Protecting and Rescuing Animals Around the World

This holiday season, bring joy and meaning to your loved ones by choosing a Gift for Animals. Each gift amount under $75 comes with a stylish pen and pencil set bearing the IFAW logo. For each gift amount over $75 recipients are shipped an attractive IFAW canvas tote bag. Every gift is also accompanied by an attractive animal gift card and color brochure.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare, or IFAW, became known around the world in the 1960s and 1970s as it led the fight to stop the cruel slaughter of Canadian seal pups. From the outset, the founders of IFAW rejected the notion that the interests of humans and animals were separate. Instead they embraced the understanding that the fate and future of all animals on Earth are inextricably linked to our own.

Today, with offices in 15 countries, IFAW is the world’s leading animal welfare organization, preserving species and protecting habitat, rescuing animals in distress, and providing them shelter and rehabilitation. Positive results of IFAW’s work can be seen on every continent and in more than 60 countries around the world.

IFAW fights for animals through direct rescues, by funding protected habitats, by working closely with decision makers who have the power to end animal cruelty, and through public education programs.

Of every dollar spent around the world during the past three years, more than 83 cents went directly to animal welfare programs and institutional costs, so you know your contributions are helping to stop animal suffering!

Animal protection and restoration may be difficult, but it is not impossible. Winning the fight to preserve and protect animals is up to all of us. It is a bold fight we cannot afford to lose. Together we will continue to make it happen - through worldwide advocacy campaigns, solid science and research, community action, and real rescue and relief for endangered and threatened species.

London, England (CNN) — John Darwin’s wife said her husband faked his own death to avoid mounting debts and holed up in the family home for years, hiding from his own sons, according to UK media reports.

Anne Darwin said her husband, believed by police and his sons to have been lost at sea five years ago, recently returned to the UK, faking amnesia, because he missed his now-adult children, according to The Daily Mirror.

“I didn’t think he would get away with it but he had had enough of being dead,” she is quoted as saying.

John Darwin, 57, is being questioned by police in northeastern England following his arrest on suspicion of fraud, a spokesman for Cleveland, England, police said.

Darwin walked into a police station in London last weekend — five years after he was thought to have died after the remains of a canoe he paddled into the North Sea, off northeastern England, washed up on shore.

Darwin was declared dead by a coroner in 2003, 13 months after his disappearance in March 2002.

His wife, the paper reported, described how the prison officer and former teacher discussed faking his death just before he disappeared because of mounting debts.

When John Darwin vanished she said she thought he was dead — until, she is reported to have said, he turned up on the doorstep of the family home at Seaton Carew, northeastern England, one year later.

“I didn’t even recognize him at first,” Anne Darwin told the newspaper, adding that her husband looked thin, dirty and smelled dreadful. “I was relieved he was alive, of course. But I was also very angry with him.”

She said that her husband stayed at the home on and off before he got a one-room apartment in another part of the large house so he could vanish if friends or family arrived, also disguising himself with a hat or limp when he went outside.

But hiding away began to take its toll, Anne Darwin reportedly said, and the pair decided to leave Britain.

Her husband traveled on a false passport to look at property in Cyprus and inquire about buying a catamaran in Gibraltar, she said, before they finally settled in Panama. She went to live there six weeks ago.

She is believed to be in the United States after leaving Panama on a flight late Thursday, a Panamanian immigration representative has told CNN.

Anne Darwin, the newspaper said, stated that it was always her plan to repay two insurance policies in her husband’s name: one, a life insurance policy, for £25,000 ($50,000); and another for £130,000 ($265,000), which was paid to their home loan company to pay off the mortgage in the event of her husband’s death.

The newspaper said she was not paid for her story and accepts she is likely to be arrested upon her return to Britain.

Following his reappearance last weekend, John Darwin was initially reunited with his two sons, who released a joint statement saying their father claimed to have amnesia dating back to June 2000.

But in a statement released by Cleveland police Thursday, the sons, Mark, 31, and Anthony, 29, said they were in an “angry and confused state of mind” and they wanted no further contact with their parents.

After media reports Thursday that Anne Darwin had confessed to knowing her husband was alive, the sons said: “If the papers’ allegations of a confession from our mam are true, then we very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam.”

“In the short space of time following our dad’s appearance in London on Saturday, we have gone through a rollercoaster of emotion,” the statement said.

“From the height of elation at finding him to be alive to the depths of despair at the recent stories of fraud and these latest pictures,” it added.

“How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive? We have not spoken to either of our parents since our dad’s arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them,” the statement said.

Little Popsicle’s name was, sadly, earned.

The little orange tabby was found comatose and suffering from severe hypothermia Sunday afternoon on the property of a Riverside South area resident, who called the Ottawa Humane Society.

The year-old cat appeared lifeless and initially didn’t register a temperature. No one thought she’d survive.

“When she was first brought in, we all thought the worst,” said Tara Jackson, OHS communications manager.

But a trip to kitty heaven wasn’t in the cards yet for the frosty feline, whose lovable demeanour could thaw the coldest heart. Shelter staff who are nursing Popsicle back to health say she’s “plucky,” but timid after her frigid ordeal.

“She was really in rough shape, so to have this turn around is pretty remarkable,” said Jackson.

Quick-thinking OHS emergency staff wrapped Popsicle in a Bair Hugger — a forced-air warming blanket designed to safely increase body temperature — and a veterinary technician spent much of Sunday night monitoring her.

The next morning, staff could breathe a sigh of relief as the orange ball of fuzz showed signs of improvement.

Although staff are trying to determine whether Popsicle has an owner, Jackson said only 5% of cats who come into the shelter are claimed.

The death-defying kitty will be placed in a foster home with an experienced guardian.

Once she has regained her strength, Popsicle will be put up for adoption.

Jackson said another cat was brought in last week suffering from hypothermia and it isn’t rare to have cats and dogs come in with frost bite when the weather gets really cold.

“We recommend that a nice warm house is the best place for your cat as, unfortunately, this sad story has shown,” she said, referring to Popsicle.

In the case of dogs, instead of marathon walks the shelter recommends owners keep outside treks short on really chilly days.

“If it’s too cold for you outside, it’s definitely going to be too cold for your animal,” said Jackson.

An Orange County Superior Court judge today refused to dismiss a lawsuit by a Ladera Ranch family against the California Highway Patrol over grisly accident photos leaked onto the Internet.

The police agency has admitted responsibility for images that circulated worldwide of Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras, 18, killed Oct. 31, 2006 in a two-car crash on the 241 toll road near Lake Forest.

At a hearing in Santa Ana, Judge Stephen L. Perk said the CHP potentially could be held liable for the actions of its employees. No trial date has been set.

The hearing did not address two individuals named as defendants, Thomas O’Donnell and Aaron Reich. The lawsuit identifies them as CHP employees who played a role in causing images of the decapitated Nikki, still strapped into her father’s Porsche, to be posted on more than 2,500 web sites.

Lesli Catsouras, Nikki’s mother, said she is happy with the judge’s ruling but upset that the CHP continues to fight the lawsuit.

“They are doing everything they can to wiggle out of taking responsibility for this mess,” she said. “They have the authority and the resources to clean up this mess that they made, and yet they still have done nothing to help us.”

The CHP has a longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.

Attorneys for O’Donnell and Reich, who specific roles in the alleged leak were not detailed in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit follows the Catsouras family’s unsuccessful $20-million legal claim against the state. It details the anguish suffered by Nikki’s parents and three little sisters, including fake MySpace.com pages set up after her death and “spam” that popped up in the e-mail baskets of her parents, with attached photos of her corpse.

Accident photos are taken by police agencies but are meant only for investigative purposes. It is against CHP and state law to distribute them publicly.

Nikki was killed last Halloween when she took the keys to her father’s Porsche and sped away, just before she was scheduled to see a doctor. She had been at home and not feeling well.

The night before, her father, Christos, had taken away the keys to her car to discipline her.

Nikki had never driven the Porsche 911 before and was going about 100 miles per hour on the toll road when she clipped a car, sped out of control and slammed into an unmanned toll booth.

The driver of the other car was not seriously injured. Nikki had not been drinking and no drugs were found in her system.

Keith G. Bremer, an attorney for the Catsouras family, said he’s “comfortable” with Bremer’s ruling.

“The CHP is going to take potential responsibility for the acts and errors of its employees, and that’s what we want,” Bremer said. A settlement still remains a possibility, he added.

In his ruling, Bremer dismissed seven other causes of action in the complaint, including violation of federal civil rights, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

The single cause of action that remains in the lawsuit is “vicarious liability,” part of the government code section of state law.

Nikki’s parents have both stumbled across the ghastly images of their oldest daughter, but none of Nikki’s little sisters have seen the images, Lesli Catsouras said.

Danielle Catsouras, 16, is being home schooled after someone threatened to post pictures of Nikki in her locker at Tesoro High School in Las Flores, near Rancho Santa Margarita.

“She still doesn’t know who would want to hurt her,” Lesli Catsouras said.

A few days ago, Lesli Catsouras ran across a video on the Internet that at first appeared to be a tasteful memorial to her daughter.

Then an image of a decapitated Nikki popped up.

“I think we’re all learning that how the Internet works,” Lesli Catsouras said. “Once something is out there, it never can be taken back. The Internet is our modern-day Tree of Knowledge – for good and for evil.”