Roosevelt Island-based Wildlife Freedom Foundation (WFF) quietly, diligently protects wildlife here along with impact far and wide. It’s harder than you think.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Recently, a friend said, “Protecting wildlife – everybody’s in favor of that.” But actually, they’re not.
Some, probably most are, as long as it’s convenient, but if it were anything like universally true, we wouldn’t have the SPCA, the Human Society or PETA, would we? We have organizations fighting on behalf of animals because so many are mistreated in a multitude of ways every day across our planet.
Others simply need rescue after injury. Volunteers fan out everywhere. They bring sick or abandoned animals to sanctuaries, like WFF, most of which struggle for money and volunteers.
Yes, most people are genuinely concerned about wildlife, as long as it’s not too much trouble.
WFF Evolves
Although Wildlife Freedom Foundation’s founder Rossana Ceruzzi first fell in love with animals while growing up in Italy, her work here started with a legacy organization, Island Cats. When the other founders of the cat rescue and adoption group moved away, Ceruzzi expanded.
Way back when I freelanced for a print newspaper, my editor asked me to check out a local woman tending to injured animals on the Island. That’s when I first met Rossana Ceruzzi who cruised up on her bicycle under the Queensboro Bridge.
Her basket was filled with donated supplies from veterinarians who admired her volunteer services for otherwise neglected animals.
While we talked about her work, she led me toward the lower lawn of Goldwater Hospital, roughly just north of Southpoint Park now. An injured Canadian goose lay in the grass, one wing so damaged she couldn’t fly.
After persuading a groundskeeper to turn off his mower while she tended to the bird, she slowly approached with ointment for the wound. Nearby, guardian geese in the river squawked and protested, unsure of her intentions.
To be clear as possible, were it not for Ceruzzi, that goose would have died a horrible death from starvation or from a predator attack. What she got from it, other than the satisfaction of helping, was nothing more.
Move it up…
Last autumn, taking a walk through the park, I ran into Ceruzzi near the sanctuary where she helps a variety of animals. She waited for a delivery.
Soon, a truck from New York City Animal Control rolled down the road through the park. A man gently handed over a tiny, abandoned infant squirrel. The baby needed the warmth her mother could not give her, plus regular bottle-feeding.
Ceruzzi didn’t flinch, thinking out loud about how to safely get her new charge into her apartment.
Although she’s best known for rescuing cats, protecting them and seeking adoptive homes, she does this sort of thing every day in every season. But there’s something else taking up her time, too much of her time…
Island Politics
Except for a few favored groups, almost everyone suffers the results of poisonous politics on Roosevelt Island, whether its bad roads, dangerous Tram cabins, underfunded nonprofits or abandoned artwork.
RIOC is not the single source of revenue for WFF, but it’s critical. And recently, undependable.
Whether in appreciation of Ceruzzi’s work with animals – she regularly gets calls from Public Safety – or respect, she has done well with RIOC’s increasingly volatile executives since Steve Shane’s tenure – until now.
That’s no criticism of RIOC’s new interim management. They’re dealing with a pile of something we’ll chose not to name that was accumulated and left behind. With WFF stuck in the middle.
The Public Purpose Fund Disaster
With a combination of Residents Association members teamed up with RIOC, Public Purpose Funds provided WFF with crucial cash for operations. In addition, then-Chief Operating Officer Shelton Haynes built a new, improved shelter for the animals when the Southpoint makeover threatened their existence.
Public Purpose Funds are moneys set aside for aiding Roosevelt Island’s nonprofits. While wonderful in concept, they’ve been stingy in practice, but WFF and others gratefully accepted what they could.
But then, in 2021 – for reasons unknown and unexplained – RIOC handed the whole process over to New York Community Trust. The ironically titled Community Trust actually made the system worse – a lot worse. Whether by accident or design, their results accurately reflected RIOC’s selective preferences and dislikes.
WFF, which had recently challenged RIOC’s Southpoint Park objectives, got all of $1,000, knocked down from $10,000. As usual, there was no explanation, but then, panic set in.
Haynes and Robinson to the Rescue
Soon after WFF’s board rejected the Community Trust’s $1,000 insult, RIOC asked them to reverse course and accept it. When it refused, Haynes an Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson offered a compromise – a $15,000 services agreement acknowledging WFF’s contributions to RIOC and Roosevelt Island.
For Ceruzzi, it was just a matter of dealing again with the local politics for the benefit of the animals. Nobody gets rich on 15 grand. And RIOC had already signaled a renewal when Haynes and Robinson were suspended in December.
This left Ceruzzi with empty pockets and unfamiliar faces making her feel backed against the wall for accepting Haynes’s and Robinson’s generosity. Their handling of RIOC finances is another matter, but in this case, it’s more than a debate.
It endangers WFF, Ceruzzi and the animals when funding is abruptly lost, the group penalized for doing the right thing but tainted by insinuation.
The Committee Man
Committees are supposed to be where outcomes are shaped. They are meant to be the place where questions slow decisions down, where competing interests surface, and where public responsibility is exercised before anything reaches a formal vote.
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