Animal Rescue Sanctuary Moves to Marion County
OCALA NATIONAL FOREST-
B-bear is one out of about 140 animals that traveled from Hardee county to their new home in the Ocala National Forest."
A disaster training team spent the weekend transporting all the wildlife animals.
Before the trip some of the larger animals were tranquilized for safety reasons. The rest were lured into a trailer.
Co-founder Lisa Stoner said during the trips they would have to stop so that the vet could check on the animals.
"We would get up here and then proceed to unload everything. The goal was to at least have the dangerous animals unloaded by dark, which didn't really happen. We got the awake dangerous animals unloaded by dark, but some of the sleeping ones were unloaded in the dark," said Stoner.
It took four days and four hour road trips to get all the animals safely to the new location.
The Forest Animal Rescue provides lifetime care for monkeys, wolves, bears, tigers and other wildlife animals.
Currently all the animals are in temporary cages.
"We are going to expand those to be a little bit more comfortable temporary space and once everyone is situated like that we are going to do the expansion and those will be habitats into the
woods," said Stoner.
The sanctuary is 80 acres and once the habitats are built, there will be one acre for each bear and one acre for each tiger.
Stoner said they've been working non-stop since they arrived.
One problem is they won't have power until the forest service gives them a permit to connect their power line.
Until then they will use generators. Especially since the cold weather is headed our way.
"We are going to have to just run heaters to various locations where they need them. Luckily the big cats and carnivores don't need heat. They are fine. wW can give them some straw bedding and they are good. They are use to the cold climate, but the monkeys and bats and the tropical animals are going to need heat," said Stoner.
Stoner said they will be giving guided tours once or twice a month later this year.
If you would like to donate to the Forest Animal Rescue visit the following website:
