A group of animal welfare advocates has announced a protest against the airing of “Yankee Jungle,” an Animal Planet television documentary series featuring DEW Haven of Mount Vernon.

The protest is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday outside the office of Lone Wolf Media in South Portland, which produced the episodes.

According to a news release Wednesday from Charlie Pasquale, of Fitzgibbon Media Inc., the protest is being organized by Kristina Snyder, author of an online Care2 petition with more than 53,000 signers from around the world, who seeks to have Animal Planet drop the episodes. The protest group organized by Snyder argues that the exotic animals at the Mount Vernon site shouldn’t be held in captivity and that such practices should “not be glorified and promoted on national television.”

“Yankee Jungle” first aired in November and focuses on the animals at DEW Haven, formerly D.E.W. Animal Kingdom & Sanctuary, a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary owned and operated by Robert and Julie Miner. It tracks the Miners as they get ready to open for the season. Snyder said in an emailed response to questions that the protest was organized when the group learned that the series is being renewed with more episodes.

Asked for comment, Lone Wolf executive producer Jed Rauscher said in a statement that the series shows the Miners “providing homes for unwanted and discarded domestic, exotic and wild animals; which they’ve been doing successfully for more than 30 years.” The statement offered no comment on the planned protest.

Robert Miner, a disabled Vietnam veteran, started the sanctuary in 1980 as therapy. The 42-acre property on Pond Road is home to more than 200 animals, including exotic ones such as lemurs and panthers, along with species native to Maine and barnyard animals.

The wildlife sanctuary made national headlines last year when tiger triplets were born there. The cubs, born to a white Bengal mother and a part-Siberian father, went to out-of-state homes after dozens of people streamed through the sanctuary to visit them.

The Miners couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday night at the wildlife sanctuary’s phone number.


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