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“People are under the financial gun to where they no longer have the funds necessary to find a place where they can keep their pets, so they feel they have to surrender them”
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Christine Koltun has worked in animal rescue for more than 20 years and has never seen so many cats in such dire circumstances.
“No matter what’s been happening with the economy, during the pandemic, nothing,” said Koltun. “I’ve never seen anything like this … there’s quite a few animal care workers who are on stress leave, there’s a lot of shelter workers who’ve had to go on stress leave.
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“I’m receiving messages almost daily from our partners at different shelters saying, ‘I had to go to my car and cry today.’ We’ve been feeling so overwhelmed. They don’t know how we’re going to get out of it. And I feel the same way.”
Koltun and other rescues say they are overflowing as Edmonton deals with what they believe is as an unprecedented rise in cat abandonment. Some are surrendered, others dumped, leading to calls for Edmonton to change how it regulates domestic animals.
Al Buttnor of Edmonton Cold Weather Animal Rescue said as of the end of July his group had taken in 321 cats, up from just 129 during the same period last year.
“The people that have approached us to take their cats as surrenders, generally, they’re moving to a new building, and it’s getting harder to find rental properties that accept animals,” said Buttnor.
Rental vacancy rates in Edmonton have contracted since the beginning of the year, when they hit a 10-year low. Rents have risen with the competition, spurred in part by high interest rates keeping prospective homebuyers in the rental market.
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“People are under the financial gun to where they no longer have the funds necessary to find a place where they can keep their pets, so they feel they have to surrender them,” said Buttnor, who helped found the rescue three years ago after seeing a stray cat warming itself on a sewer grate in -28 C weather.
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Koltun, who runs Furget Me Not, an Edmonton-based cat shelter, said many of their surrenders have come from people moving in with roommates or into subsidized housing that prohibits pets.
“The biggest thing seems to be that their housing situation is changing, and they now have to re-home their pets.”
Such people are usually at the point of desperation, she said. Some may have adopted their animals during COVID lockdowns, only to struggle to pay the hundreds of dollars for vaccines and a spay/neuter amid rising inflation.
Koltun said a common scenario is the owner who cancels their cat’s spay or neuter because of rising food costs and grocery bills. The cat gets out, comes back pregnant, and suddenly the owner is saddled with a litter of kittens.
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Some who give up their pet will have waited until the last minute, thinking a rescue with vacancy would be easy to find, Koltun added.
“They tried the bigger organizations like the humane society and found out that there’s like a six- to eight-month waitlist.”
Oftentimes, those animals will end up dumped or left free to roam, Koltun said. In past years, rescues would often hear of pets dumped as a last resort. Now, they’re often being dumped without a rescue ever hearing about the animal.
In the worst case scenario, the cats are unfixed and end up with kittens.
Buttnor said many rescue volunteers are burned out from dealing with desperate cats and desperate owners.
“It puts a lot of pressure on people who want to help,” he said. “They don’t want to have a cat in a position where it’s hurt or abandoned.”
Cat bylaw needs updating, advocates say
Adoptions alone won’t solve the problem, Buttnor and Koltun said.
Koltun believes an updated cat bylaw is needed. Some cities prohibit unfixed cats from roaming free, but Edmonton doesn’t, she said.
“Our cat bylaw does not have anything that specifies whether or not the animal has to be fixed,” she said. “That alone would make such a significant impact.”
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A stronger bylaw could prohibit Edmonton’s Animal Care and Control Centre from returning found animals without prior sterilization, which could be subsidized.
“If (pet owners) had an opportunity — like before you take your cat home you can get it neutered for $40 or $50 instead of the $200 or $300 your vet wants — I think a lot more people would say yes.”
Ward Anirniq Coun. Erin Rutherford, who has been active on animal issues, said she welcomes debate about updating the city’s animal bylaws.
She did not have up-to-date numbers on intakes but said both the humane society and Animal Care and Control painted a worrying picture when they presented statistics on incoming animals during budget discussions earlier this year.
“I can’t imagine that those numbers have gone down,” she said.
jwakefield@postmedia.com
twitter.com/jonnywakefield
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