BOONIE Babies Saipan co-founders Aria and Grace Keilbach talked about their passion for animals during the Rotarians weekly luncheon meeting at the Hyatt Regency Saipan s Giovanni’s Restaurant on Tuesday.
AS many of our supporters know, Saipan Cares for Animals or SCA was part of a recent Zoning Board public hearing to approve the conditional use application for our property. It was an oversight on our part that the zoning application was not fully completed and approved when we moved our clinic to As Gonno five years ago. At the meeting, we found out that our property is located in a rural commercial zoning district, rather than a residential commercial district as we had thought. Businesses in rural commercial areas are required to operate on a lot which is at least 4000 square meters, and even with the most generous allowance under the law our lot is still significantly too small.
As World War II was raging in the South Pacific, American soldiers brought war dogs to the island of Saipan – part of what is now the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) – to sniff out bombs and detect enemy forces hiding in the thick jungle.
But after the war ended and soldiers returned home, many of those hero dogs remained on the island.
Their descendants, referred to by island natives as “boonie dogs,” still roam Saipan, contributing to a massive overpopulation of strays, many of which are sick, malnourished, and badly mistreated by humans.
Sisters Aria and Grace Keilbach are trying to change that.