Wings of Rescue is a Los Angeles based, all-volunteer organization that rescues animals from high-kill animal shelters and flies them to animal rescue organizations throughout the western United State —often across great distances—to areas where adoptable pets are in demand.

California municipal shelters, which by law cannot refuse to take in an animal, are struggling with an overpopulation of strays, unwanted litters and abandoned pets caused by too many animals not spayed or neutered.

Wings of Rescue pilots donate their aviation skills and aircraft. No plane is too small or too large to save a life!

Sue Zucker, rescue group coordinator for Riverside County Animal Services, hugs Noel, a 2-year-old female terrier. Noel was among the California dogs airlifted to new homes in Oregon. (Photo: Riverside County Animal Services)

Each airlift involves marshaling planes and pilots, picking out pets, gathering health certificates, collecting the animals and—the last stage—transporting them.

To date, Wings of Rescue has flown 2,000 pets from California shelters to future homes across the West to places such as Phoenix, Olympia, Bellingham, Billings and British Columbia.

On a recent mission that took three months to arrange, four small planes transported 300 animals—including cats and kittens, newly born puppies and senior dogs, from Chihuahuas to shepherd mixes—from animal shelters in and around Riverside, California to locations throughout the Pacific Northwest. At a touchdown in Hillsboro, Oregon, just outside Portland, Wings of Rescue left 100 animals, all of them spoken for, either by foster parents or rescue groups committed to finding them homes.

Contact: Wings of Rescue