The painful waiting game is finally over. After a tedious process of designing the building, followed by 8 1/2 months struggling through red tape to obtain the Marion County building permit, we are finally allowed to build!

We brought in fill, cleared trees, built up our driveway, moved our access gates and continued planning, but we couldn’t start construction until the permit was approved. The minute we were allowed, we couldn’t wait to break ground.

The construction has been underway for only 4 weeks and look how far along we are already!

Recent newspaper article includes a quote from Bob Barker himself!

We are so excited to start construction – everything has been waiting on this permit – but we had ‘stalled’ in our fundraising due to the uncertain timing of the project. Now the contractor is moving ahead quickly and we don’t want to stop construction while we raise money!

Will you join Mr Barker in supporting the sanctuary and help complete the project?

We need to keep the donations coming in as fast as our contractor can build! 

Donate Now

If you prefer, your tax-deductible gift can be mailed to:

Forest Animal Rescue
640 NE 170th Ct.
Silver Springs, FL 34488

From the beginning:

The Bob Barker Animal Care Building will ensure continuing high standards of veterinary and nutritional care for the animals at Forest Animal Rescue as the sanctuary continues to grow. With the improved capacity for care, the sanctuary will be able to accept even the tiniest, most fragile orphaned bear cubs for rehabilitation and release – while maintaining our high standards of care for the sanctuary’s 100+ nonreleasable rescued animals. It will also provide more working space for our interns, local and international volunteers as they learn proper methods of caring for wild animals in captivity.

In 2016, retired game show host, Bob Barker approved a $100,000 gift from his foundation to set the project in motion. We immediately began the design and planning process, but nothing seems to ever go smoothly the first time.

When we submitted our final design to the Marion County Building Department we discovered that we would need to revise our special use permit, requiring public zoning hearings and even more time. Revisions to the plans were repeatedly submitted, rejected, resubmitted…we were pulling our hair out…

Finally – Marion County hired Jeffrey Camden as the Building Department Director. Brand new on the job, we asked him to look at our project – The permit was approved that day!

Kisa, a Siberian lynx, was one of the lucky ones. She was among the very first animals we rescued when we started in 1998. She was very young…and was born at a fur farm in Canada, where she would have eventually been killed for her beautiful fur, but instead she moved to Florida.

She and her sister Sasha came together, joining Misha, another Siberian lynx that we had rescued not long before.

The three lived their lives happily at the sanctuary, thriving in the most natural sanctuary setting we could provide. They moved up to the Ocala National Forest with us two years ago (along with all of the other animals)

Sadly, last year we lost Misha and Sasha and now we have lost Kisa….

She was 17 years old and had a great life with her buddies at the sanctuary….but it still hurts to say goodbye. Kisa was the last of the original animals from when the sanctuary first started. It is a comfort to know that she was in excellent health right up to the end, but it till never gets any easier, these animals feel like part of our family.

These first few years after the move have been difficult. Since so many of our animals came to us when we first opened our doors, they have all grown old at one time. True sanctuaries always fill up quickly; we continued to rescue animals but were forced to slow the pace because we must ensure that we have the budget and ability to properly care for animals before we can accept them.

Our animal residents are continuing to age. We temporarily stopped rescuing animals during our ‘big move’ and have been in a bit of a holding pattern on that front until we finish the habitat expansions for the animals already in our care.

Although we are able to take in a few more rescues now we must be careful not to take our attention away from building the infrastructure and habitat expansions for over 100 animals already in our care. We will make careful decisions on a case by case basis, but I’m sure you will be seeing news of new rescues this year!

We didn’t realize it until after we had purchased the property, but apparently the sand pines need to go.

We have been advised by several biologists to take them out before we build. They have poor structural strength and will fall over onto our fencing and habitats, creating a potential threat to the animals in our care.

The task has been substantial, but we have managed to remove the dangerous trees from the areas where we are building. We have taken them out selectively, leaving unharmed as many of the other trees as possible.

The remaining trees include slash pines, loblolly pines, several varieties of oaks, maples, hickory and other hardwoods, as well as magnolia, holly and more. We have never seen such a beautiful variety of native trees and plants on one property.

[pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”30%”]One biologist said “The only thing holding up a sand pine is the sand pine next to it” – We’re beginning to believe him![/pullquote]