Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) The widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

The annual #GivingTuesday will take place on November 30, 2021.

Here are the top 5 reasons to give to Forest Animal Rescue:

1. The animals we rescue come from situations of abuse, neglect, confiscation and have nowhere else to go
2. The animals we rescue receive high-quality, lifetime care at a true sanctuary for the rest of their lives
3. The animals we rescue will never be exploited, bred, or sold 
4. You can support our sanctuary, knowing that your gift will be used responsibly, by a charity with a solid track record of rescuing animals for 23 years – we are their last stop, their last hope.
5. You can make a real difference

Meanwhile…Today is Cyber Monday!

Please remember that when you are shopping online, you can help the rescued animals at Forest Animal Rescue at no extra cost to you!

Here are the best ways to help:

Amazon Smile – When doing regular shopping on Amazon, simply start out at http://smile.amazon.com On your first visit, you can select a charity to support, and that charity will be saved in your profile. As long as you start out your shopping at the AmazonSmile link, Amazon will donate .5% of everything you buy to your selected charity. You can select Forest Animal Rescue and Amazon will donate to us!

While shopping online at other places, you can also raise money for us at no cost to you…simply visit Goodshop and sign up to select Forest Animal Rescue as the charity you support. As you shop all of your favorite stores online, all you need to do is start out at the Goodshop page and then follow the links to your favorite online stores, and a percentage of everything you purchase will be donated to us to help the animals!

How easy is that?! It doesn’t cost you a penny and it helps the animals while you shop online!

Please support the animals and share this message with your friends!

Use hashtag: #GivingTuesday

For the first time sine 1918, a solar eclipse will shadow the United States

Eclipse, one of Forest Animal Rescue’s rescued wolf hybrids is convinced that this day is named after HIM!

This eclipse is special – it is a coast-to-coast solar eclipse, nicknamed the “Great American Eclipse” and will be the first of its kind seen in 99 years.

Now is your chance, if you miss this one, the next total solar eclipse in North American will be on April 8, 2024 and there will be fewer states in the path of totality.

Enjoy this amazing sight, but be safe – remember to avoid looking directly at the sun or you may damage your eyesight.

How can you see it safely? Use Eclipse glasses – if they are sold out in your area (as they have been in our area for weeks), you can try welding goggles – here is a link with more information

(Click image to read article on Ocala.com)

Rescued tigers await new habitat

Fewer spring break helpers delayed construction this year

By Susan Smiley-Height

OCALA NATIONAL FOREST — Shikira Quamina’s brow glistens with a sheen of light perspiration as she holds a panel of six-gauge galvanized welded wire steady with her gloved hands. The intern from Brooklyn, New York, arrived at the Forest Animal Rescue sanctuary on March 9 and is still adjusting to the weather in Central Florida.

But she is one happy camper.

“I live in a concrete jungle,” she said of Brooklyn. Then she motioned with a wide sweep of her hand at the lush jungle in which she is standing. “It makes me so happy to be here, to walk past tigers and bears. I want to do this for the rest of life. The key is to get experience in the field and this is a great place to start.”

Operated by husband and wife Kurt and Lisa Stoner, the sanctuary is nestled on 80 acres of heavily wooded land they bought in 2010. They began moving the animals from their former sanctuary in South Florida to the sandhills east of Ocala in 2013.

As the critter population has grown, so has the need for construction of more habitat areas.

Last October, for example, the rescue was part of a nationwide operation that involved more than a dozen other such agencies; they partnered to find forever homes for more than 100 tigers and bears from a cub petting operation in Colorado that could no longer care for them.

Just before Christmas, four female tigers and two bears arrived at the local rescue.

The bears, Cody and Oatmeal, joined the rescue’s three other resident bears and all are living together in a 4-acre habitat.

The tigers — Zoey, Eva, Juanita and Natasha — are temporarily housed in enclosures that were much larger than the 10-by-10 cages in which they had been confined.

“They already think they have gone to heaven,” Lisa Stoner said.

The rescue’s resident male tigers, Tony and Roy, live in a 1-acre habitat. The goal now is to build a 1 1/4-acre habitat, after which Tony and Zoey will live in the smaller area and Roy and the other three tigresses will occupy the bigger space.

The 1 1/4-acre habitat is about one-third complete. The work would have been much further along, Stoner said, if the annual spring break tradition for universities nationwide had not taken on a new twist this year.

Historically, collegiate spring-breakers have descended on the sanctuary to help construct living quarters for the animals, including, for example, groups from the University of Kentucky, Ohio State University and the University of Akron.

“We’ve had up to five weeks of students each year,” Stoner said. “This year, they all booked spring break at the same time and we could only accommodate two groups.”

Stoner said that lack of student power put the habitat construction behind schedule.

“We need a lot of locals to volunteer to help us finish this,” she said.

Working on the enclosure last week along with Quamina was intern Linelle Rivera from Puerto Rico, volunteers Sam Bale from the United Kingdom, Debbie Crane from Weirsdale and Nika Wolf, the rescue’s animal care coordinator and its only paid staffer.

With assistance from Bale, the slender Rivera wrestled a long panel of the heavy-duty wire into position as Wolf used a special tool to apply fasteners at multiple junctions. They all said the work was demanding, but worth it.

“You have to put some muscle on it,” said Rivera, beaming a wide grin.

Stoner said pretty much anyone over age 18 can volunteer to help with construction. The needs vary and training and supervision are always part of the plan. She organizes the schedule around morning and afternoon shifts of four hours each.

“We show them what to do. It’s not highly technical, but there is a certain method that requires supervision. It’s OK for most any level of fitness; you just need to be flexible,” she said.

The only other requirements are that volunteers bring a refillable water bottle and wear long pants and sturdy shoes.

Crane, who has been volunteering at the rescue for a couple of months, started with habitat construction — as do all volunteers — but recently moved up to helping prepare food and care for the animals.

Stoner said all the volunteers begin with habitat construction because that is the area of greatest need and it also gives them an opportunity to learn each person’s work ethic and personality.

“You should be an animal person, a labor person and a happy person,” Rivera said, holding onto the panel of wire as Wolf, kneeling in the sand affixing clamps, chimed in, “Yes, we like happy people.”

Wolf, who started as an intern before she became a staffer, added, “This is so rewarding. I love it. I love coming to work every single day. Most people can’t say that.”

The rescue also is home to Sulcata tortoises (third largest in the world), island flying foxes (giant fruit-eating bats with 4-foot wingspans), Egyptian bats, ring-tail and brown lemurs, wolves and a variety of monkeys. There is no breeding of any animals.

All of the habitats were carefully constructed to meet the needs of each species. Such as, for example, the concrete “cave” inside of which the Egyptian bats could be heard peeping in unison.

In creating the new 1 1/4-acre tiger habitat, Stoner has a dream of incorporating some ponds and pools for the big cats to frolic in as they would in a natural environment. She pointed to several rock boulders, some as large as a refrigerator, and said they had come from Silver Springs after the animal exhibits were removed.

“We went there to get some of the cages, but they weren’t usable,” she said, “but I saw these gorgeous boulders and said we would take those off their hands. Most women love other kinds of rocks; I love these.”

She said she is hoping a local company or two might be willing to offer some coaching or assistance in creating pools and ponds, maybe with waterfalls, for the tigers and the bears. The rescue also could use some help with tree trimming.

As for the appeal for volunteers to help finish the tiger habitat, Stoner said it applies to individuals and groups.

“We have groups do it for building morale and team-building,” she said.

One way people can learn more about the sanctuary is by taking a tour. Tours are offered twice a month and accommodate six people in a Land Rover. The cost is $50. The sanctuary is not open to the public other than through the tours.

Volunteer guidelines can be found at forestanimalrescue.org, under the “Get Involved” tab, or by calling 352-625-7377.

When asked what she would tell people who are considering volunteering, Crane replied, “There is no more rewarding experience. You just can’t do any better. It will give your life more meaning. I would encourage anyone to do it.”

The article is called “On the Wild Side” and can be read online or in their April issue at Ocala area businesses.

The article focuses on three animal facilities in Marion County – read all the way to the end to see what she says about Forest Animal Rescue.

Thank you JoAnn Guidry for writing such a nice article!

Since their arrival at Forest Animal Rescue just before Christmas, Cody and Oatmeal have been playing nonstop. They are incredibly happy with their new home in sunny Florida…and they haven’t even experienced the best part yet!

They are loving their pool, climbing platform and the ball that we gave them, but they will soon be out of their quarantine habitat and into a wooded 4-acre compound with three other black bears, Dolly, Elizabeth Rose and B-Bear!

Would you like to volunteer with us to help finish the last few habitat adjustments so they can go out and play in the woods? Here is how you can GET INVOLVED

Would you like to help us to BUY MORE TOYS so they can each have their very own long-lasting ball? We have raised much of the money already, but need your help to pay for everything.

The new tigers and bears behaved as if this is the first time they had seen enrichment like this- they were a real joy to watch. Since they never had access to live trees in Colorado, some of them were more interested in the Christmas trees than their gifts!

All of the animals had fresh Christmas trees to play with, the primates had stockings, the carnivores had gift-wrapped presents and everyone had a blast!

Forest Animal Rescue (FAR) is an accredited wild animal sanctuary. Founded in 1998, FAR has a strong history of rescuing wild animals from inappropriate captive situations and educating others about the plight these animals face in captivity. Their mission of providing lifetime care to nonreleasable wild animals has recently expanded to include rehabilitation and release of wild black bear cubs.

Forest Animal Rescue has almost 100 animals at their 80-acre sanctuary in the Ocala National Forest in Marion County. This wooded sanctuary provides forever homes to animals ranging from big cats to wolves, bears, primates and more that were born into captivity and had nowhere else to go.

On September 21, Two organizations, Tigers in America (TIA) and Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge (TCWR), purchased the property and equipment of a Colorado based animal facility, whose owner was in ill health and wanted to ensure the well-being of the 110 wild animals on the property. He donated the animals to TCWR with the understanding that they would put the welfare of the animals first.

Many of the animals from Colorado are in need of veterinary care and an enormous amount of work needs to be done before winter sets in at the property in Colorado.

So far, TCWR has moved 27 big cats to their facility in Arkansas and TIA has committed to placing and transporting the remainder of the animals who need new forever homes to the best big cat sanctuaries in the U.S.; some of them will be making the trip to Florida before the Holidays.

Forest Animal Rescue is part of that combined effort. FAR is planning to accept two tigers and two black bears in desperate need of forever homes, and will be quickly building acreage habitats to give them the space and comfort they deserve right here in Marion County.

This project is an enormous undertaking and the cooperation and generosity of the animal sanctuary community cannot be overstated. This is an unprecedented showing of sanctuaries working together to make sure no big cat or exotic animal will be left behind.

Thanks to all of your outstanding reviews, we are a Top-Rated Nonprofit again this year on GreatNonProfits.org

We couldn’t have done it without you!

Keep the reviews coming and help spread the word about the sanctuary to help us continue our expansion.