WILSALL — Prairie Song is an animal rescue, tucked just outside of Wilsall, Montana, below the Crazy Mountains. They’ve been rescuing and rehabilitating a surprising variety of animals.
Jesscy Zimmermann founded Prairie Song as a nonprofit in 2020, but she’s been rescuing and working with animals for as long as she can remember.
"I remember some of my earliest memories are of people bringing my mom orphan ducklings and kittens and we always had a steady stream of rescue animals coming through our place so it’s just in my blood to rescue animals". Says Zimmermann.
Prairie Song has accepted a wide variety of animals into their care. From Kunekune piglets to llamas, to emu birds.
One of their most unique rescues, endangered Navajo churro sheep, are considered the first sheep breed of the Americas.
Zimmermann explains, "There’s less than 3,000 left in the world. So we’ve been working on conservation efforts to identify and isolate genetics in order to perpetuate the breed of sheep not going into extinction".
Prairie Song has rescued more than 250 dogs this year, over half of them coming from local reservations. But with funding and facility challenges, they’d like to construct their own building, to help more.
"I’d say we have to turn away over 100 animals every month and I think with a facility we’d be able to increase those numbers to get in and rehab and re-home more". She says.
Despite these challenges Prairie Song works hard to get animals into their perfect forever homes.
"It’s definitely my heart work. It’s definitely hard when you can’t save an animal, when it’s just out of your hands, but besides that I love everything about it". She says.
If your interested in adoption or rescue efforts with Prairie Song you can visit their Facebook page.
