As seen on the Second Chance Wildlife Sanctuary website:

In Maine they tell of an old man walking along the beach with his grandson, who picked up each starfish they passed and threw it back into the sea. “If I left them up here,” the boy said, “they would dry up and die. I’m saving their lives.”

“But,” protested the old man, “the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish. What you are doing won’t make a difference.”

The boy looked at the starfish in his hand, gently threw it into the ocean, and answered: “It makes a difference to this one.”

Joyce Smith, the founder of the sanctuary, was recently profiled in the Globe and Mail:

The life of a fanatic is a hard one, and Joyce Smith’s life is no exception. At 77, she’s locked into a schedule that could kill someone half her age. She rises at 6 a.m. after sleeping just a few hours, and immediately starts to work. There’s no time for breakfast. When you live with more than 100 cats, their needs come first.

The cats in the house are merely the overflow. Outside, there is a building with about 300 more, plus a sundry collection of pigeons, parrots, rats, raccoons, squirrels and a pair of feral dogs that look like an ill-advised union between the Queen Mother’s corgi and a hyena.

Welcome to Second Chance Wildlife Sanctuary.

Go read the whole thing; it’s a great article, and Smith sounds like one tough old broad, my kinda people. If you’ve got any change to spare, please consider sending some her way.

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare quotables Second Chance Wildlife Sanctuary Joyce Smith animal rescue Canada