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| Web Address www.wolftrust.org.uk Email Address Wolf Trust |
News Release
 Wolf prey on the hill. Massive numbers of deer roam the Scottish Highlands. Courtesy Gerald & Buff Corsi, California Academy of Sciences: CalPhoto |
24 June 2003
The Wolf Trust, which is raising public awareness about wolves and promoting a wolf reintroduction to Britain, has won a year long fight with the Commissioners at the Charity Commission to change their view that "the preservation of beasts of prey or mad dogs is harmful to man."
The Charity Commission use this catch-all phrase - from a legal trial held in Edwardian England - to deny conservation organisations involved with 'beasts of prey or mad dogs', ie predators, the right to register as charities, thereby cutting them off from vital potential sources of funding for their work (most foundations and companies only donate to registered charities).
After two detailed appeals by the Wolf Trust, the Commissioners have decided to leap into the 21st century. They admit that "in the context of a modern society...the conservation of dangerous animals is capable in appropriate circumstances of being a charitable purpose." So wolves apparently are not harmful to man after all - and coming from a Government quango that makes it official.
So it would seem the way is open for conservation and welfare bodies involved with 'beasts of prey or mad dogs' to reapply to the Charity Commission to gain charitable registration.
Unfortunately, in practice the Commissioners are still stuck in the same groove: they still refuse to register the Wolf Trust. The Commissioners have come up with a new - and spurious - barrier: they now claim the Wolf Trust is a political organisation seeking a wolf reintroduction as "an end in itself" and therefore still refuse to register it.
Even so, Ben Panaman, the founder and director of the Wolf Trust, optimistically says, "The idea of wolves living in Britain, after they were exterminated by man 300 year ago, is already beginning to change attitudes - even if the practice of large carnivore conservation in Britain is having a difficult birth."
The Wolf Trust is continuing to battle the Charity Commission for registration and has appealed to the Parliamentary Ombudsman on grounds of maladministration by the Commissioners.
The Wolf Trust promotes education about wolves and their reintroduction and recovery to Britain. The Trust is currently raising funds to buy land in the Scottish Highlands to open a centre for public education about wolves.
Wolf Trust, Ben Panaman, director
email: info@wolftrust.org.uk
website: www.wolftrust.org.uk
Charity Commission final judgement on the Wolf Trust.
 Page revised 6.03 |