Every year on Yom Kippur, people of Jewish faith seek atonement through fasting and other traditional observances, but there remains a very small segment of believers who endeavor to cleanse their sins by practicing a rite of animal sacrifice.

It was not yet Thanksgiving, but everyone at our Orland shelter had turkeys on the brain when 11 poults were dropped off at the sanctuary.

When good Samaritan Rina Deych and her son Julian decided to go food shopping one day in September 2009, they didn’t suspect that a trip to the grocery store would turn into a dramatic rescue.

The University of California, Davis Arboretum provides 100 acres of natural refuge for harried people and a home for many wild animals, and Lake Spafford, which runs through the center of this peaceful preserve, is an ideal environment for a variety of waterfowl, amphibians and fish.

Why did this chicken cross the road? No one’s quite sure, but she must have traveled far to get to the suburban backyard in Carmichael, California where two young animal-loving siblings named Daniel (age 13) and Emma (age 10) Mecham found her wandering around.

Lucas started life in 2006 at the petting zoo of a summer day camp in Los Angeles, but even though this sweet pig got lots of attention from adoring kids, he was suffering from severe neglect.

Disoriented, lost and terrified without her flock, Wendy was a lone sheep on the loose near Sacramento, California until she found herself stuck in a roadside ditch full of water and mud, completely unable to move.

Andre, Albert and 18 other chickens once lived in misery at a high school in Canandaigua, New York.

In October 2003, Farm Sanctuary was alerted to a tragic case of severe farm animal cruelty. San Diego Animal Control Officers arrived on the property of a man suspected of buying and reselling diseased and wounded stockyard animals for profit.

Before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August 2005, businesses in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi were raising an estimated 635 million farm animals for food.