In December 1977, Carol and Bill Watson and daughter Michele adopted a little dark brown—and very wild—burro from the Mojave Desert through the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, and our lives were changed forever. As a result of our government’s bureaucratic maze, coupled with greed and prejudice, she was one of many wild burros and mustangs captured and removed from the public lands that had always been their home. Many others before and after her capture have been killed.

Carol and Michele drove to Valley Wells, California, chose a small jenny (female donkey) from a large herd of wild burros still corralled from that particular roundup and brought her home to Georgia (along with five other burros for other people). We named her Amber and loved her completely. After some time and much caution, she loved us back.

Amber’s captivating style—her patience, humility, and courage—compelled us to focus on the problems we humans are causing the wild burros and domestic donkeys. Amberwood Sanctuary is the realization of our dream to provide a permanent home for some of these kindly, gentle-eyed, velvety-nosed creatures. Along with the adopted wild burros, several unwanted/abused donkeys, dogs, chickens, rabbits, cats, a pig, and a “woods” rat who insists on living with the chickens and rabbits have full family privileges at the sanctuary. And, just as important to us, we make every possible effort to protect the many wild animals living here. As abused/homeless dogs and cats come our way, we make every effort to find them loving homes through petfinder.com.

Above and beyond our primary responsibility to care for the animals living at Amberwood Sanctuary, a top priority is our involvement in all areas of concern for donkeys worldwide through direct action, education, and legislative issues. We are engaged in activities which promote respect and compassion for all creatures and changes in attitudes and actions to address our ecological crisis.

In April 1982, we took our first small steps to create Amberwood Sanctuary, the organization was incorporated in November 1983, and it received its 501(c)3 nonprofit status in August 1984.