At the Urban Safari Rescue Society in Surrey, B.C., every day is an adventure.
More than 300 exotic animals call this place home but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the business, like many others, was forced to close its doors.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has really kicked the stuffing out of our financial situation like it has with many other businesses,” executive director Sharon Doucette told Global News.
However, the society is not a business, it’s a non-profit, meaning it does not have any disposable money to bail it out.
The society had to cancel all its summer camps and programs and now the future of the animals is in jeopardy.
“One hundred per cent. Terrified,” Julie Clemas from the rescue society said.
They are now scrambling to raise funds.
“To have to give the animals that trust us away to somewhere very strange would be really hard on them and hard on us as their caretakers,” Clemas added.
The society has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds and a small number of the animals have been adopted out.
However, that is not an option for the majority of the creatures at the facility.
The society is now hoping the public will step in with donations and see them through the other side of the storm.
“We have to be creative, we have to be adaptable, we have to be fast on our feet and it’s exhausting,” Doucette said.