An overwhelming majority of Bristol voters rejected a question to allow wolf hybrid kennels or refuges, 269-87, in Special Town Meeting voting July 20.
“It’s not going to stop me,” Jim Doughty said in a Wednesday morning, July 21 phone interview. Doughty’s proposed Wolf Ledge Refuge led to the referendum.
“I’ll mull it over a little bit more,” Doughty said. “I had people calling me at 7 a.m. offering support.”
The opposition represents a lack of knowledge about the refuge, Doughty said. “I think a lot of it is still fear, but it’s not going to deter me.”
“It’s a shame that the people who voted against this didn’t come down here,” he said. Instead, many voters based their decisions on “hearsay and rumors,” he said.
About 190 residents signed a petition to force the vote, according to Bristol resident Carmen Salerno, Doughty’s neighbor. “Nobody that signed the petition wanted to check it out at all,” Doughty said. Salerno did not immediately respond to a message left at her home.
On July 17, Doughty hosted an open house at his nine-acre property on Poor Farm Road in Bristol where he plans to build the refuge. Doughty distributed information about the proposed refuge, including a diagram of one of the pens he plans to construct, and Doughty’s hybrids, Sasha and Koda, sat near the porch and greeted visitors.
In an interview after the open house, Doughty said about 60 people attended the event. “I would have liked more,” he said, but he was pleased by the positive reaction of many who did attend.
Belinda Dunbar, of Phoenix, Arizona and New Harbor, said she used to live next door to a wolf hybrid. “He would jump over the fence into our yard and play with my German shepherd,” Dunbar said. Far from alarming Dunbar, the frequent visits instilled a sense of admiration for the animals.
“They are so beautiful – the most calm, docile animal you ever want to see,” Dunbar said. “I hope he has good luck with them.”
Mary Peterson, of Bristol, is Doughty’s neighbor. “I just walked down… I’m just about half a mile from here,” she said.
“It’s a pity that people get so freaked out. A wolf isn’t just a predator. It also keeps the environment diverse,” Peterson said. Peterson admired Doughty’s design for the refuge. “This is better secured than some zoos would be,” she said.
In a brief break from greeting visitors in the afternoon, Doughty said a donation of five pizzas from Mediterranean Kitchen was on the way. Doughty also pointed out the boundaries of planned pens, marked off with stakes and rope.
“Anybody and everybody can see what’s going on down here. I’m not hiding anything,” he said.
In a separate vote, Bristol voters approved a measure to authorize the purchase of a $174,000 property in the Bristol Mills area for use as a park, 228-132.
