Ensuring the survival of critters great and small through education and experiences.
Animals of Appalachia
Animals of Appalachia is a family ran, non-profit located in Northeast Tennessee. We focus on conservation and conservation education for our region and beyond. Birthed out of a passion for caring for animals and a desire to change how animals were kept AoA hopes to change how the next generation looks at the world around them.
How do we plan to do that?
Firstly AoA has opened Not Your Normal Animal Rescue. This is a rescue and rehoming center focused on non-traditional animals such as reptiles or rodents. We are hoping to ease the burden placed on the local animal shelters And Humane Societies when they receive animals they are not setup to care for. Learn More
Rehoming is an important part of our rescue. Educating new caregivers on the best way to care for their new friends is built in to our process. The animals we rescue sometimes need care that may not be obvious to those that have had only traditional animal friends in the past. That is where the education comes in handy. See who is available.
Animals of Appalachia is launching a number of books. Beginning with a series called “Buddy Goes For A Walk”, a series of books following our red eared slider, Buddy McTurtle, as he travels around our region, meeting new and old friends, and discovering the beauty of what is right in our backyards. This series is geared toward younger children, but there is more to come for older children and adults.
We also have a weekly podcast all about conservation and how you can help. We talk about animals from our region and around the world, letting you know how they are doing and how we believe we, as humans, can do better. You will hear about some unique animals as well as well known animals.
As the weather warms we plan to organize and lead hikes through our beautiful mountains. Theses hikes are more than simply getting out there, we will also be cleaning as we go. We will also be working with the forest service to maintain the lesser used trails making them more easily accessible for use by others. Allowing the beauty of area to be enjoyed by even more people.
We strive to bring attention to the importance of the often overlooked critters in our community.
Get InvolvedWhy are we doing this?
Local animal shelters and Humane Societies are great at housing and rehoming traditional animal friends, but are not equipped to house or care for exotic animals such as reptiles, rodents, or birds. We want to remove the stress from these entities while educating the new caretakers and preparing them for their new animal friend.
We are also removing the blocks to surrendering an animal. There are no fees for dropping off or having an animal picked up by AoA. There is no shame in needing to have your animal friend rehomed. Whether it is life circumstances or you realize you are not equipped to care for them, we are here to help them find their forever home.
Unfortunately shame and cost has kept many from properly surrendering their animal friend. Either the animal suffers and never lives a good life or they are released into the local environment. Sometimes the animals are simply thrown in the trash. By removing shame and cost we hope to aid in keeping these critters out of the local environment there by aiding in conservation of our area.
Conservation is made to seem like something someone else is doing. It is rarely taught as something everyone can do… every day. Conservation doesn’t have to be a large effort. It can simply be picking up trash as you hike or volunteering at a local event. Of course there are donations, monetary and time, but not everyone can do that. We believe that education is the key to changing how people look at conservation and how they interact with their world. Making conservation a part of daily life not something someone else does.
We seek to create an environment that fosters a passion in our community for conservation.
Get Involved
Who are we?
Animals of Appalachia was born after we formed our enclosure company, Frog Beans. We set out to create a new enclosure built with the critters we keep in mind. No more heavy, glass boxes with minimal air flow and no heat retention. We built light weight, well ventilated, well insulated, wooden enclosures.
This lead us to begin thinking about how to make the enclosures look and feel more natural to the critters we keep. Of course that lead to environmental research and that lead to seeing the devistation humans have caused to the habitats of the animals we supposedly care about. Thus the idea that would eventually lead to Animals of Appalachia was born. We thought through many ways we could do this and found many organizations doing a great job at a lot of things. The thing we found lacking was early education and interactive fun. So here we are!