Issue 4
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
www.estevanmercury.ca
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
Dancing In The Air Members of the pre-intermediate Jazz 1 class, from the left, Jordyn Meshke, Kaitlin Milbrandt, Tiana Seeman, Emily Phillips, Elsie Alexander, Madison Hrywkiw, Faith Haberstock, Shayna Fichter and Kelsey Kowalchuk leap while performing Dancing in the Air at the Drewitz School of Dance’s Spotlight on the Stars dance recital. A dress rehearsal was held on Friday and the recital was on Saturday. For more on the recital, see page A7. Photo by David Willberg.
Estevan Humane Society asks public to take the pets pledge elle Lesiuk, public relations student for the EHS. “Especially because dogs’ bodies are so much more susceptible to getting way too hot too fast; you might not think it’s that hot, but it usually is, even if you’re in the shade and the window is open.” Lesiuk added dogs have a limited ability to sweat and even a short time in a hot environment can be life-threatening. A dog’s regular body temperature is roughly 39 C and a temperature of 41 C can only be handled for a short amount of time before permanent brain damage or possible death can occur. There are a few signs one can look for to see if an animal is getting heat stroke, like excessive panting, drooling, drowsiness or unconsciousness. If heat stroke is suspected, getting the animal
By Jaime Polmateer jpolmateer@estevanmercury.ca
The Estevan Humane Society (EHS) wants the public to know it’s not cool to leave pets in hot vehicles. The humane society has joined with Ontario’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and its No Hot Pets campaign, which runs from May 23 to August 31. This campaign aims to educate people on the dangers of leaving pets in vehicles throughout the hot summer months and asks members of the public to take a pledge promising not to. “If you’re taking a pet somewhere and you know you can bring them out of the vehicle as soon as you’re leaving it, that’s fine, but just to keep it safe it’s way easier to just leave them at home if you don’t need to be bringing them,” said Kend-
veterinary attention is vital, and in the meantime it’s recommended to wet its fur right away with lukewarm or cool water, bring it into the shade and give it drinking water. “There’s a bunch of different signs you can look for and it’s usually pretty easy to tell if they’re in danger,” Lesiuk said. “We do want people to report it if you do see it, because you never know — is the window open? Is the AC on? How long have they been there? “We want people to tell us because we do see it as being a little bit irresponsible.” Despite yearly initiatives to inform the public, the SPCA still gets hundreds of reports across the country of pets being left in hot vehicles each year. Lesiuk said this might be because owners like bringing their pets with
Kendelle Lesiuk, public relations student for the Estevan Humane Society (EHS), warns leaving a pet in a hot vehicle, even for a short amount of time, can cause permanent damage or even death to the animal. Pictured is Lesiuk with EHS shelter resident Harley them places, but as mentioned, it’s safer to just leave them at home. “I think it’s just hard
for us to realize we’re not carrying a whole bunch of fur on us,” she said. “If we sit in the car
we’re probably fine, yeah, but even we can’t sit in a hot car for that long, and usually NO MORE⇢A2
Strong warning issued about a scam a STARS lottery. But it proved to be a fraud, and her mother, whose name was not released, lost more than $6,000. Wheatley found out about the scam after she and her husband returned from the Dominican Republic. Once she found out her mother was believing she had won, Wheatley booked a flight from her home in Calgary so she could get to Estevan. “These guys said they
By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
A former Estevan resident has issued a warning about a scam involving someone pretending to be with the STARS Air Ambulance, after her mother lost thousands of dollars through the fraud. Gail Wheatley says her mother received a call, claiming that Wheatley’s mother had won $45,000 and a new car through
were coming to deliver the prize to my mother’s house, and she lives in Inglis Court,” said Wheatley. When a friend checked in on Wheatley’s mother, she was on the phone with the scammer who was reportedly being very abrasive. Based on her research, Wheatley believes the scammers are based out of Jamaica, thanks to their 876 phone number. Wheatley noted a lot of scams are out
of Jamaica and have the 876 area code, and they dupe people out of millions of dollars each year. The scammer was going by the name Michael Bradley, and Wheatley added that people who have posted on Facebook about the STARS scam said they received a call from someone named Michael. Wheatley called the scammer and confronted him over the phone, saying the Estevan Police Ser-
vice would be present if he showed up to present the prize to her mother. He hung up on Wheatley. When she called him back, she said he didn’t appreciate the call. “I said to him ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Michael, and I’m going to shut you down right across Canada, because I’m not going to let you do this to the senior citizens,” said Wheatley. Wheatley noted she changed her mother’s phone
number after she was victimized, and made it an unlisted number, only for her mother to receive a phone call from another scammer a few days later. She also suspects the scammers have a local person involved. They tried to meet Wheatley’s mother in person. And she believes somebody stuffed a STARS Air Ambulance pamphlet into her mother’s mailbox, since she was the only perSTARS⇢A2
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