Animal sanctuaries vary enormously in quality. Understanding accreditation standards helps donors and visitors distinguish genuine sanctuaries from exploitative operations.
The sanctuary label is unregulated in most countries, enabling any facility to claim sanctuary status regardless of its practices. The welfare difference between a genuine accredited sanctuary and a pseudo-sanctuary using the label for marketing is profound. Genuine sanctuaries provide lifetime care for non-releasable animals with minimal human contact, no commercial exploitation, and species-appropriate environments. Pseudo-sanctuaries use animals as props for paid human interactions that stress the animals while generating income. Donors and visitors who understand this distinction can direct support to operations that genuinely improve animal welfare and withhold it from those that exploit the sanctuary label.