There’s an increase in stray animals, here’s why and what shelters are doing about it

• Aniya Faulcon
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  Aniya Faulcon is The Spark Host/Producer for WITF. She has a passion for shining a light on unique people, experiences, and perspectives within the community.
  
  Previously she worked as the People and Social Trends Reporter/Video Anchor for LancasterOnline | LNPNews. During her time there, she created video packages, provided Facebook Live coverage at community events, and wrote data-driven stories with census data and feature stories on local leaders, non-profit organizations, events, and people with unique talents and experiences within Lancaster County.
  
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  Aniya grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the Baltimore School for the arts for high school with a concentration in acting. She continued to hone her skills and passion for storytelling and later graduated from Point Park University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Broadcast Reporting. Aniya is eager to continue her journey with storytelling in her role with WITF, as she aims to shed a light on real people and real stories within Pennsylvania in a variety of mediums.

 Courtesy of the PSPCA

The shelter hopes the public will aid its mission to find forever homes for the cats, “who deserve to know what a healthy, loving home is like.”

Airdate: Tuesday, September 27, 2022

The increase of stray animals has been a growing concern across the United States.

According to the Humane Society of the United States there are about seventy million strays nationwide. Of those, an estimated five million to seven million and animals wind up in one of the nation’s 3,500 shelters.

Some shelters have resulted to waving adoption fees due to the increase of stray animals.

Logan Hoskinson, Assistant Manager for the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society said, the increase in stray animals comes from an increase of at home breeding, people no longer wanting the responsibility of caring for an animal and not wanting to deal with the problems or veterinary expenses that taking care of a life may bring.

“I’ve been working at this shelter for eight years just about and I’ve never seen it so full in the dog areas. Cats are a constant problem,” Hoskinson said. “Fills up every year, at least for a time, if not throughout the whole year. But the dogs, I’d say, have definitely seen an uptick that I’ve never experienced working at the shelter.”

He also said because of the increase in stray animals, shelters are overwelmed, animals are packed closely together, and aren’t able to get the best treatment because of the conditions.

Stray animals are usually exposed to all kinds of illnesses and can become emotional or physically traumatized.

Hoskinson said in order to resolve this issue lawmakers could place more restrictions on how people are allowed to breed animals and, with more funding, shelters can hire more staff and get bigger facilities to care for animals, which would avoid any cross-contamination or a spread of illness.

He also encouraged people to adopt an animal in need of a home and support their local shelter to make a difference.

“We at the shelter always have to say, we can’t recommend you pick up the animal and take it in your cell but that’s just in a liability sense. Personally, I always stop and help whatever animal I can. Maybe it just comes with the job,” Hoskinson said. “But shelters are always going to want to help, even when they’re overwhelmed… And it doesn’t hurt to just try. Even if the shelters can’t take them, we always want to help.”