Santuário Rancho dos Gnomos (ASERG)

The Associação Santuário Ecológico Rancho dos Gnomos (ASERG) was started in 1991 in Cotia, São Paulo, by the couple Silvia and Marcos Pompeu. It became a formal non-governmental organisation in 2000. It takes in wild, exotic and domestic animals that are victims of environmental crime, most of them seized by official bodies such as the Environmental Police and IBAMA from wildlife traffickers, circuses and owners who mistreated them. In 2002 alone it received about 2,500 animals from the authorities, around 12% of all animal seizures in São Paulo state that year.

Every new arrival is assessed by its team of biologists and vets. Animals that can return to the wild are released. Those that can't, often because of injuries or years of captivity, are cared for at the sanctuary for the rest of their lives. As the city grew around its original site in Cotia, the sanctuary moved to a larger, quieter property in Joanópolis, also in São Paulo state. Its animals were transferred there from 2019, starting with five pumas, after a crowdfunding campaign helped pay for the land.

Its residents include lions, pumas, bears, monkeys and marmosets, as well as buffaloes it took in after the 2021 Brotas abandonment case, when hundreds of buffaloes were found starving on a farm. Rancho dos Gnomos and another sanctuary were authorised by the court in November 2023 to care for them permanently. One of its best-known residents, the brown bear Verrú, was used for more than 20 years as a circus "dancing bear" and lived at the sanctuary from 2019 until he died in April 2026. In October 2026 the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office asked a court to move two bears from Sorocaba's municipal zoo to the sanctuary. The sanctuary also runs environmental education programmes for schools.

How to help: donate through the sanctuary's own donation site, by PIX using its CNPJ, or with a monthly sponsorship of a rescued animal or one of the buffaloes. It also runs an online shop. Contact is by email (contato@ranchodosgnomos.org.br).