 People hear the word sanctuary and don't always know what that means and what we are is we're a home for the animals Cleveland Amory our founder always believed in creating a place where the animals could be looked after not looked at We're not an entertainment venue We're not somewhere that people can come for for the day just to enjoy looking at the animals We never put animals on exhibit even today at our open houses We do these for truly educational reasons We want to educate the public on the issues that these animals faced in their fire lives and hopefully Change their minds and get them involved in the advocacy to try to fix these issues So even today though, I mean as you see our chimps have gone up. That's their choice We don't guarantee anybody to see anything and that's not what today's about It's about to come here see what we do and see our mission We actually have 43 species almost a thousand animals roaming on 1,310 acres and they've all come from various backgrounds. We have the whole sanctuary broken up into four areas But basically everything comes from either cruelty neglect or exploitation We have chimpanzees that have come out of research laboratories We have primates that have come out of people's backyards and basements and there were pets That really shouldn't have ever been kept as pets. We have horses that have been safe for slaughter We have animals that have been Diverted from going to captive hunting operations where these animals are kept in caged areas And then there are price tag is put on their head and they can be shot and mounted for that price And instead of luckily we're able to get them here These are a danger at animals that are just truly being raised for one purpose and that's just to shoot them a mountain We've had horses to come in from the the drug Premarin which is pregnant mare urine is was what that stands for after their production cycle They're generally sent to slaughter We were able to get those horses here and they're living out their life on these pastures Which before that they were literally living in small stalls where they couldn't even turn around And then the other many as we have here came from the children's carousel rides where they actually sit on them and go Around in circles and when those guys arrived horrendous conditions a lot of those problems and not actually with walk-in circles still they didn't know anything So it's just every animal here has a story and we try to tell that story To hopefully get people to change their minds about some of these issues and all the animals that we have here and all the work We do directly ties into the campaign work that we as an organization the fund for animals and with our partner Organization the humane society the United States So for instance our four tigers that we have we have four tigers three will rescue from a roadside zoo Which is not any kind of an accredited zoo This is just a person that has a bunch of private animals and charging for people to see them and then Alex our fourth tiger Was actually a private pet in a backyard and a few people know that there are more tigers in captivity as pets here in Texas And they're all left in the wild and that is a horrendous statistic and so we're working in the legislative Process here in Texas trying to get a law passed to prevent and stop the private ownership of big cats and certain primates We did we tried it through that through the Legislative process last session it failed and we're coming back this session with the same law to hopefully make that change here in Texas To be able to stop this egregious Active of owning these animals as pets the every animal that come here is has been through some hardship and the various scales of that Some have been through the worst atrocities and bounced back very quickly some have come in and just whatever scars they came with Just don't ever completely go away, and that's fine We will work with every animal in every way we can and if they don't want to be around humans That's fine We don't ask them to our horses as you saw out there some will come up to the hayride Most of them won't they don't have any interest to have any interactions with humans, and that's okay It's all on their schedule and on their personality, but we do work to try out work on a trust Especially with our primates we want to have that trust with them, and they've been living in a biomedical research lab for many years And humans were always a negative element for them, so we really do work hard to get them to to Trust us and that where we can actually examine them we can look over their bodies We can potentially draw blood from them without actually having to Sedate them which is something very important, so we do what we call upper conditioning and we build that trust relationship Well our hope for everyone that comes here, and we understand many people come here They hear that we have this many animals this many species and want to come and see the animals And we want we want you to come in here and see the animals learn their stories, and then hopefully Come as an animal lover and leave as an animal advocate. That's what happened to me. I came here over a decade ago I obviously came here with a love of animals and I left to change and I knew from that point forward I could when you know better you do better and Suddenly I knew better and so therefore I it started my pathway to become an animal advocate And I got more and more and more involved the more I learned more our research more I realized that I had to do something so That's what brought me here today So it's just every animal here has a story and we try to tell that story to hopefully get people to change Their minds about some of these issues and help us get involved On the advocacy side and change the laws and change the the mindsets and change the course for many of the animals That can't unfortunately come