Western Plains Animal Refuge
A non-profit organization dedicated to helping domestic and wild animals.
History
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In 2006, veterinarian Dr. Jessica Braun founded the Western Plains Animal Refuge (WPAR), a domestic animal shelter and wildlife rehabilitation center in Hays, Kansas.
Our organization spent its first years inside of her clinic, the Animal Health Center, until 2011 when she transitioned to practice to home healthcare. A new director, Brendon McCampbell, was elected during this time and began the search for a new facility.
In the summer of 2012, a manufactured home outside of Ellis, Kansas, was donated to WPAR, which became the Kopfman-Petco Foundation Animal Shelter. While the facility allowed to us to help many animals, it required continual maintenance and was not suitable for continued use. We made the difficult decision to close the facility in the winter of 2014 and began working out of the Hadley Center in Hays, Kansas, which last until the summer of 2022.
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We now operate almost entirely out of the homes of our volunteers, but have dreams of building a facility in the future.