In the United States, where DSF is based, much of the Foundation’s energy is focused upon two sanctuaries for domestic and wild species in California. These encompass approximately 1,000 acres. DSF is also engaged in a number of exciting educational and research initiatives and partnerships throughout the country.

The underlying thrust of this work concerns animal protection, the saving of lives, the compassion and sound conservation strategies required to help restore healthy, free populations of rare and endangered species and safeguard precious habitat for all creatures.

At the core of these endeavors and diverse approaches to conservation is the belief that Americans are blessed with a remarkable biological heritage and it is this generation’s challenge as good stewards and informed ecological citizens to do everything in our power to help preserve this remarkable gift that is biodiversity and the joyous fellowship of other animals.

Recent efforts and collaborations toward this end include research and documentation at:

For more information:

> Camp Pendleton
> Sequoia National Park
> DSF Sanctuaries
> Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge
> Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
> Central Park, New York City
> Farm Sanctuary, upstate New York

Because Dancing Star Foundation is an Operating Foundation, operating its own sanctuaries, it is able to provide very few grants and accepts no unsolicited grant proposals.

In past years, however, the Foundation has on occasion given modest grants and donations as contributions to other non-profit entities that are making extraordinary strides to help habitat and biodiversity. These include two years of assistance and consultation in Russia with one of the few animal sanctuaries in that country, a small oasis in the midst of serious turmoil, where over 500 dogs, cats, and several native owls were being rescued and treated by a dedicated staff; the new Portuguese native donkey sanctuary working to save from extinction a unique breed of equine, the Miranda; a donkey sanctuary in India; and a dog sanctuary in Bhutan, located on nearly three acres of land owned by the National Biodiversity Centre, and operated under the auspices of the Bhutan Trust. The Foundation has also made other small grants in New Zealand, as well as providing modest honoraria for its deeply appreciated DSF Research Fellows.

For more information:

> Royal Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (RSPCA), Bhutan
> Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation

Also, the Foundation’s own in-house research and documentation has been effectively leveraged to help collaborating scientists in the field who work with DSF, such as a small research project to survey an endangered primate species by university scientists in northeastern Brazil, and an expedition to survey a rarely explored region of high biodiversity value in southern India.

DSF has funded international conferences, such as its November 2006 “Translocation Workshop” (See Archives) which it conducted in partnership with the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust of New Zealand. DSF also developed and funded for five consecutive years its “Island Fest” (See Archives) which brought many of the greatest conservationists, nature artists and filmmakers from throughout New Zealand to Stewart Island/Rakiura for free public lectures, films and workshops. The first year’s Festival was six days and nights of presentations, and the last two years’ festivals were done in collaboration with the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, in Invercargill.

DSF has provided other presentations, lectures and screenings in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Bhutan (where the very first screening of part of its feature film, “Hotspots” took place.)

Wat Phra Keo, the King’s Grand Palace in Bangkok, with its famed Emerald Buddha sculpture, provides a haunting window on the challenges facing Thai ecologists. Near this epicenter of international and domestic Buddhist pilgrimage is the Chactuchak Market, notorious for being a center of the illegal wildlife trade.

While there are nearly 409 protected areas in Thailand, representing approximately 20% of the country’s terrestrial extent, the number of Threatened species is very high. Of the 302 known species of mammal, for example, at least 37 are in trouble. Rapid development in the country has long been viewed as one of the great international biodiversity emergencies. Along with China, Thailand proffers a vision of stereotypical runaway Asian consumerism, as they rush to catch up with the Western model. As of 1987, no large wild mammal has survived outside a national park in Thailand.

Yet, another vision also hovers about Thai life that can be gleaned from the remarkable spirit and artistic array of Wat Phra Keo. Here are reminders of traditional Thai Buddhist life so steeped in reverence for the natural world. Such cultural and economic conflicts, emblematic of the ambiguities of the 19th through 21st centuries, could provide critical wake-up calls. Wat Phra Keo offers the opportunity for recognition of our ability as a species to focus on wildness and to celebrate the beauty and sacredness of the natural world. This precious place is celebrated in the book Sanctuary.

For more information:

> Wat Phra Kaew: Sacred Destination in Bangkok

> Bangkok for Visitors: travel resource

> Thailand Guide Book

DSF filmed extensively throughout England and Scotland for its feature documentary, “Mad Cowboy”, beginning at Hastings, where host, Howard Lyman’s ancestors arrived over nine hundred years ago to engage in a grim battle wielding sword and spear. Today’s battles, says Howard, are waged with a fork.

In tracking the terrible disease commonly referred to as Mad Cow Disease, DSF interviewed farmers throughout the British countryside as they described the horrors associated with massive disease outbreaks among their herds.

Most poignant of all were the many parents who spoke to us on camera of the deaths of their children from New Variant CJD, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Mad Cow Disease’s human form. Great Britain is where the first cases of this fatal illness were first documented, after years of denial by the British government. In Edinburgh, we went to the national center of research where scientists are continuing to track the disease and study its elusive incubation period. The youngest person as yet to contact the disease did so at the age of twelve and was dead two years later.

Crossing the animal-to-human barrier, such transmissible diseases force humanity to reassess its culinary priorities and agricultural practices. To underscore the reality of modern day factory farming, versus organic, holistic small-scale family farming, the DSF film team visited the town of Dunbar Scotland, birthplace of John Muir. Muir’s early years were imprinted with the pastoralist sensibility of this gorgeous countryside overlooking the sea, near important seabird colonies and steeped in the century’s old traditions of country farming.

Today, that legacy has been replaced by systems no longer in harmony with nature. Confronted with the prospect of continued abuse and cruelty towards farm animals globally, philosopher and Professor Tom Regan, Ph.D., speaks eloquently of the power and promise of activism that seeks to effect important, positive change for the world. Regan says at the end of the film, “How do you get up in the morning in the face of the news that you’re readings that things are getting worse? And here I think is where we can turn to history for encouragement and instruction. If we look at how Native American people were once feared and treated by the conquistadores, when they were not even viewed as human beings: it’s unthinkable today. And when we look at slavery in America, when you could buy and sell and beat with impunity people of African descent: unthinkable today. When women couldn’t divorce or own property or get an education or vote: unthinkable today. What history teaches us is that a few good people who are determined and who are persistent, who don’t give up, can change the world. So what we have to believe as activists is that we’re not going to do this tomorrow. The wall of oppression has to be taken apart a brick at a time. When we get a critical mass of people, change will occur. That’s how I go to sleep at night, that’s how I get up the next morning, that’s my faith.”

For more information:

> Mad Cowboy website