Regional Animal Protection Society
organization
Regional Animal Protection Society (RAPS) is a no kill animal services agency in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. RAPS operates the RAPS Cat Sanctuary (Canada's largest such facility), a fostering network, social enterprise thrift stores, and the RAPS Animal Hospital, a full-service animal clinic.
RAPS was founded in 1989 as Richmond Homeless Cats. It was registered as a nonprofit organization with the Province of British Columbia in 1995. In 2007, it was renamed the Richmond Animal Protection Society. In 2017, it was renamed the Regional Animal Protection Society to reflect the geographic reach of its programs and services.
History
In 1989, a small group of volunteers founded the Richmond Animal Protection Society (then Richmond Homeless Cats), the first organization in the Richmond area helping feral cats. At the time, feral cats were quickly killed upon entering local animal control pounds. Volunteers started to do trap–neuter–return of feral cats, including fostering and taming feral kittens, and fostering tame cats for adoption. There were soon 43 feeding stations for feral cats tended each day in Richmond and south Vancouver.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21002393. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1995, 2007 and 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Regional Animal Protection Society” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.