NEWS
ACRES IN THE NEWS
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938 LIVE
3 November 2006
Fundraising event for the AWRC 2
Shaffiq Alkhatib
It will cost more than a million dollars to build and maintain Singapore 's first wildlife rescue centre.
The Animal Concerns Research and Education Society or ACRES, has therefore embarked on a fundraising roadshow to raise funds for the project.
Shaffiq Alkhatib reports.
It's illegal to keep exotic pets such as monkeys and snakes in Singapore .
ACRES said that it confiscated about 160 such animals in the past 2 years alone.
From April next year, these animals will be sent the new refuge, to be known as the ACRES Wildlife Rescue Centre.
It's Executive Director, Louis Ng says the centre can accommodate more than 400 animals.
Ideally we want to repatriate these animals to where they came from. I think like us, if we are kidnapped to another country, we'll want to go home. And so for them, they will be temporarily housed in the shelter before we send them to another sanctuary in their native countries.
With the new shelter, ACRES will be employing 6 more full time staff and a vet to help look after the animals.
However, running the refuge will not be cheap.
We need about 1.099 million dollars to construct the centre and to fund it for a year and we are urging the public to help us in establishing this rescue centre.
One way to finance the centre is through the roadshow.
ACRES aims to raise more than 30 thousand dollars in the 2-day event which ends tomorrow.
It seems the organisation has won over the masses.
Members of the public say they will contribute to the shelter.
I fully support this. If there are any donations required, I will definitely donate
This is a very good idea and I will give my support whenever I can.
Log on to www. acres.org.sg for more information.
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