New York sees surge in dog, cat adoptions from shelters

Animal shelters around New York City are running out of pets eligible for adoption or foster care, as more and more people seek to find quarantine companions amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Animal nonprofits Muddy Paws Rescue and Best Friends Animal Society report shelters in the city are all out or nearly out of dogs and cats following an influx of adoption applications over the last two weeks. 

“For the moment, we definitely don’t have any dogs left to match,” Anna Lai, the marketing director at Muddy Paws, told Bloomberg. “Which is a great problem to have.”

The depletion of animals up for adoption comes around the same time Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered 100 percent of nonessential workers in the state to remain at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Outside of New York City, other shelters across the nation are reporting vast increases in pet adoption as well.

“We’re seeing people show up in droves to foster,” Julie Castle, chief executive officer of Best Friends, told Bloomberg. “We have seen the American public come together like we have never seen before, and we’ve lived through a lot of tough times like Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 financial crisis.”

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said its office in Los Angeles saw a 70 percent increase in animals going into foster care from March reports.