NJ sanctuary is dedicated to giving animals a second chance

🐂 A NJ sanctuary is dedicated to saving animals from death and giving them a life

🐂The sanctuary has over 400 animals

🐂 All of them have a story

WANTAGE — You may have heard of Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue.

The 240-acre Sussex County animal sanctuary has been in the news during the last few months after Ricardo, the bull made headlines when he was found wandering on the New Jersey Transit tracks in Newark in February.

He most likely escaped a slaughterhouse, although that has never been confirmed. Ricardo was rescued and taken to Skylands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by love, and peace. Soon after his arrival, a road rash infection on Ricardo's leg became infected. Just before Christmas, he was taken to big animal hospital upstate New York to recover for a few weeks. But he's home now with his new "daddy" and lots of friends.

What is Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue?

Mike Stura is the owner and founder of Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue. He bought the land on January 30, 2015.

Stura said he loves animals. He has been rescuing them for years, and volunteering with other sanctuaries since 2010 to do all he could to help the voiceless.

When Stura owned just a few acres of land in Ringwood fenced in with work trucks, he had some rescued goats on that land.

Jimmy

Then, there was Jimmy, a sick calf who was the inspiration for the sanctuary.

Jimmy  had been taken from his mother in Vermont on a dairy farm, and at less than an hour old, he was placed in a plant nursery's dog run to attract people to come buy pumpkins. One day, a woman who visited Jimmy at the farm on a regular basis was told by the farmer that he was going to be sent to auction, slaughtered to make dog food. The woman wanted to rescue Jimmy so she called Stura.

Stura agreed to take Jimmy who, at only three weeks old was 105 pounds, lethargic and could not stand on his own. He was taken to an upstate New York animal hospital where he was treated for two months for septic arthritis.

Once Jimmy was released from the hospital, Stura took him in and gave him a place to stay on his little farm.

But Stura knew that as Jimmy got older and bigger, he would need more space to roam. Plus, Stura also knew he needed to get Jimmy some friends. That was the motivation to starting Skylands.

Today, instead of a few acres of land, there are 240 acres, and rather than just a few animals, Stura has 450 animals living there, all of them with a story, and all of them rescued from some sort of sad situation.

“He’s (Jimmy) the reason for Skylands and he is the reason why every animal has been kept alive,” Stura said.

Unfortunately, Jimmy passed away a couple of years ago, but his legacy lives on in every animal that has been rescued to live the rest of their lives at Stura’s sanctuary.

What kind of animals are at the sanctuary?

Besides Ricardo the bull, Stura said there are a lot of cattle at his sanctuary. “We are cow-centric. I love the cows,” Stura said. There are about 130 cows, plus sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, two donkeys, a retired police horse and sheriff’s police horse, and one peacock, named Topaz living on the farm.

Stura said he relies heavily on donations to run the farm, feed the animals, and pay for their veterinary and other medical needs. To put things in perspective, Stura said in the winter, he goes through a tractor-trailer full of hay in three days. That’s $1,000 a day in hay.

Their Stories

Every animal has a story.

Brianna and Winter

Besides Ricardo, another famous bovine living at Skylands is Brianna, a Holstein. About five years ago, this cow who was nine months pregnant jumped out of a moving truck onto Route 80 on its way to a slaughterhouse. A woman saw it, told the truck driver, and one of Stura’s former drivers who is now a Paterson police officer, called Stura. He got there and rescued Brianna. She was a little banged up but she was in good shape. The most amazing miracle to come out of this story is that two days after her rescue, Brianna gave birth to a healthy baby calf, a female, named Winter, who also lives at Skylands.

Freddie

Freddie escaped a small slaughterhouse in Queens in January 2016 and was seen running down Jamaica Avenue. He was caught and actually brought back to the slaughterhouse. But Stura got wind of this and went to the slaughterhouse and managed to convince them to give him Freddie. They agreed, and now Freddie has a forever home with Stura.

Angel

Angel is a Charolais cow. Stura had met a guy who had many Charolais cow on his farm. Stura said he would often joke with the man by saying, “So, I hear you have Charolais. You’re going to give me on of them, right?”

He joked with him for about a year until he got a call from the man. He told Stura he had a surprise for him and that he would be there in ten minutes.

He showed up with a Charolais calf, named Angel. She was born a twin. The man said Angel’s mother, a beef cow does not produce enough milk. He was afraid she would not be able to produce enough milk to feed both calves. The man told Stura he did not have time to bottle feed a baby, so he gave Angel to Stura, who he calls “magnificent.”

Autumn

Autumn is an Ayrshire cow. Stura got a call from someone who visited a farm in Rhode Island. The owner had a blind calf inside the barn. Stura called and found that the man did not want a blind milking cow but he didn’t have the heart to take her to auction. Stura convinced the man to give him to her.

Stura said Autumn would walk around in circles and she would fall over. He got her tested. Besides blindness, there was something on the MRI that was detected. A neurologist said Autumn had four tiny holes in her brain. The neurologist suggested the cow be put down because she will never recover.

But when the neurologist told Stura that Autumn was not suffering, that’s when he made the decision not to put her down. She deserved a life.

“I took her home. About three to four months later, all of a sudden, her pupils straightened out. She stopped walking in circles. Here we are seven years later, and she’s perfectly fine. She’s fantastic. She’s one of my favorite animals,” Stura said.

There are so many stories. You can learn all about the animals by visiting the sanctuary and supporting it through donations, and volunteer service. All that information can be found on the website.

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