Everything gets more expensive. For everyone, including animal shelters. Aside from the costs, the homes also have to step in when people bought a pet during the pandemic and are now overwhelmed.
Stuttgart (dpa/lsw) – The food is becoming more expensive, the electricity too and after the Corona pet boom, the outcast four-legged friends gather in the completely overloaded homes: The country wants to examine how it can stretch a rescue umbrella over the animal shelters to the facilities better help in the tense financial situation. The Ministry of Agriculture announced that no concrete decisions had yet been made. The Advisory Council for Animal Welfare, led and advised by the minister, has recently dealt intensively with the topic.
As a result of the Corona crisis, animal shelters are struggling with the increasing sale of animals that were purchased during the pandemic, said Minister of Agriculture Peter Hauk (CDU). Many of these animals, especially young dogs, need intensive care because the previous owners were completely inexperienced and overwhelmed in dealing with animals. Because of rising energy costs, many animal shelters also feared that more and more exotic wild animals – such as reptiles – would be given away or abandoned. “Keeping these demanding animal species requires a high level of energy and the feed costs also increase significantly here,” said Hauk. The illegal online trade, which is still booming, is also making life difficult for animal shelters, while at the same time fewer donations are being made.
Hauk called on the cities and municipalities to review the agreements on found animal costs. “But I also appeal to potential pet owners to be aware of the responsibility that comes with keeping a pet before they buy it,” said the minister. “Simply taking a pet out of its familiar environment and deporting it to an animal shelter is a bad solution in any case.”
According to the State Animal Welfare Association, many abandoned four-legged friends are not easy to find. They stay longer than average in the shelter, many are old, ill or have behavioral problems. The relevant association covers the majority of the costs of an animal shelter through donations, inheritances and its own events such as animal shelter festivals, information stands or flea markets. Due to the pandemic, this income has collapsed drastically and reserves have been used up in many cases. “Individual animal shelters already have to take out loans in order to be able to continue paying the wages of the employees,” it said.
