Earlier this week, Saving Grace Animal Society took in 31 animals, all in life-or-death situations.
“A great day like this is a great undertaking for our organization,” said Co-Executive Director Erin Deems.
“A year ago it would have been an okay day, but now it’s causing us quite a bit of panic.
“We’ve been in panic mode, in terms of shelter capacity, for the last few months.”
Read more: Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society reaches capacity for rescue animals, stops intake
According to Deems, the situation continues to worsen.
“Requests to hand over their animals are coming in at an unprecedented rate,” he explained.
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“If we continue at this rate, we don’t have a year left. We’re cutting all of our funding into these important medical cases and it’s not sustainable.”
Also, Deems said they don’t have enough foster homes and people aren’t donating like they used to.
“Animal welfare in our province right now is an important fight,” Deems said.
“We all need to start looking at what we can do to make animals better.”
Read more: Alberta animal rescue opens first Edmonton facility
The Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) shelter in Edmonton is also full.
“We’re finding that there seems to be a real significant increase in intake or requested intake,” said Leigh McLean, director of operations for AARCS Edmonton.
“We’ve been getting a lot of surrender requests, a lot of emergency requests — communities are finding a lot of lost animals, a lot of animals that have been abandoned.”
McLean also noted that their outgoing animals are lower than normal, adding that they have reduced their adoption fees to make room for new cases.
“There’s always a spike in intake over the summer and we tend to find that there’s a little bit of a dip in terms of followers and adopters, things like that,” McLean explained.
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At Saving Grace, the rescue is currently raising funds for its own veterinary clinic, which Deems said would relieve a lot of pressure.
“(It would) allow us to free up some resources so that when we do those larger intakes and when we get those calls, we’re not in a panic mode,” Deems said.
Deems hopes things change before it’s too late.
“I don’t know how it can be more difficult in rescue than it is now.”
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