Amberwood Sanctuary:: Thank You Board Members

Monday, December 20, 2021

Thank You Board Members

We need to thank two of our board members for their years of dedication and ongoing support. Steve Burdick maintains the daily operations of the sanctuary, which included the critical period when Carol was out of pocket due to her hospitalization and rehabilitation. Mr. Derst “Deke” Austin has been a longtime supporter of the sanctuary. Mr. Austin provides complimentary legal advice and resources regarding the legalities of operating a nonprofit.

These are huge undertakings by both individuals, and we appreciate all that they do!

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We are interested in your suggestions and knowledge in every area of our work to help the animals.

Special Donations

Honorary: A donation to Amberwood Sanctuary is a wonderful way to honor human/animal family members and friends in celebrating birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, and other special occasions.

Memorial: A donation to help care for the animals at Amberwood Sanctuary is a sincere gesture of remembrance in the loss of a human/animal friends and family members.

A Special Card acknowledging your gift is created and mailed to whomever you direct. Required information to complete the card includes the recipient’s name and address, the name of the person/animal being honored or remembered, the occasion, and your name and address.

About Amberwood Sanctuary

In December 1977, Carol and Bill Watson and daughter Michele adopted a little dark brown—and very wild—burro from the Mojave Desert through the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, and our lives were changed forever. As a result of our government’s bureaucratic maze, coupled with greed and prejudice, she was one of many wild burros and mustangs captured and removed from the public lands that had always been their home. Many others before and after her capture have been killed.

Carol and Michele drove to Valley Wells, California, chose a small jenny (female donkey) from a large herd of wild burros still corralled from that particular roundup and brought her home to Georgia (along with five other burros for other people). We named her Amber and loved her completely. After some time and much caution, she loved us back.

Amber’s captivating style—her patience, humility, and courage—compelled us to focus on the problems we humans are causing the wild burros and domestic donkeys. Amberwood Sanctuary is the realization of our dream to provide a permanent home for some of these kindly, gentle-eyed, velvety-nosed creatures. Along with the adopted wild burros, several unwanted/abused donkeys, dogs, chickens, rabbits, cats, a pig, and a “woods” rat who insists on living with the chickens and rabbits have full family privileges at the sanctuary. And, just as important to us, we make every possible effort to protect the many wild animals living here. As abused/homeless dogs and cats come our way, we make every effort to find them loving homes through petfinder.com.

Above and beyond our primary responsibility to care for the animals living at Amberwood Sanctuary, a top priority is our involvement in all areas of concern for donkeys worldwide through direct action, education, and legislative issues. We are engaged in activities which promote respect and compassion for all creatures and changes in attitudes and actions to address our ecological crisis.

In April 1982, we took our first small steps to create Amberwood Sanctuary, the organization was incorporated in November 1983, and it received its 501(c)3 nonprofit status in August 1984.

Our Purpose ~ Our Life's Work

To rescue and care for wild burros who have been removed from their home on our public lands; to rescue and care for unwanted/abused donkeys.

To maintain a sanctuary as a permanent home for these animals.

To protect the wild animals living at Amberwood Sanctuary.

To dispel the many myths and misconceptions held about donkeys.

To promote decisive actions on behalf of the wild burros and mustangs living on our public lands under the protection they have been afforded through the 1971 Wild, Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.

To promote respect, appreciation, and compassion for all animals, wild and domestic.

To promote changes in attitudes and actions to address our ecological crisis.

When we learn of donkeys who are facing a tragic fate, we begin planning for their rescue. Once they have arrived at Amberwood Sanctuary, we are most concerned with their quality of life. Saving their lives is not enough—they must have the best life we can give them, which is pretty much determined by the amount of time and money invested in their care. And it takes a considerable amount of both. Here at our sanctuary, they are no longer “beasts of burden” but are valued and respected for the exceptional creatures they are.

Won’t you call, write, or e-mail us today to say you will join us in our work to help the endearing and enduring donkeys?

This is a tremendous responsibility but, with your support, we are up to the challenge. We must be! The destiny of these animals lies in the hands of all of us who care enough to take action. Stand with us in speaking and acting in their behalf to stop the roundups and allow them their freedom on our public lands.

We Need Another and a Wiser
and Perhaps a More Mystical
Concept of Animals.

Remote from universal nature,
and living by complicated artifice,
man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his
knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified
and the whole image in distortion.
We patronize them for their incompleteness,
for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.
And therein we err and greatly err.
For the animal shall not be measured by man.
In a world older and more complete than ours,
they move finished and complete,gifted with extensions
of the senses we have lost or never attained,
living by voices we shall never hear.
They are not brethren, they are not underlings;
they are other nations, caught with ourselves
in the net of life and time,
fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.

by Henry Beston

Amberwood Sanctuary:

Monday, December 20, 2021

Thank You Board Members

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