The story
International Animal Rescue was registered as a charity in the UK in 1989, with Alan Knight as chairman. The organisation began by running a sanctuary in the southwest of England for domestic and farm animals. In 1998, it opened a clinic in Goa, India, for stray dogs and cats.
In 1993, IAR was also registered as a charity in Malta to tackle the killing of migratory birds by hunters.
IAR India collaborated with various other groups and individuals to help animals. In 2022, IAR worked with the Delhi-based Wildlife SOS (WSOS) to rescue dancing bears from the streets of India. They first helped fund the completion of the first sloth bear sanctuary in India – the Agra Bear Rescue Facility (ABRF). As part of the project, job opportunities were created for the Kalandars, a nomadic tribe in India who were the original bear handlers. These people were supplied with seed money to retrain and set up small businesses. In 2009, the coalition of Wildlife SOS, IAR, and Free the Bears Foundation in Australia celebrated the rescue of the last dancing bear from the streets.
International Animal Rescue was first registered in Indonesia in 2006 under the local name Yayasan IAR Indonesia (YIARI). Its aim was to aid primates (initially macaques and slow lorises) and tackle deforestation. In 2007, YIARI built a rescue and rehabilitation centre on the island of Java for primates rescued from the pet trade, including macaques and lorises.
In 2009, YIARI's programme director in Indonesia, vet Karmele Llano Sanchez, treated a wound caused by a shackle on a captive orangutan in Pontianak, West Borneo. This led YIARI to rescue that orangutan, named JoJo, and a second one known as Jingo. The operation marked the beginning of YIARI's orangutan rescue and rehabilitation project, which first operated out of a small, temporary facility in Ketapang, West Borneo. In 2010, YIARI purchased 60 acres of land to build a permanent facility, and construction soon began.
Upon completion, the facility was accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS). In June 2014, YIARI's primate rehabilitation centre in West Java joined the orangutan facility in receiving GFAS accreditation.
The El Niño weather event in 2015 caused the destruction of 5,000 acres of rainforest surrounding YIARI's orangutan rehabilitation centre in Ketapang and the loss of more than five million acres nationwide. Consequently, YIARI took in 40 orangutans whose habitats were destroyed.
IAR's "Tickling is Torture" campaign, also launched in 2015, was designed to expose the cruelty of keeping slow lorises as pets. The campaign gathered 700,000 signatures and reached an audience of more than 150 million people. Additionally, a tree-planting project that aimed to plant 650,000 trees and reforest an area of land lost in the fires was launched by YIARI in 2016. In the same year, International Animal Rescue won JustGiving's Charity of the Year. The following year, IAR began supporting Nosara's Refuge for Wildlife, to help care for injured and orphaned howler monkeys and other wildlife in Costa Rica.
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Also in 2017, with partners the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC), IAR launched a campaign to rescue as many as 80 caged bears living in poor conditions in Armenia. In 2018, two young bears were released into the wild after rehabilitation with a minimum of human contact. This was the first time in Armenia that bears had been reintroduced into the wild.
In 2019, International Animal Rescue won The Charity Award in the Environment and Conservation category for its reforestation project in Indonesia.
The Sir Michael Uren Learning Centre in Ketapang was inaugurated on 10 July 2019. The centre is named after philanthropist Sir Michael Uren.
In 2020, alongside local Indonesian authorities, YIARI received an award from the BBVA Foundation in Spain in the category of biodiversity for an "innovative and integrated approach to protecting biodiversity in the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR) and several iconic species including orangutans". The BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation distinguish nature conservation initiatives based on best scientific knowledge and pursuing outcomes of broad and lasting impact.
In 2023, IAR's new rescue centre was opened in Nosara, Costa Rica, with assistance from the Michael Uren Foundation. The Sir Michael Uren Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre has the capacity to house up to 200 residents at a time, allowing the team to take in more wildlife, although the centre's main focus remains rehabilitation and release. The education centre is part of the facility, enabling the IAR team to educate the community about the threats facing local wildlife and teach them how to build a healthy relationship between people and animals. The centre was featured on the "Forest" episode of the BBC series, Mammals.
From Wikipedia’s article on International Animal Rescue, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4