We Love Our Volunteers!

We love our Volunteers!

At the Sanctuary, we have several devoted volunteers that the staff and interns are so thankful for! We appreciate them so much and probably don’t show it or tell them enough.

Volunteers help with everything at the Sanctuary from doing the dirty work, such as washing endless dishes, helping clean the nutrition center, and even laundry. Our volunteers also do a variety of other tasks such as helping the interns sort through donated produce, helping feed bears, taking pictures for our gift shop, giving tours, and even gardening and helping make the Sanctuary look nice.  Lately our volunteers have helped tremendously with mowing and weed-eating which we are so thankful for, especially in this heat! They have planted new flowers in our previously empty flower pots to help make our sanctuary look more presentable to the public. Much more takes place here than just feeding and cleaning habitats. By volunteering at IEAS, there’s always something new to learn.

Volunteering at IEAS is a unique and rewarding experience. Our volunteers love helping out with the daily chores because they can work while enjoying the company of our exotic animals. If you are interested in volunteering please contact the sanctuary at (940) 433-5091.

Thank you so much volunteers! We wouldn’t be able to do it without you!

What Happens to Donated Produce?



Are you ever curious about where your donated produce goes?

Donated produce from Brookshire's

We get produce donations from Wal-Mart in Fort Worth, Costco in Fort Worth, Brookshire's in Bridgeport, Lowe's Marketplace in Boyd, Dunn's Marketplace in Aurora, and public donations from individuals just like you. We pick up the donated produce every day of the week.


IEAS interns pick up the donated produce from the generous businesses and load them into our handy red truck to transport back to the Sanctuary.



Intern loading produce at Lowe's Marketplace

 Once the produce is back at IEAS, the interns sort the produce into individual crates to store in our refrigerator.

                                                                         

Once all of the produce is sorted and stored, it is kept fresh for our upcoming diet preparations.

Our bear diets contain fruits, veggies, deli meat, and sweets! YUM!

Our bears are fed completely off of donated produce. We want to thank all of the donors for their thoughtful donations! Our bears want to say thank you too!

Pixie's favorite food is grapes!

                               

This beautiful girl Meyote has quite the sweet tooth!

Lucky, our "Big Brother" of Bear Orphanage, loves avocados! 

Please come down and visit our bears in Bear Orphanage! They would love to meet you and thank you for all of your generous donations!                              


There are also other ways to help out the sanctuary:

• You can adopt an animal! Cats are $100/month, Bears are $125/month, Cougars are $75/month, and our other animals are $50/month.
• Check out our Wish List. We can use almost any item you can think of! All items large and small are greatly appreciated!
• If you shop at either Tom Thumb, Kroger, or Albertsons, you can get a shopper's card that will donate a portion of what you spend directly to the sanctuary. Doesn't cost you any extra money!
• To all you Amazon shoppers, shop using Amazon Smile! =) With each purchase through Amazon Smile, Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase to IEAS.
  

Happy Birthday, Cappy!

While everyone was out celebrating the Fourth of July on their three day weekend, here at the Sanctuary we were celebrating the birthday of one awesome Capybara! Happy birthday, Cappy!

Cappy was a former house pet who arrived at the sanctuary in November of 2013 after his owner could no longer care for him. Cappy has a sweet and gentle nature, but can be timid. His favorite activities include swimming in his large pool and munching on his bamboo treats.

Capybara are the largest rodents in the world and are native to all countries in South America except Chile. Capybara are also semi-aquatic mammals, meaning they spend half of their time on land and half of their time in the water. Their feet are actually webbed and their eyes, ears, and nose are all positioned towards the top of their head to help conceal themselves from predators in the water. (Cool!)

Here at the sanctuary, Cappy is fed guinea pig feed, timothy hay, and the occasional apple. In the wild, however, capybara graze mainly on grass, aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark.

Like all other residents at the Sanctuary, Cappy is available for adoption! Adopting Cappy is $50/month and with your donation you receive:

• An 8x10 photograph of Cappy
• An adoption certificate
• And you are able to come to IEAS for a monthly, accompanied visit with Cappy where you can sit and get to know him