Oregon / owners forced to sell wolf sanctuary
March
31, 2010
By John Darling
for the Mail Tribune
WILLIAMS —
In the middle of declining tours and donations and an expensive battle
with cancer, the owners of Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary have fallen
$30,000 behind on house payments and they face a July 9 auction of their
home.
The sanctuary's trailer is now occupied by a volunteer
caretaker couple. Whoever buys the sanctuary property must agree to care
for its 20 wolves, rescued from illegal fur farms, illegal Internet
sales and from people who kept them illegally as pets.
"They have
a lot of medical problems," he says. "They were abused. They have to be
fed, cared for and their pens cleaned on a 24-hour basis."
http:......../......../........www.........mailtribune.........com/........apps/........pbcs.........dll/........article?........AID=......../........20100331/........NEWS/........3310314/....-1/COMM08
WILLIAMS
— In the middle of declining tours and donations and an expensive
battle with cancer, the owners of Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary have
fallen $30,000 behind on house payments and they face a July 9 auction
of their home.
Charlie and Sherrie LaBat say they have been using
all of their small Social Security and pension income to support the
wolves and maintain the 14-acre sanctuary property across the road from
their home.
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* Howling Acres
"The
wolves come first," says Charlie LaBat. "The main thing is to keep them
going. They have nowhere else to go."
The LaBats are selling the
sanctuary at 555 Davidson Road and a three-bedroom mobile home on site
for $400,000, reduced from $575,000, according to their Web site, www...howlingacres...org,
but they say they will drop that figure further for interested buyers.
Facing
health problems, the couple say they want to retire on the coast.
"It's
stressful when the house is in foreclosure," says Sherrie LaBat, 50.
"We have no place to live. We have no money, just the Social Security
and pension and it's not much."
She has osteoporosis and just
finished chemotherapy for leukemia, leaving them owing $69,000 in
medical bills. Their health insurance policy runs just two more months,
he says.
A home health nurse, Sherrie has not been able to work
during her illness. In addition, donations to the sanctuary in the sour
economy have declined from a high of $45,000 a year to $400 for the
first quarter of this year, Charlie says.
"Donations were down
last year and tours have dropped quite a bit," he says. "Everything
seemed to drop on us."
The couple is upside-down on their home,
which sits on 13 acres. They bought it for $495,000. It's been
reassessed at $198,000, with a $280,000 mortgage, Charlie says. They
started getting behind on payments last May and the mortgage company, he
says, has declined to renegotiate terms during the recession.
The
LaBats say they do not plan to declare bankruptcy.
The
sanctuary's trailer is now occupied by a volunteer caretaker couple.
Whoever buys the sanctuary property must agree to care for its 20
wolves, rescued from illegal fur farms, illegal Internet sales and from
people who kept them illegally as pets.
"They have a lot of
medical problems," he says. "They were abused. They have to be fed,
cared for and their pens cleaned on a 24-hour basis."
The Web
site says the LaBats will carry $160,000 of the sanctuary sale price at 4
percent interest.
All permits with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture are current, he says, and the 10-foot fence around each wolf
compound, as required by the agency, is in good repair.
The
LaBats are reachable at 541-846-8962.
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