UK: Saving Animals Can Be Too Hard For One Person

Paula Campbell who owned the Rainbow Ark Animal Sanctuary
I believe that this is Paula Campbell who owned the Rainbow Ark Animal Sanctuary

Paula Campbell loves animals. She wanted to help any animal and she did it successfully for many years, which is a monumental and admirable feat because when you save the lives of animals with an open heart and door you are taking on the weight of a heavy responsibility. When it comes to animal rescue, it is the caring and the good who mop up after the uncaring and the less good.

The caring attitude of an animal lover almost inevitably leads to trying to do the impossible in caring for two many animals because there must always be a financial limit. It is does matter how large an organisation you manage.

Rainbow Ark Animal Sanctuary
Rainbow Ark Animal Sanctuary

Paula set up her sanctuary, which was based on Christian principles, in a remote area in Weardale in County Durham, England.

She appears to have owned a farm which she used as the sanctuary. The farm was mortgaged. As the number of animals increased so did the costs. Feeding them alone was £1000 per month. You have to add to that medical bills and all the usual outgoings of running buildings including the mortgage.

Paula ran into financial difficulties, which is unsurprising because of the long recession that Britain has recently suffered. Donations are harder to come by.

There must have been enormous pressures on Paula to quit. She stopped paying her mortgage installments. That inevitably leads to repossession proceeding by the lender (mortgagee – believed to be Redstone Mortgages).

The Lender was granted permission, in court, to take possession and the bailiffs turned up with police.

Paula was overcome with emotion and collapsed.

Paula Campbell collapsed.
Paula Campbell collapsed.

Her daughter has vowed to fight on to recover their sanctuary. It will be an almost impossible fight to win.

What is sad is that the good suffer in trying to care for animals that should have been cared for by others who I can only presume are less caring.

There are 300 animals that need new homes. Promises have been made by the lender who now possess the farm to re-home them. This is will be difficult and require commitment. Will the promises be kept because the sanctuary is no longer in the hands of people who care as much as Paula.

22 thoughts on “UK: Saving Animals Can Be Too Hard For One Person”

  1. Its so very very sad and yes its true people have animals dump them and then a caring person will pick up the pieces. Its so easy for it to get out of control when you care so much about the animals and sadly this is the main reason why the rescues that refuse to take more animals because they are full manage to survive. They hate to say no but they have to.

    On a smaller scale I have to be sensible as well I pay £50 per month on vets insurance for my 3 cats. Food is around £50. I couldn’t afford another cat and I wouldn’t take one on a budget it doesn’t work

    I wish I had the money to help Paula 🙁

  2. Sometimes it takes a crises to get the masses to come to the rescue. Maybe Paula didn’t know how to ask. This is where my faith in the good that most people inherently have. We will see this turn around. I’m confident.

  3. No, I am not a member of any organization.
    But, I am closely involved with the rescue group here that fought hard to get a TNR program approved 2 years ago. The group coordinates the entire program with a vet as president. To date, over 2000 cats have been spayed/neutered.
    They have provided free and low cost spay/neutering, vaccinations, and FIV testing for my colonies. I’m not obligated, but I feel that I should volunteer when I can, such as assisting in surgeries or even just donating food, etc. for all the foster cats the members have. They have also assisted me with adoptions.
    I’ve been very lucky to have that kind of support.

  4. It’s over £35,000 now and war is raging on the save the ark animals page because the RSPCA are involved, apparently the animals are all healthy and lots of homes being offered but there’s a hold up because the mortgage company now own them.
    Such a shame we didn’t know about Paula’s plight before it came to this.

  5. This is so very sad and that’s all there is to it 🙁

    If only somebody could buy it out and preserve it. Maybe somebody will – it can’t cost that much.

  6. I can be hard for those who want to do something good for animals because I feel that the world is not a great place for animals. It is too human-centric and commercialised.

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