Animal Care Trust is a registered UK charity transforming the lives of very sick and badly injured stray and wild animals in northern Taiwan through round-the-clock emergency rescue, the best veterinary treatment available, careful rehoming, and loving, quality care.
ACT was borne of the vision and passion of Englishman Sean McCormack, who has worked tirelessly to prevent animal suffering in Taiwan for more than twenty-three years. Since moving to the island in 1999, and inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall during a chance meeting in 2004, he has directly rescued or helped more than 2,000 animals in distress, created seven animal sanctuaries, and started three nonprofits in Taiwan dedicated to improving the welfare of animals: Animals Taiwan (2004 — 2008), the Taiwan SPCA (2008 — 2010), and The PACK Sanctuary (2010 — 2017). In 2014, Sean realised his dream to start a UK charity when he co-founded Animal Care Trust (initially named People for Animal Care and Kindness).
ACT is the name given to the project that created all those charities and facilities and which continues to transform the lives of suffering animals. Our ongoing project in Taiwan, ACT for Animals, currently operates a 70-cat rescue-and-rehoming centre called The Cats’ Cradle; a 134-dog, two-site rescue centre called The ARK (Animal Rescue Kennels); and, across the valley, a beautiful 100-dog sanctuary we call The deN. All sites are nestled in the foothills of YangMing Mountain, just outside Taipei City, and overlooking the East China Sea. ACT for Animals was co-founded by Sean’s partner, Judy Hsu, who registered the organisation as a national Taiwan nonprofit in 2020 and works tirelssly as its Chief Association Executive.
Sean and Judy’s goal is to keep growing the ever-busy rescue organisation to include an international-standard rehoming centre as well as a charity veterinary hospital within the next three years. But what we are best known for currently is our animal rescues, which we perform year round, at any time of night or day, often in incredibly difficult circumstances. Some of our more notable rescues have been featured on the likes of The Dodo and featured in news media all around the world.
We are dedicated to alleviating the suffering and elevating the welfare of animals throughout Taiwan.
We envision Taiwan becoming a leader in Asia for humane treatment of all animals.
We believe in putting the animal first whenever possible and springing into urgent action whenever needed.
Founder Sean gets his first taste of animal rescue while living in Key West, Florida, USA, volunteering under the inspiring tutelage of director Becky Arnold.
Judy and her twin sister, Linda, start buying food to give to the strays they encounter on the walk home from school.
Tiger is the first dog Sean rescues in Taiwan. Just a young puppy, she is found unconscious at the side of the road, covered in mange.
A serendipitous meeting with Dr. Jane Goodall inspires Sean to create an organisation because, as Jane puts it, 'together we can make a difference'.
Now on a mission from Goodall, the inaugural Animals Taiwan steering-committee meeting is held at Grandma Nitti's restaurant, ShiDa, Taipei City.
After Sean's home quickly becomes inundated with rescues, the bold decision is made to build a rescue centre at ShiLin, just outside Taipei City.
Realising that more needs to be done in regard to education, investigation, legislation, and campaigning to tackle animal issues at the root, the Taiwan SPCA is founded.
Understanding a pressing need for a permanent home for unadoptable animals, an organisation is created that will see several name changes before later becoming The PACK Sanctuary.
The SanZhi Sanctuary is created on 1.5 acres of land to provide a home to unadoptable dogs, cats, and pigs.
Deciding to follow her lifelong dream of running an animal sanctuary, Judy applies to work as animal care staff before quickly rising to manager.
Rescued from a kill pound grossly undernourished and riddled with mange, Tiny the Rotweiler's incredible transformation makes him an online dog-show champion.
Needing to urgently move from the current location and requiring more space for the growing sanctuary, a new site is secured and construction started to home all the dogs and pigs.
A peaceful, large piece of land is turned into a retirement home for older dogs and, later, a large, shady garden for the pigs.
Wanting to fundraise on a global level to support the support within Taiwan, the UK charity is founded and initially named PACK.
A large, 3.5-acre, beautiful piece of agricultural land with no neighbours is found by accident and kennels and gardens constructed to provide a happy, permanent home for the dogs.
After several name changes, The Sanctuary becomes The PACK Sanctuary, named after its recently formed sister charity in the UK.
With a growing number of cats in need of rescue and care, a large house is turned into a rescue and rehoming centre for stray felines in need of a safe home.
Our founders leave The PACK sanctuary to form the best organisation yet, ACT for Animals, after the UK charity's new name, which will soon be legally changed.
With the former Taiwan association now in different hands but retaining the PACK name, the UK charity is officially renamed ACT—Animal Care Trust.
ACT quickly grows, and a piece of land once intended to be a pig farm is transformed into The ARK (animal rescue kennels) to home all the dogs coming into our care.
A deal is made with the PACK Sanctuary to take all their cats into ACT care, and so a large house is found nearby and converted into The Cats' Cradle, now a 70-cat rescue and rehoming centre.
With rescues far outnumbering adoptions, ACT urgently takes over a small, pretty piece of land to turn into 12 gardens to house recently rescued dogs.
By a stroke of luck, a piece of land just across the lane from The ARK becomes available and is turned into ARK III (because The deN was originally named ARK II).
A much larger, more beautiful, 3.3-acre tree farm, complete with pond and building, is secured and construction immediately started so The deN can be moved to a far better site.
The reason we have been able to achieve so much for the suffering animals of Taiwan over the last 23 years is because kind people like you have joined the mission along the way. From fostering and adopting cats and dogs we’ve rescued to giving a little of your time, skills, knowledge, or money, it’s YOU that makes it possible. Please consider joining us on our journey today.
Take a look at what kind animal lovers like you say about ACT:
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Registered UK charity no. 1163828
Transforming the lives of suffering animals in Taiwan since 1999
UK ADDRESS:
c/o Axis Cloud Accounting
The Marlowe Innovation Centre
Marlowe Way
Ramsgate
Kent CT12 6FA
Email:
[email protected]
ACT rescues hundreds of stray dogs and cats and wild animals from horrific cruelty at the hands of people who know better—around a quarter of our sanctuary dogs have lost at least one limb to cruel trapping devices that are illegal, yet we must keep pushing authorities to stop them. Our teams work tirelessly to catch and identify the perpetrators so that they can finally be put out of business.
We will never give up acting on behalf of the animals who need us—because kindness and compassion are what make the world a better place for us all. It’s a tough battle, but one we can win when good people stand behind us. Wherever you are, you can pledge to take action to improve the lives of suffering animals.
