QUILCENE — The bison have arrived in Texas.
Center Valley Animal Rescue of Quilcene obtained ownership of the eight bison at the center of the animal cruelty trial that begins today, and director Sara Penhallegon immediately transferred seven of them to the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Texas, southeast of Dallas.
“Everything went well,” said Sara Penhallegon, director of Center Valley Animal Rescue in Quilcene.
Soon after they arrived, “they were mellow, roaming around the pasture,” she said.
After a quarantine period, they will be put in a 20-acre pasture where they will meet other bison.
The ranch has a herd of nine bison already.
An auction was held Friday at Center Valley Animal Rescue (CVAR), and one person from the public attended but did not have the required $15,000 minimum bid, Penhallegon said.
Dr. Jan Richards, a CVAR board member, opened the auction with the minimum bid on behalf of the nonprofit organization. The other person who attended was allowed to watch the process, Penhallegon said.
“[Richards] was the only bidder, so Center Valley Animal Rescue now owns the bison, and they are literally on their way to Texas now,” Penhallegon said Friday afternoon.
Earlier in the week, Penhallegon and her husband drove to Faith, S.D., with the remaining two adult bison that were not initially loaded onto a trailer on Sept. 26. They alternated drivers and went straight through, making the 1,260-mile trip in about 25½ hours, she said.
“We stopped once for breakfast — that’s it,” Penhallegon said.
They wanted to drive through Yellowstone on their way back, but a snowstorm in the area shut down the main entrance. Penhallegon said they were able to stop in Sturgis and Deadwood in South Dakota and walk around for about 45 minutes in each town.
The bison were transported to South Dakota as a holding area because they had grown to be too dangerous to be held on the Quilcene grounds, Penhallegon said.
Judge Keith Harper of the Jefferson County Superior Court ruled in September the bison no longer had to be held at CVAR after Penhallegon testified they had caused $60,000 to $70,000 in damages to the facility.
Penhallegon wanted to send the seven adult bison directly to the Texas ranch, but CVAR didn’t own the animals and couldn’t transfer their rights. The county had seized the animals from the Chimacum farm of Denver Lee Shoop, 73, in April 2018.
CVAR placed a lien on the animals and started the foreclosure process in order to hold an auction, after which the winner would own the bison.
Penhallegon said the seven animals were loaded onto a trailer in South Dakota within two hours and started their final 1,150-mile journey to Texas, expected to take about 18 hours.
“They got the longest stretch under the belts now, and they’re on the home stretch,” she said Friday.
“Black Beauty Ranch sounds like they’re pretty excited to get them, and I’m excited for all of them to live out the rest of their lives there,” she said.
The eighth bison, Tatanka, is a younger male still in Quilcene. Penhallegon said he didn’t acclimate well when he was sent with the rest of the adults to a farm in Washougal last winter.
“At this moment, we don’t have other options,” she said. “He’s not an animal we can adopt out.
“He’s in need of sanctuary, and I definitely have concerns about housing an animal that can get up to 2,000 pounds.”
Penhallegon adopted a jersey steer, Benson, from the Washougal farm as a companion for Tatanka.
“He’s got plenty of companionship when he’s not tearing my gates and my fences apart,” Penhallegon said of Tatanka. “He’s quite happy here. Who am I to say he can’t stay?”
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Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 6, or at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
