Pilots Save Pets By Flying Them To Fur-Ever Homes

As adorable as these volunteer pilots saving the lives of animals with "Wings Of Rescue" are, they are also extremely necessary. Each year, roughly 3,000 to 4,000 pets are euthanized due to overcrowding at animal shelters. Unless they are specifically marked as no-kill, shelters who have no room or resources for animals often put them to sleep through lethal injection. While this is an issue many people have heard about, not many are familiar with shelters that are under-crowded and do not have enough pets to place into animal-seeking homes. While this sounds like a good problem to have, it's actually devastating to think about. There are so many cats and dogs who have to be put to sleep because their potential furever home is just out of range from the shelter. Enter: these heroic pilots, here to save the day.

"Wings of Rescue" has found a brilliant way to combat this. This organization flies cats and dogs along the west coast and Canada from overcrowded shelters to shelters with room to spare. The nonprofit is completely run by charitable donations by a team of volunteer pilots and on-the-ground personnel who help with loading and transportation. People use their personal planes to fly the animals from one shelter to the other, and about 10,000 people have been involved since the organization's launch. Surprisingly, it only costs about $80 to fly an animal to a new shelter.

Over 12,000 dogs have been saved thanks to "Wings of Rescue" since it formed in 2009. Many of the pets rescued would have been euthanized just hours later. It's a brilliant an innovative idea that saves many lives, and also provides pilot hobbyists with a real purpose.

The organization is always seeking donations, which you can contribute to on their website.

Image: shelter_me/Instagram