Mountain State Exotics Rescue Startup

In June of 2014, a group of people in the West Virginia pet community got together to help combat the ridiculous banned animal list that the newly-created Dangerous Wild Animal Board put out. We created the Pet Owners Alliance of West Virginia, who vowed to document everything pertaining to owning animals in West Virginia, and protect our rights to keep the pets we love.

With everything dying down thanks to the efforts of everyone combating the list, a few of us realized that many abandoned and neglected animals in the state have no where to go, as county animal shelters normally don't take exotics. We decided that we'd like to create a space that said abandoned and neglected exotic animals can be turned over to in order to find new homes.

There is currently no known animal shelter in West Virginia that will accept all exotic animals, and we want to change that.

We would love to make our dream happen and start a brand new exotic animal shelter in the mountain state, but we're going to need your help, and all the funding we can get.

We would like to have the rescue set up like your common county-run animal shelter, where we will receive animals and adopt them out to the public. We differ, however, by taking in exotic animals, and potentially have places set up for animals that can't be adopted out.

To make this happen, we're going to need a lot more than our goal here in the long run, but that is a good start. We would potentially like to rent or buy a facility to house animals to be adopted, and long term enclosures for animals that couldn't be adopted due to health or legal reasons, or that we deem aren't suitable for adoption to the public.

We are planning to have areas with tanks for aquatics, enclosures for reptiles, cages for birds and mammals, and muchlater down the road, enclosures in a zoo-like set up for potential permanent residents.

Funding we get will go towards:
- becoming a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization
- beginning to rent, buy, or build a facility that suits our needs
- purchasing and/or building enclosures to suit a variety of animals that could potentially be turned over to us
- purchasing supplies to care for the animals we get
- purchasing supplies to help educate the public about exotic animals


In your choosing to support us, you also choose to help animals in West Virginia! Thank you!