Vieques Humane Society and Animal Rescue

Vieques Humane Society and Animal Rescue, Inc. (VHSAR) believes all pets deserve access to quality veterinary care. This includes owned animals of the significantly underserved and impoverished community on our small island, as well as abandoned and unwanted cats and dogs. As the island’s only open-admission shelter and low-cost veterinary clinic with regular service hours, VHSAR has served as an essential animal welfare resource for 30+ years. We are committed to ensuring that all cats and dogs entering our clinic or shelter are provided humane and caring outcomes. Vieques, located off the east coast of mainland Puerto Rico, is accessible only by ferry or small planes. Median household income is $15,539—23% below the main island. Per capita income is $11,156 (41.3% of the population live in poverty). The culture of the island allows free-roaming animals, a practice that leads to over-population, disease, and animal suffering. The VHSAR mission is to alleviate the suffering of homeless, neglected, and abused animals living on Vieques. This mission is accomplished through temporary sheltering, veterinary care for shelter dogs/cats, re-homing, and maintaining a low-cost community veterinary clinic that includes spay-neuter-vaccinate programs.

VHSAR provides a full-spectrum solution for the island’s animal welfare, including:

 • The only low-cost veterinary clinic and open-admission shelter: As a 501c-3 entity, donors underwrite our clinic services, making them affordable (and sometimes free) for our community. VHSAR was the first, and remains the only, veterinary clinic with regular service hours—offering both owned and stray animals spay/neuter for essential population control, wellness care and vaccines to stem disease, and emergency veterinary services. As an open-admission shelter, we accept all stray companion animals without question and regardless of condition or need. VHSAR regularly accepts surrenders from Our Big Fat Caribbean Rescue, an island volunteer rescue group.

• Rehoming/adoption programs for shelter animals: The island offers limited local adoptions, while facing a chronic pet overpopulation challenge. VHSAR successfully networks with sister shelters in the continental U.S. that arrange stateside adoption. We coordinate logistics and underwrite regularly scheduled flights (about every 8 weeks) for groups of shelter animals, creating many heartwarming happy endings (200+ in 2020)!

• Education: The island culture allows free-roaming animals (both owned and stray), and at times projects an attitude that does not respect or value animal lives. VHSAR has established a strategic relationship with Juntos Vieques!, an education-focused 501c-3. Prior to COVID-19 local students visited our shelter weekly to interact with animals, provide exercise and enrichment, and learn about the importance of spay/neuter, 2 vaccines, proper care and feeding, and overall humane animal treatment. Together, we are influencing the next generation of Viequense animal stewards!