Desperate San Diego Shelters Just Declared a State of Emergency
The San Diego Humane Society is asking for people to come and adopt or foster some of their dogs, and have since declared their facilities are in "a state of emergency." Sadly, they also predict that it's only going to get worse as we head into summer.
It's not that the animal rescue is a little overcrowded, they're reporting record numbers of animals and limited space on where to keep them all.
According to Fox 5, the San Diego Humane Society has more than maxed out their available space and are now hoping that they can raise awareness to the public and encourage them to come out and bring a dog home.
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Last year the organization had about 540 dogs in the care every day. This year "we have 640 dogs per day in our animal shelters," a spokesperson told the news outlet.
And that number is only going to get worse. In the summer months, the organization could be caring for more than 3,000 dogs — far above what they can safely accommodate.
“What we’re asking for today is the community’s help to get some of these animals into homes,” the spokesperson added.
San Diego Humane says one of the main reasons for the uptick are unwanted litters of puppies that end up at their facilities.
"In six years, two unaltered dogs, un-spayed and unneutered male and female and their offspring, can be responsible for over 60,000 canines," they explained.
And you can only imagine that many of those dogs will end up in shelters or rescues like this one, where they'll stay until someone comes and gives them a good home.
"We've never seen numbers of dogs like we have now," San Diego Humane President Gary Weitzman told CBS 8. "Those numbers have almost doubled since 2022."
Weitzman said they're now calling on the public to come adopt or foster some of their animals, "and definitely spay or neuter your own pets," he advised. "We've got plenty ourselves, we actually want to stop that right where it starts."
He also shared that within San Diego County they have about 45,000 animals in shelters per year.
"We're at 150 percent capacity, even 200 capacity on dogs," he added. "That's the real critical point for us."
He said that they also believe the cost of pet care has driven many people to surrender their animals or could prevent people from adopting. As well as the San Diego housing market.
"We really want to appeal to the compassion of landlords to allow people to have pets in their apartments," he said. "That would help tremendously."
He warned that the large surplus of dogs could also change their promise to not euthanize any of their animals. "That's what we're all afraid of," he said. "We'll maintain that promise but this is challenging us to the very last bit of our effort."
If you are in the San Diego area and are ready to bring an animal home, you can visit the facility or head over to their website to learn more information.
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