Earlier this week, Saving Grace Animal Society took in 31 animals, all of which were in life-or-death situations.
“A big day like this is a big undertaking for our organization,” said Co-Executive Director Erin Deems.
“A year ago this would have been a good day, but now it’s causing quite a bit of panic for us.
“We’ve been in panic mode – as far as shelter capacity – for the last few months.”
Read more: Alberta Animal Rescue Reaches Rescue Capacity, Stops Taking In
According to Deems, the situation continues to deteriorate.
“Requests to surrender their animals are just coming in at an unprecedented rate,” she explained.
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“If we continue at this rate, we don’t even have a year. We are reducing all our funds in these major medical cases and that is not sustainable.
On top of that, Deems said they don’t have enough foster homes and people aren’t donating like they used to.
“Animal welfare in our province is a big struggle right now,” Deems said.
“We all have to start looking at what we can do to do better for animals.”
Read more: Alberta animal rescue opens first facility in Edmonton
The Edmonton Animal Rescue Society (AARCS) shelter is also full.
“We’re finding that there just seems to be a real significant increase in admissions or reported admissions,” said AARCS Edmonton Operations Manager Lee McLean.
“We get a lot of surrender requests, a lot of emergency requests — communities find a lot of stray animals, a lot of animals that have been abandoned.”
McLean also noted that their animal exits are lower than normal and added that they have lowered their adoption fees to make room for new cases.
“There’s always an increase in intake in the summer, and we tend to find that there’s a little bit of a dip in terms of supporters and adopters, things like that,” McLean explained.
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At Saving Grace, the rescue organization is currently raising funds for its own veterinary clinic, which Deems said will relieve a lot of stress.
“(It would) allow us to free up some resources so that when we do these larger intakes and when we get those calls, we’re not in such a panic mode,” Deems said.
Deems hopes things turn around before it’s too late.
“I don’t know how it could get any harder to save than it is right now.”
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