Coronaviruses: What Is Now In Short Supply In New York Are Animals To Adopt

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

It is not only masks, toilet paper, disinfectant gel that has disappeared in New York due to the coronavirus crisis. The Big Apple surprisingly is also running out of pets to adopt.

That's right, incredible as it may seem, animal shelters have sounded the alarm to indicate they are running out of 'inventory'. The reason that demand outstrips pet supply may be the loneliness of quarantine confinement and has led some to seek companionship, although no one has a clear answer to the cause of this sudden passion for animals from company.

Shelters like Muddy Paws and Best Friends Animal Society say the increase in adoption requests has increased tenfold in at least the past two weeks, for both cats and dogs.

"At the moment, we definitely have no dogs left," Muddy Paws chief marketing officer Anna Lai told Bloomberg News to explain why they cannot accommodate requests from those who want to adopt a dog. "Its a big problem".

According to the aforementioned source, the increase in adoption requests seems to be spreading to other states. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Los Angeles has seen a 70% increase in the number of pets in shelters and kennels that have found a new home.

Despite so much love for pets, animal rights advocates are not optimistic. Unemployment that has skyrocketed in the country due to the financial crisis unleashed by the coronavirus. During the week just ended, just over three million workers across the country applied for unemployment benefits.

Consequently, activists fear that those most affected by the economic crisis will not be able to afford the expenses generated by a pet and that this will translate into an increase in puppies and cats back in shelters.

"We are trying to do everything possible to empty the shelter facilities," Humane Rescue Alliance CEO Lisa LaFontaine, who operates in DC and New Jersey, told Bloomberg. "[But] we don't know what is going to happen when the wave [of the economic crisis] begins to hit us."