Tres Orejas Community Website

So it’s pretty clear that “Taos Mesa Animal Sanctuary” is operating out of a couple of buses. Someone shared one of their facebook posts and their cat space seen from the inside is obviously the inside of the school bus which is just outside of the photo I put in the last post so the one in the photo is likely another shelter space. It doesn’t look like cats could be left in the bus when the weather is hot, so I have to assume that they get to wander around outside. The dogs definitely are, that’s been confirmed by one of the neighbors. While that’s a good thing for the dogs and cats in that they aren’t confined in cages, it’s not such a good thing for the neighbors and it’s far from the best situation for the animals. This is a community of 1/4 acre lots and most people here have an acre or two at most with lots of residents owning just the one 1/4 acre that they live on. Tres Orejas is fairly densely populated for a rural area due to this. Those animals are definitely going to interact with the neighbors and any pets they may have.

So lets get to the lies part of my clickbait title. I’ve been forwarded some of what’s been said by a member of the board of directors of the sanctuary. They accused the neighbors who opposed the sanctuary of threatening physical violence and said they hired extra security at their fundraiser due to this. Nothing could be more absurd. As much as they might not like their neighbor and what she’s doing, this a group of middle aged to elderly women who, from what I’ve observed, are all suffering from PTSD in varying degrees that seems to be in proportion to how close they live to the sanctuary’s founder. They are upset with her for the land grab she’s trying to pull off, making the land being grabbed an animal shelter without the real capacity for it or the consent of the neighbors just adds to the aggravation. These are the elders of our community that are being defamed with false accusations. The other thing that really struck me in what I read is that the sanctuary board member was really upset that the location was made public and that there were “known squatters and drug addicts” in the area that were a threat to the animals. The most widely known squatter in the area is the founder of the sanctuary. She’s been squatting on the property for the last 20 years. Are they accusing themselves? As for the drug addicts, yes we have some in the community but for all the problems they have, animal abuse isn’t one of them. One direct quote: “The board members and directors of TMAS no longer feel comfortable leaving the animals unattended…we can no longer service these animals without someone remaining on-site to watch the premises”.  Just viewing the situation in general, those animals should have never been left unattended in the first place. Not only could dogs running loose get into fights with other peoples dogs, there are lots of coyotes around here. It’s a rough and wild area in a lot of ways and they’re bringing in animals that might never have lived in an environment with natural predators. Really, sheltering animals, even in this way, should require someone on site at all times as a matter of course. The potential problems go both ways. They could easily bring in a dog with issues that bites someone if left unattended. I wonder if they have liability insurance or can even get it since they don’t own the property that the sanctuary is on.

To sum it up, no one is attacking them for rescuing abandoned animals. No one is threatening them physically. What got “attacked” was the misrepresentation in their fundraiser and that was strictly in the realm of information and publicity. The main part of that was making the general public of Taos aware that the site of the “Taos Mesa Animal Sanctuary” is currently under litigation in what most of us consider to be an unscrupulous land grab. That the location of the sanctuary got revealed and that its facility is a couple of school buses is just an unintended consequence but if an animal shelter feels it has to keep its location secret, that’s a sign that somethings not right with it in the first place.