Animal shelters across NSW are at capacity and are struggling to rehome their pets

ABC NEWS (Australia)

It’s a situation the RSPCA describes as a perfect storm. Animal shelters across the state are at capacity, and the cost-of-living crisis means fewer people want to adopt a pet.

Transcript

00:00The kennels are full, not just here in Hawkesbury but across Sydney.

00:07At the moment we cannot take any more stray dogs or cats in. We're all at capacity. In

00:11the last two weeks we've come here to find dogs tied up in our front meet and greet yards.

00:17We've seen boxes of kittens left at the front door overnight and it will get worse, you

00:21know, leading up to that Christmas break.

00:23In New South Wales the RSPCA has a waiting list of 12 months before someone can surrender

00:28their pet. It says there are two main reasons why people want to give them up.

00:33They're struggling either finding a property or affording to care for their pet. We get

00:39influx of kittens each week. People don't traditionally adopt from a shelter or a rescue

00:47over Christmas. We have people, our amazing foster carers who go on holiday so we have

00:53animals coming back into care and then, you know, we have people that are needing to surrender

00:58pets over Christmas. So all of these things really do work into the perfect storm.

01:03A recent New South Wales Parliamentary hearing found that the state is facing an animal rehoming

01:08crisis with hounds like this one in Hawkesbury and rescues being severely underfunded and

01:14overcapacity.

01:16Ten months, can you believe? They're perfectly healthy, they're fine, they're great animals

01:22but maybe they just don't look the part and that means that people overlook them and that

01:25is very hard.

01:26The state government recently banned puppy farming. It's also made changes to rental

01:31laws to make it easier for people to have pets. But for these animals, those reforms

01:36which take effect next year couldn't come soon enough.

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