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We rescue, reunite, rehabilitate and re-home more than 4,500 homeless animals each year in our community. Watch the following video to learn more about our lifesaving efforts.
Mission of
Asheville Humane Society
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Who is Asheville Humane Society?
Asheville Humane Society is the oldest, and was for many years the only, organization devoted to animal welfare in Buncombe County.
Over 25 years ago in 1984, a group of brave
and dedicated private citizens uncovered inhumane practices in the public pound
and persuaded the County to give their private organization (then Buncombe
County Friends for Animals) the responsibility for animal related
operations. The public shelter was in
an old maintenance garage where over 14,000 animals were dropped off
annually. Under volunteer non-profit
leadership the gas chamber was abolished, the first animal care professionals
were recruited and for many years Asheville Humane Society was the sole
combatant against animal cruelty in this part of the state. Much of the money to do this was raised
privately to augment the County contribution to sheltering. Then and now, all funds related to the rehabilitation
of animals, the sheltering of animals awaiting adoption, the fostering of
recovering animals, the recruitment of volunteers and the rehoming of animals
is privately raised by Asheville Humane Society. This includes every cent of the building and
operation costs of the beautiful Nancy Hiscoe Clark Adoption and Education
Center next door to the new state-of-the-art Buncombe County Animal
Shelter. Together the two buildings
represent a public/private partnership that is drawing national attention in
animal welfare circles.
Asheville Humane Society is the only open admission shelter in the County, the only one that can never, and will never, close its doors or say we're full.
We are
here for animals who have no other options, no
other place to go, animals who are adoptable and not adoptable, animals who are
injured, lost, sick, starving, victims of extreme cruelty and animals who just
want the opportunity to love someone again. We provide a soft bed, food, comfort and medical evaluation, minor
treatment and vaccinations, and temperament testing for each. In the cases of
extreme and terminal suffering we provide an immediate end to pain in
comforting arms. All others, those who
are surrendered by owners or those who will never be reclaimed, we assess and
place in one of three categories depending on their physical and mental
condition.
The first category is Healthy/Adoptable and thanks to the great partnership of sheltering and adoption agencies in the Buncombe County Animal Coalition (Asheville Humane Society, Brother Wolf Animal Rescue, Animal Compassion Network, Friends 2 Ferals and the international training institute for low cost/high volume spay/neuter clinic - the Humane Alliance of WNC) the placement rate is currently at 100% for these healthy animals. Each day the Asheville Humane Society animal care professionals from the Adoption and Education Center next door and representatives of the other coalition partners take these animals from the shelter and put them on their path to new homes.
The next category is Unhealthy: Treatable/Rehabilitatable
and each of the partners "pulls" from this pool as many animals as its
resources of time, money and volunteer homes will permit. Each of the animals will need medical care or
behavioral rehabilitation in a foster home to be whole and adoptable
again.
Many litters of kittens and
puppies, too young to survive without their mother, fall in this category as
well. The goal of Asheville Humane Society and the
Buncombe County Animal Coalition is to someday have the resources to treat and
rehabilitate every savable sick, injured and traumatized animal that comes into
the shelter. In the meantime, when no one can take them, when every foster home
is full, when there are no resources left, it is the trained and certified
Asheville Humane Society shelter staff who will have the heartbreaking task of
ending the suffering of the animals who could, in an ideal world, be treated
and saved.
And Asheville Humane Society is both the first responders and the last hope for the third category of Unhealthy/Untreatable animals.
