Sled Dog Watchdog - 'Shooting Rudolph'

NDP Press Release, May 21, 2005: 'Public deserves an explanation for stealthy reindeer
slaughter'

The leader of the Official Opposition says Environment minister Peter Jenkins and Premier Dennis
Fentie must provide a full disclosure of all the events leading up to this morning’s secretive mission
to start slaughtering more than 50 reindeer, including newborn calves.

“It’s deplorable when a government resorts to stealth, doing something like this at dawn on the first
day of a long weekend to try to avoid public scrutiny,” Todd Hardy said. “Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Fentie
have taken this government’s culture of secrecy to a new low, and they must be called on it.”

About five a.m., a team of conservation officers and wildlife technicians, led by the department’s
deputy minister, Ed Huebert, began herding the reindeer toward a small enclosure to be shot. Cows
who had given birth just hours before were running around desperately bawling for their calves. At
least one calf was believed to have been trampled in the confusion.

“I can’t believe the insensitivity of this government, not just to the reindeer, but also to Tim and
Stella Gregory, who looked after them every day for the past 18 years,” Hardy said. “Stella was still
supervising their feeding, but nobody had the courtesy to even tell them what was being planned.”
Hardy spent Friday evening with the Gregorys after receiving a confidential tip about the planned
slaughter. Early this morning, he returned to the Mayo Road paddock where the government has
held the reindeer since the end of March, to seek answers from Huebert and other officials.

“The government claims it had to destroy the herd after Johne’s disease was found in a few animals
that were put down last month,” Hardy said. “Yet when Johne’s was found at the government owned
Yukon Wildlife Preserve, it didn’t kill all the animals. Why the double standard?”

Hardy said it seems like more than just a “convenient coincidence” that the move happened after
the legislature closed, and just after a plan to ship the animals to Alberta apparently fell through.
“They had the test results on Monday, and possibly earlier, so why did they keep them secret and
then act in such an underhanded way?” he asked. “It’s hard to trust this government when the
minister and the premier have repeatedly broken their word to the Gregorys and deliberately
misrepresented the facts, both inside the legislature and outside.”

Hardy called the slaughter a “heartbreaking end” to an issue the Yukon Party government has
bungled from the beginning. “People – and animals – deserve to be treated with dignity. That lesson
seems to be lost on Mr. Fentie and Mr. Jenkins.”

Ref. link: http://www.ndpcaucusyukon.ca/news/pdfs/2005-05-21%20NDP%20Release.pdf

'Shooting Rudolph' [Excerpt from CBC Yukon news story]

The Yukon Party government also became entangled in a controversy over its handling of a reindeer
herd.

The territory struggled for years to develop regulations to manage wildlife and wild meat producers,
before Fentie's government introduced a new Wildlife Act in 2004. The act allowed people to raise wild
animals but banned the sale of wildlife.

The legislation created a catch-22 situation for Tim and Stella Gregory, who owned the Northern
Splendor Reindeer Farm north of Whitehorse. They had a herd of 56 reindeer, but new legislation left
them with no way to raise funds to feed them, since they couldn't sell the animals or their meat.

The Gregorys demanded $1 million in compensation from the territorial government or threatened to
release the animals to the wild. After much negotiation and public debate, the government agreed to
take over the herd in March 2005.

Government biologists then discovered that the animals had Johne's disease, a debilitating and
infectious sickness they feared would spread in the wild. In May 2005, the government secretly
rounded up the animals and shot them one by one.

But it also shot itself in the foot. The Gregorys and many members of the public were appalled by the
move, condemning Fentie's government for what they described as a backhanded and cruel way of
dealing with what had started as a problem with bureaucratic red tape. Officials insisted they had no
choice but to slaughter the animals to protect wild herds.

In 2006, to mark the anniversary of the slaughter, the Gregorys took out memorial ads in local papers
remembering their herd … showing the issue has yet to be forgotten by the public.

'Reindeer slaugher bound for court'
Graeme McElheran - Yukon News, April 19, 2006

Stella and Tim Gregory are suing the Yukon government.

The former owners of the Northern Splendour Reindeer herd filed their claim last week, alleging
damages for “unlawful appropriation” of the 56 reindeer and “interference with their economic
interests,” according to Yukon Supreme Court documents.

The Gregorys are claiming that the “unlawful slaughter of the plaintiff’s reindeer herd, which was
carried out in an inhumane manner such that it caused nervous shock and mental anguish to the
plaintiff Stella Gregory.”

For several years the Gregorys struggled to pay for feed for the reindeer after the former Liberal
government changed the wording of the Yukon Wildlife Act, making the sale or possession of wildlife
illegal, they said.

The Gregorys wrestled with the territorial government, insisting it pay for the reindeer, as it paid more
than $2 million for the privately held Yukon Game Farm, now known as the Yukon Wildlife Preserve.

They threatened to release their animals into the wild. Environment officials took possession of the
reindeer in March 2005 and kept them in a holding paddock near Mile 10 of the North Klondike
Highway.

Three sickly-looking reindeer were culled, their tissues sent to a Saskatchewan laboratory for testing.

Then-Environment minister Peter Jenkins announced in April 2005 that the Gregorys were seeking
$1.17 million in compensation for the herd, a number the Gregorys would not confirm.

In May, government officials received positive test results from the culled deer for Johne’s disease, an
incurable wasting illness that inflames the lower intestines and cripples digestion, essentially starving
the afflicted animal to death.

On the advice of several government biologists and with undocumented cabinet authorization,
Environment officials slaughtered the entire herd, shooting 52 of the adult reindeer and bludgeoning
four newborns to death.

“It was a tragedy and very disgusting, what the government did,” said Stella Gregory, who was present
during the slaughter.

“It devastates us each and every day, for the animals’ sake,” said Gregory on Tuesday.

“The rest will be dealt with through the lawyers.”

Gregory wouldn’t say how much monetary compensation she is seeking.

The lawsuit names the Yukon government and the Environment minister as defendants.

But its not clear if the Environment minister in question would be Jenkins or Premier Dennis Fentie,
who assumed the portfolio after he expelled Jenkins from caucus last November.

“Our issue has concluded and there is nothing else I can say on the matter until the courts have
concluded their business,” said Fentie.

“I won’t be responding to (the lawsuit). That’s in the courts, that’s up to the justice system.

“Decisions were made by experts. The public always has the right to avail themselves of the justice
system, and, in this case, the individuals in question have.”

Despite repeated assurances from government officials before the slaughter and a government-funded
appraisal to determine the value of the herd, the Gregorys have never received any compensation for
the reindeer.

Blog posting by Mike Grieco - Mike placed the following ad in Whitehorse newspapers on
the second 'Anniversary' of the reindeer killing:

**IN MEMORY of the NORTHERN SPLENDOR REINDEER**

Kohl, Lucy, Herlynn, Lanena, Kaymintigo, Tekamah, Marron, Shanette, Tielzora, Deya,
Klarjaza, Knika, Kruger, Toyak, Muffin, Key-Ricket, Morton, Dolen, Dundee, Calista,
Kohdana, Elmo, Flint, Kirvin, Reylynn, Largo, Kaymint, Merienet, Terrell, Norgrid, Kedra,
Arcadia, Keganie, Misty, Rissa, Ruskin, Glory, Kelet, Leasha, Cheska ,Laurantha, Lazzora,
Laurisa, Tarkio, Kreasha, Latesha, That's Kizzy, Miracle, Myla-Bell, Paynor, Olney, Rosita,
Aspen, Fly-En-Cricket, Janine, Valentine, Lewis, Dicey Call, Teeka

** Rest in Peace...**

The Massacre of May 21,2005!!

*Such an 'atrocity' could only take place on a beautiful day in May by a "disease" called man. The
reindeer were chased around in a enclosure and shot to death and four calves were bludgeoned to
death. This took over 20 hours by this group of men. WHAT CENTURY ARE WE IN? Also Canada's
main police force, the R.C.M.P was on high alert to STOP any 'Animal Rights' activists from getting
involved in helping the Reindeer (it is crime to help another creature)...there is more to this sad story,
but i too would like to smile. Enough for now.

The dept this group of "wildlife experts" represent, went on record on the radio justifying a "wild" deer
hunt based on road kill. Ya really, no joke. And of course they had other excuses, called "wildlife
management".

["Let the public decide what kind of logic is at work here. I am sure the word pretzel will surface." -
Kevin Sinclair, Whitehorse]

*Well, even on the cloudiest/darkest days, we must remember that the sun will appear again to
*SHINE-ON* :) :) :)

Mike Grieco, Whitehorse
http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2007/09/on-deer-hunting.html

[Ed. Note] The Northern Splendor Reindeer Farm is no longer operating since the
reindeer herd was massacred in May, 2005 - no animals are kept, the website and the
information on it is very out of date.
http://www.yukonweb.com/business/reindeer.htmld/