Seeing exotic animals in a zoo may have some shock value, but helping and rehabilitating them is something else entirely. Revere High School junior Justin Burrell-Miller just doesn’t observe exotic animals; he helps them at his animal sanctuary. Byler Animal Sanctuary helps barns full of animals from across the world.

Burrell-Miller runs and owns the Byler Animal Sanctuary, a place where both domestic and exotic animals receive care. The sanctuary, which in the past was a fully-functioning cow farm, now has 156 different species, 12 barns and covers over 386 acres.

Burrell-Miller started volunteering at the sanctuary when he was thirteen. He recalls how the sanctuary turned from a cow farm to what it is today.

“Originally [the sanctuary] was a cow farm, and then my aunt [who] is a great animal lover, kind of adopted animals and took them as our pets but we are called a sanctuary because we are AZA accredited. AZA accredited stands for Associations of Zoos and Aquariums. We are not technically a zoo, because we are not open to the public. We still have the AZA come out and they check where our animals live, what their diets are, how our vet program works, just so they know that we are not abusing animals,” Burrell-Miller said.

Burrell-Miller voiced the goal of the sanctuary.

“Our main goal is to . . . rehabilitate and then release. We have 3 veterinarian programs. We have normal household pets/farm pets . . . our big mammal and our big cat veterinarian,” Burrell-Miller said.

Mammal veterinarian David Blake has volunteered at the sanctuary for over seventeen years. He went into detail about the animals he treats.

“I can care for anything from your African mammals such as elephants and giraffes, to the smaller mammals such as horses and cows. Every animal that comes to the sanctuary must be put into quarantine to make sure they do not have diseases. While they are there, my biggest goal is to gain their trust and be able to do a full examination. A lot of the animals we have currently have been abused or neglected,” Blake said.

Lukas Wheiler, the education specialist at the sanctuary, has worked there for six years. He voiced his role at the sanctuary and talked of his previous experiences with animals.

“I know almost everything about every one of our animals. I know [their] weights and [their] diet . . . . My original job was to visit schools, libraries and [so on] with animals so kids could learn about animals without going anywhere,” Wheiler said.
Burrell-Miller explained what types of volunteering opportunities in which the sanctuary participates.

“We give riding lessons for therapy kids. We work closely with Akron Children’s [Hospital]. Volunteers lead the lesson completely. We just give you an outline of what needs to be done,” Burrell-Miller said.

Wheiler also said that the sanctuary provides summer camps, volunteer training and an education program.

Burrell-Miller has helped animals from cats and dogs to zebras and other exotic animals so that they might have a better life. He will keep running the sanctuary and making the animal world a better place.