The Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary is a 26,000-acre (110 km2) refuge owned by the National Audubon Society in Kaplan, Louisiana. Established in 1924, this Louisiana sanctuary is home to deer, muskrat, otter, geese and many other species.
In the 1950s, gas drilling began at the refuge and ended in 1999. The society said it was compelled to allow the drilling because the original donor of the land had retained mineral rights. The drilling yielded $25 million dollars for the NAS. Some proponents of drilling on nature preserves argued this made the Society's opposition to such drilling hypocritical.
Famous quotes containing the words wildlife and/or sanctuary:
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defence-line of custom and habit; we must sleep and therefore we must dream.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)