what do I need to run a reptile rescue?

[reptilebrett]

Hey guys,

So i've been taking in, rehabbing and rehoming reptiles for about a year now. I have spoke with PACFA and they said there is no liscense to run a rescue specifically for reptiles, also i have spoke to the irs and they said i can run it like a business until we get our 501c3. any thoughts, has anybody else done this?

[caljie]

I run a small rescue out of my home for reptiles, I haven't spoken to the IRS or anything about it, its all very unofficial but what I do reccomend is BE PREPARED, people will bring you all manner of fauna...I've had to turn away people trying to bring me fawns, birds, baby foxes, you name it.

Also you need to be prepared for the food needs (and electrical needs, goodness!), I suggest breeding dubias and mice/rats. We get a ton of the "throwaway" pets that are sold en-masse at petstores such as Beardies, Normal BPs, Iguannas, Leopard geckos, pacman frogs, cornsnakes, and sometimes even types of Boa and monitor lizards. People will also bring you WC things, right now we have a pen full of box turtles that are being rehabilitated and soon, relocated and quite a few native non-venomous snakes like Black rats and garters.

Its an extremely rewarding experience however, kudos to you for wanting to help out.

I hope this helped in some way ^_^
good luck!

[wolfy-hound]

You don't list your location, so I can't help with specifics. BUT......

Be aware, most states have laws in effect regarding native wildlife, including releasing or keeping it. In some states certain wildlife cannot even be disturbed, so if (in Fl) someone brought you a gopher tortoise, just by possessing it you'd be up for a rather large fine, even if you were just handed it by some anonymous person. Also, studies show that some animals that are released will not live, because they will instinctively attempt to go back to whereever their home territory is, and some species CANNOT be released by law, once they've been in captivity. So you'd want to contact your Fish and Game type office and talk to them about what sorts of animals you need to be aware of, and what the procedure is for dealing with you finding one in a box on your steps.

(hint: if you 'find it in a box on your steps', you don't "know" the person who had it, and thus can't reccomend who possessed the illegal animal, ahem...)

Regarding non-native wildlife, you'll want to make certain of any laws regarding prohibited species, if any. Once you are legally up to date on what you are allowed to possess and what the procedure is for anything you are not allowed to possess, you can be certain to not get into trouble with the law.

With legal wildlife, make sure you have SPACE, TIME, and MONEY to care for XX number of animals. Sit down and decide what species you want to keep and what species you're not equipted to keep. Do you have space for 50 iguanas? Can you feed that many on a regular basis? How about 50 ball pythons? Where can you keep them? Do you have a food source you can afford? Can you feed a bottomless pit like a Nile monitor? Can you house and handle it safely? Once you KNOW what you can house and feed, you'll have a firm idea of your limits.

Do you have a quarentine area and a established quarentine procedure? You shouldn't accept a "perfectly healthy" looking snake or lizard and put it right into the main group. Also, it shouldn't be adopted out until it's passed quarentine and been checked out for all the issues that a neglected or WC animal can have. You don't want to adopt it out to someone, only to have their collection catch mites or RI or god forbid, IBD.

Do you have a vet on call for exotics? What about paying? Will he give a discount? Will he help you to network among the area exotic owners? How about fostering animals ready for adoption? Could you see about any area pet stores, pet shelters, groomers, vets, feed stores, etc that might be willing to house one or two animals in appropriate enclosures to be up for adoption?

If you have been adopting out animals to area people, be aware, you WILL fill up all the local spots at some point. When you adopt an animal out, what is your procedure on making certain it's a good home, and what is the procedure if they can't keep it, or turn around and put it up for sale?

Do you have more people than just you to care for all the animals? There will be a point that you CANNOT care for them, whether it's an emergency where you have to go out of town, or when you get sick, or you might even want to take a vacation. You need an emergency person who can come in and PROPERLY care for all the animals there. This includes animals that can be considered dangerous, if you take in giants or monitors for instance. You do NOT want someone to get hurt because they wanted to help you out, so pre-plan that as well.

How about the local community? Not the herp owners, but the non-herp owners? Can you have open house things to help educate them? Run tours? Just give talks at local events like festivals? Bringing a couple smaller snakes or tame geckos to a local festival and running a educational table regarding exotic pets and what makes a good or bad pet for a family can REALLY gain you a lot of support and exposure if it's done right.

That's all I can think of this time of morning on my day off, but I hope it helped.

[reptilebrett]

hi guys, well here's what we have created so far. Yes we do have the funds to take care of the animals. Most of our officers started just keeping reptiles and a few of us breed reptiles, but we saw a huge need for unwanted and abused animals as some of us took in some unhealthy animals. As people got to know us, word of mouth has been spreading like wildfire. We are now up to 5 foster homes and every one of them has a quarantine area for new arrivals. We are careful what we take in, but being in colorado, not many people keep larger reptiles. We have taken in a few burms and retics, but that has been the extent of the larger reptilians. Recently we had local animal control find a 7 foot albino burm running around our foothills, so we are now caring for it. As for a vet, yes we do have one, he cuts us a break on visits to help, plus my wife is a vet tech, so meds are cheap. Adoptions have been successful, we screen all potential pet parents and one they get approved they pay a adoption fee, amount depends on the animal. As for feeding everyone, we have a sunflower market less than a mile from my house and a few of our officers breed rats and mice. My main issue is we have been attacked from different angles since we are working on our 501c3, but just don't have it yet. I just need to know what other paperwork or protection that i'm missing

thanks,
brett

[wolfy-hound]

Just run it as a business until you get the 501 paperwork done. Taking donations is a tricky thing, unless you explicitly say that you are not 501 certified yet, and all donations will be used for XXX.

I'm not up on all the paperwork you'd need, esp in another state. You might need to legally be a business to keep animals as a rescue, or be inspected like a animal shelter or USDA breeding facility. That would be a call to the state officials there.

[Ham]

Call an established reptile shelter and ask them for advice, just google a reputable reptile shelter...