A “compassionate release” (Photo via Open City)
The Buddhist practice of “mercy release” or “release life” – in which an animal held captive, say in a Chinatown shop, is released – is well-intentioned. Behind it is the belief that saving a life creates good karma. However, when that release happens on the grounds and waterways of NYC, things get complicated, says Eveline Chao in an Open City piece. Setting those frogs, turtles, crabs and other animals free in city parks and waterways can often have the opposite result.
The animals may be sick or weak after being held in captivity, and die soon after their release. People sometimes release freshwater creatures into salt water, or vice versa. Species from warmer climates freeze to death in New York winters. And the animals wreak havoc on the local ecosystem – especially since they are often non-native species purchased in Asian neighborhoods.
What’s more, it’s illegal to release animals into NYC parks. Animal groups and the city’s parks department are very familiar with the practice, which first came on their radar in the 1990s when red-eared sliders, a turtle native to Texas, started cropping up “in all the wrong places,” said Lorri Cramer, director of turtle rehabilitation at The New York Turtle and Tortoise Society (NYTTS). Those were the turtles sold in Chinatown stores back then and eventually, Cramer found that their sudden presence in locations like “the oceans, in the fountain at Central Park” was the result of mercy releases. The deed didn’t just hurt the turtle. Species already in those areas were unable to handle their new neighbors.
“The pond at Central Park is almost all red-eared sliders now, but it used to be mostly native species,” said Cramer. Native painted turtles, spotted turtles, and musk turtles have been killed or forced out by the larger and more aggressive sliders. “The only ones that can really hold their own against red-eared sliders are the snapping turtles,” said Cramer.
But some relief may be in sight.
Cramer, the Humane Society, local temples, and others interested in the issue have spent the last several years seeking a better way to practice mercy release.
After some false starts, one solution seems to be working.
First, the Humane Society is working with Buddhist leaders to educate their community and let them know that releasing wild animals is illegal under New York law. And second, professional wildlife rehabilitators, such as the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society and the Wild Bird Fund, have been collaborating with Buddhist temples to let congregants take part in animal releases that account for the well-being of the animal and the environment.
Chao takes readers to a Saturday in October when a biologist, members of the NYTTS, and nuns and congregants of a Chinatown Buddhist temple gathered at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge to take part in a new “compassionate release life.” Read in detail what happened and whether there are plans to further expand these efforts in the full article at Open City.