300 animals in 3 days: Overcrowded Pima County animal shelter seeks adopters, fosters
The Pima Animal Care Center says it’s in urgent need of pet adoptions after receiving a surplus of animals over the last three days.
Public Information Officer Kayleigh Murdock says the shelter usually takes in between 50 and 60 animals each day. This week, they received 118 in a single day, and a total of more than 300 since Monday.
"Some of those animals were brought in from housing situations, which is something that we’re seeing pretty often right now, whether that be evictions, people losing their housing and unfortunately having to surrender their pets," she said.
That includes dogs, cats and even a large group of birds brought in by the county's animal control team. Murdock says the shelter has seen an increase in the number of pet owners having to surrender their pets over the last year. That, combined with it being high season for the number of stray dogs and cats brought in, has pushed the shelter past its capacity.
Murdock says members of the public are being asked to adopt pets when they can or foster them temporarily.
