Permits, Permits, Permits!!!!

While it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but we are busy applying for our various permits.  There are so many we need to have.

First of all, we have a permit just to own and breed the animals.  This permit has to be renewed annually, and updated with all the new animals acquired each year.  This permit has to be sent to one state agency.

Then we need to have an educational permit.  This allows us to take the animals to schools, libraries, etc to showcase them and talk about them, us, and preserving nature.  This permit is a little bit more involved, since we have to not only be a registered organization, but also must have an educational program.

Our final permit that we are applying for today is our rehabilitator's permit.  This is a two stage permit process.  The first step is actually to take a class in rehabilitating wild animals and reintroducing them to the wild.  The first permit allows us to take in orphaned animals and raise them until they can care for themselves.  The second permit would allow us to take in injured animals too.

So tonight we applied for our general permit and our educational permit.  And I signed up for the rehabilitation class.  So on April 2, I will spending 8 hours in Alliance OH, learning about how to care for and rehab wild animals.

Once we get this permit, we can start advertising that we can take in animals.

The next step is to apply for our tax-exempt status.  This is the big one.  Once we have 501(c)3 status, we can start looking for grants and donors to speed up the process toward getting the land.