The Wild Rose Humane Society (WRHS) was formed about six years ago to address the need for an animal shelter in the area.
Since its inception, board members and volunteers have been working hard to raise money, both for a permanent building and for programs to be offered to the public, according to Warren Wright, media liason for the WRHS.
“Initially it was called the Airdrie and Area Humane Society, then for a very brief period of time it was the Central Alberta Humane Society, and then it ended up being called the Wild Rose Humane Society,” said Wright.
Half of the members are from Airdrie and about half are from the Didsbury and Olds area, he added.
“Long story short, people got together after seeing a need for a humane society that looked after Airdrie, up to basically Olds and Highway 2 west, which encompasses north Rocky View (County) and Mountain View County and Sundre, that kind of area,” he noted.
There is always a need for shelters for stray, abused and neglected animals, as there is rarely enough space available at the various facilities in the Calgary and Red Deer areas, he said.
“So our thoughts and plans were to implement programs, education programs, as well as do some capital fundraising for building a shelter,” he said.
Though a brand new shelter would be ideal, the society has also been looking at using existing buildings and simply converting them to suit the society's needs, he said.
“It's obviously a costly endeavour to do that. We've had some interest in building a shelter in the Airdrie area, but there's also interest in building the shelter in the Didsbury area,” he said.
The society is still in the fundraising phase, and though Wright was not able to comment on the progress towards that goal, he did note that the society is currently looking at various fundraising avenues as well as grant applications.
“All with the ultimate goal of finally having the necessary capital to build this shelter, and then we'll start staffing it with volunteers,” he said.
The WRHS has already rolled out a spay and neuter program for low-income households, and the board is also currently looking at putting together programming to be presented at area schools, he said.
“That's kind of what we're doing right now. Obviously we want to build this thing sooner rather than later and get more programs on,” he said. “We've just completed our big fundraising events for the summer, with the exception of Raise the Woof, which will be a concert hosted by Jake Peters.”
Peters approached the board members a while ago and said he was interested in playing a benefit concert for the society with his friends, and donating that back to the WRHS, noted Wright.
That event was planned for June, but due to poor ticket sales, the society decided to put it off until September, he said.
The reason the society formed, stems from where strays and rescued animals go when they are picked up by bylaw services and residents, he said.
“Traditionally, what bylaw services have been doing is rescuing animals and strays and taking them to other facilities outside the area (such as Calgary), and I think we need to keep these animals here and get them vet checked, give them a behavioural check, make sure they're healthy, and adopt them out,” he said.
“We think that we should have the ability to take in our own animals from our own communities and try to re-home them in the community.”
Every community has its own problem with abused or stray animals, and the WRHS thinks the problem should be dealt with in the area, rather than shipping them off to another facility that may already have space issues, he said.
The WRHS can be found on the web at (www.wildrosehumane.ca) and can also be found on Facebook, where members actively make posts regarding both stray animals and events, he said.
