Frequently Asked
Questions
About the Sanctuary
No More Homeless Pets
Membership & Management
Best Friends Animal Society is working with shelters, rescue groups and our members nationwide to bring about a time when there will be no more homeless pets.
Best Friends operates the nation's largest sanctuary for homeless animals; provides adoption, spay/neuter, and educational programs; manages the Best Friends Network, http://network.bestfriends.org, an interactive, online global community; and publishes Best Friends, the nation's largest general-interest animal magazine.
About the Sanctuary
How did Best Friends begin?
Best Friends had its origin in Arizona in the 1970s with a group of animal lovers who were unwilling to accept the conventional wisdom of the time that humane societies and shelters "had no choice" but to kill their unadoptable animals.
In a pilot program they rescued animals from shelters where their luck was about to run out, rehabilitated them, and found homes for hundreds of these cast-off cats and dogs.
Those who were still unadoptable formed an eccentric assortment of wonderful and lovable creatures whose numbers grew until Best Friends was established in the early 1980s as a large and unique sanctuary at Angel Canyon in Utah.
In 1991 Best Friends became a non-profit, tax-exempt charity, and quickly grew to be the flagship of the rapidly growing no-kill movement throughout the 1990s. This No More Homeless Pets goal became central to the work of Best Friends, and by the end of the decade the number of animals being killed in shelters had dropped from about 15 million in 1990 to less than 5 million.
How many animals live at the sanctuary?
The sanctuary is home on any given day to about 2,000 animals. Most of these are dogs and cats, but there are also horses, burros, birds, rabbits, goats, farm animals, and an assortment of other creatures.
Where do they come from?
The animals come from all over the country, and sometimes beyond - mostly from shelters that don't have the resources to rehabilitate them and where they would otherwise be destroyed. In exchange, many of these shelters take back animals that are ready to be placed in good homes.
"No-kill" means that animals are not destroyed except in cases of terminal and painful illness, when compassion demands euthanasia because there is no reasonable alternative.
What happens to the animals that are brought here?
Most of them - approximately three out of four - are soon
ready to go to good homes with permanent or foster families, making way for the daily new arrivals.
Others, who are too badly traumatized through ill treatment or who are old, crippled or chronically ill, find a permanent home at the sanctuary.
Where is the sanctuary?
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary is located at
Angel Canyon, a 33,000-acre ranch in the majestic red-rock country of southern Utah, just outside the town of Kanab. The sanctuary is at the heart of the famous
Golden Circle of national parks, close to Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon's North Rim, Bryce Canyon, and Lake Powell.
Angel Canyon is a mecca for people who love animals and nature, and is world-famous as the backdrop for dozens of movie and TV westerns going back to the 1950s, including
The Lone Ranger,
McKenna's Gold, and
The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Thousands of years before cowboys ever set eyes on Angel Canyon, the ancestral
Pueblo (Anasazi) people built a peaceful and enduring culture, leaving many ancient dwellings and petroglyphs.
What programs and activities are available at the sanctuary?
Tours of Best Friends and visits with the animals are available daily throughout the year. Full tours take about an hour and a half, and need to be booked in advance. Approximately 20,000 visitors and vacationers come to the sanctuary each year.
Visitors and volunteers are always welcome at the sanctuary, and are a vital part of helping the animals to get ready for new homes. They come from all over to spend time with the animals and give them the personal attention they would get in a family home.
Student and intern programs are also available.
Low-cost spay/neuter. The
Best Friends Clinic and mobile spay/neuter program provide low-cost spay/neuter for dogs and cats in the local region.
Workshops & seminars. Hands-on workshops at the sanctuary cover a variety of topics related to animal care and sanctuary management.
Education programs. Best Friends staff visit schools throughout the Southwest. Children also to the sanctuary for service-learning programs.
Wildlife rehabilitation. Staff members are licensed by state and federal authorities to rehabilitate birds and other wildlife and provide ongoing care for animals that cannot be released.
No More Homeless Pets
It's a concerted spay/neuter, adoption, and public awareness campaign to bring an end to the killing of homeless animals in shelters.
All across the country, grassroots organizations, humane societies, and local governments are bidding farewell to the outdated notion that killing millions of homeless pets every year in "shelters" is some kind of inevitable and acceptable "necessary evil."
Best Friends believes that it is. No More Homeless Pets in Utah, a nonprofit organization supported by Best Friends Animal Society, has maintained reliable statewide statistics in Utah for a number of years. In 1999, over 46,000 animals were killed in Utah shelters. Today, that number has decreased by 30 percent.
This remarkable achievement is due to the success of spay/neuter and adoption programs, and a growing public sentiment that dogs, cats, and other pets should be valued as family members.
Every week, more humane societies, animal welfare groups, animal control authorities, and concerned citizens are committing themselves to the goal of bringing an end to the killing in their own neighborhoods, cities, or states.
What are some of the No More Homeless Pets programs?
Best Friends Network. The Network is an interactive and global online community connecting people and organizations through kindness to animals. Through the Network, members participate in discussions, enjoy heartwarming news stories, and help animals. Members of the Network can set up their own member profiles with photos of themselves and their companion animals. They can join lifesaving campaigns and access local, national and international animal-related news; get information on animal-related situations they may be able to help with; read about events and activities in their communities and news from Best Friends; and tap into resources to help in their work with animals.
Members of the Best Friends Network are also able to start new online communities, and invite other people to join. One example is the
No More Homeless Pets community. Every few weeks, this community features a different topic and guest expert who answers questions from community members. The purpose of this community is to highlight how humane societies, animal welfare groups, animal control authorities, and concerned citizens are committing themselves to the goal of bringing an end to the killing of homeless dogs and cats in their own neighborhoods and cities.
Help with Animal Situations. Best Friends staff members provide free information and assistance to people who need help with an animal situation - for example, pets needing new homes, feral cats, behavior problems. The Animal Help staff currently respond to over 20,000 requests for help each year.
No More Homeless Pets Conferences. Experts from across the country share strategies they are using to develop no-kill communities.
No More Homeless Pets in Los Angeles, and Utah. Best Friends staff members and volunteers coordinate programs in
Utah and
Los Angeles with the goal of helping them become No More Homeless Pets cities. Programs include adoption events, spay/neuter programs, and public awareness campaigns. In our home state of Utah, Best Friends supports a model campaign, working with shelters and humane societies statewide to bring an end to the killing of healthy homeless pets.
Free Resources and Consulting Services. Free information on
pet care and behavior, as well as
how-to guides for humane groups and individuals who want to get involved helping animals, are available on our website. Best Friends staff members provide free consulting services for grassroots humane groups.
Online Forum. Each week, the No More Homeless Pets
Special Guests Q&A features a different topic and guest experts who answers questions from members.
Publications. Best Friends magazine is the nation's largest general-interest animal magazine (circulation 200,000). This all-good-news publication is an expression of the Best Friends philosophy that kindness to all living things builds a better world for all of us, and it helps share information about No More Homeless Pets efforts around the world.
The Best Friends website, at
www.bestfriends.org, is updated biweekly with news about the sanctuary and news about No More Homeless Pets efforts and programs around the country. The website also provides a
Resource Library to help individuals and organizations help animals.
Membership and Management
How is the work of Best Friends funded?
The care of the animals at the sanctuary and our No More Homeless Pets outreach is funded entirely by the donations of members and well-wishers. Certain specific local community programs receive additional funding from foundations and businesses.
Donations to Best Friends are tax-deductible. Accounts are fully audited, and a financial statement is available upon request.
How many members does Best Friends have?
Active membership currently numbers over 300,000 households across the United States.
Is Best Friends affiliated with any other organizations?
Best Friends is not formally affiliated with other animal welfare groups, but works cooperatively with hundreds of other organizations. There are several businesses and other charities that include the words "Best Friends" in their title, but they are most often not affiliated with Best Friends Animal Society.
See selected listing of staff and departments.
Best Friends Animal Society
Kanab, UT 84741-5000
Phone: (435) 644-2001
Fax: (435) 644-2078
E-mail: info@bestfriends.orgWebsite:
www.bestfriends.org
