KAREN WHITTAKER

• Organisation: Ocean Animals Sanctuary

Karen moved to Barbados from the UK in 2003. With a lifelong love of animals, Karen took on
the challenge to ‘rescue’ a struggling sanctuary on the beautiful east coast of Barbados in 2019,
feeling like it was an inevitable conclusion to the years of rescuing and rehoming strays there. 
Ocean Acres was then founded, with 45 dogs and 69 cats that we ‘inherited’. There are a lot of
animal welfare challenges in Barbados and Karen and her team work tirelessly to rescue,
rehabilitate and rehome the dogs and cats that find their way to them. 

Ocean Acres is strongly focussed on the underlying issues of overpopulation and societal
ignorance and cruelty, that they feel leads to the sad situations and abandonment that they
regularly see at the shelter. They run active spay and neuter and education programmes to help
combat some of these issues, although funding both this and their rescue work can be a
challenge, particularly as they do not receive government support.  Ocean Acres cares for a
huge amount of dogs and cats, always more than their realistic occupancy; and now usually
within the region of 200 dogs and 300 cats.

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