy.
If you go to her site and see her flash animation of her pacing, that
was taken in December or January and Sam speeded it up just a
little. She has deteriorated considerably since then -- like night
and day.

If it had been successful in the early stages and she was retired to
the U.S., then we would have been able to give her that last year in
the home of her ancestors. But that is not going to happen now
because of the stubborness of the zoo.

I was wondering, and I hope you all agree, that we could just keep
pressure on this zoo by calling for more improvements in her
treatment and to her enclosure -- to ease her into her final days--
you know, to make her as comfortable as possible. She deserves it
and she deserves to have people by her side in spirit as she leaves
us -- to not be abandoned. I would like the campaign to move in that
direction.

I would also like the campaign to stay alive to keep pressure on this
zoo to keep them from getting elephants. We have Born Free
Foundation working really hard on preventing this. With our numbers
and Born Free Foundation, we can do that quite successfully I feel.

I would also like to target a new animal for plucking away from them
-- one that isn`t so old near death, like KKei is now, which would let
us move without being in a time crunch. I was thinking about making
the chimpanzees the next choice.

I hate to say it, but soon Kei`s site will be a site of rememberance,
and an obituary may soon have to be written by me. But, you know
what, I think that her campaign was not only about her. It was about
all the animals in this terrible zoo. She was the face of their
depraved existance. It would honor her if we could bestow the rescue
of one of her fellow prisoners with freedom, even though we were not
successful at doing it with her.

Now, I know we all have our separate lives to live and our own local
animal projects we are involved in. And I know we are all so busy and
hurting for time. But, targeting a place whose directors and
managers aren`t really savy enough to know that they shouldn`t take
calls from activists is a good fight to choose and pick. And
remember, I have never been the type of campaign organizer that put
harsh demands on your time that you volunteered. I never farmed your
names out to junk mailings and I have never solicited money. I am
proud of the way I`ve run it and hope that no one ever thinks I was
trying to gain anything for myself. I`ve only asked for a few spare
moments a day or a week that someone could spare by shooting off a
message or two.

That said, I`d like to ask you to stay with our efforts of keeping
this disgraceful place under scrutiny. You guys have really gone the
extra distance for a long time. I just want you to know how much
I`ve appreciated all your support.

Again, sorry about the time it has taken for me to get this to you.
I`ve just been really knotted up over how to proceed from that last
visit and didn`t want to mislead or say the wrong thing before making
the best choice which everyone deserves to know as soon as I was
certain. I`ve gone over it a thousand times in my head with sleepless
nights over it -- often worrying about how you guys would react.

So, this message update is not really asking for some particular
action from Kei supporters. It is just informing everyone that the
campaign will take on a slightly new direction. I will send out a
new action message in the future asking you to write for something in
particular for Kei`s improvement of her situation.

When Kei passes, I will quickly let everyone know. Until then, I
hope we can watch her as she leaves us, knowing that she didn`t live,
and didn`t leave unnoticed.


Greg

Okinawa, Japan
www.keithewolf.com

P.S. I was also thinking we could do something like we did last year
for Kei to show her and the zoo that so many people around the world
have noticed her and won`t ever forget her. Last year we had
everyone send X-mas cards addressed to Kei. We started that campaign
rather late (mid November) and she only got around 100 cards. But
that was when we only had like 60 or 70 members. It would be nice to
start that now for her this year and let the zoo get 1000 cards this
time. So, start thinking about who you could ask to send Kei cards
and prepare a few yourself. I will ask a Junior High School Club who
is working with the zoo to help some of the animals to ask Mr. Higa
and Mr. Nishikawa to hang Kei`s cards around her enclosure on X-mas
or New Years or display them somewhere so that many can see that
people from all over the world care for her.