Animal intake freeze at D’Arcy’s ARC due to lack of funds

D’Arcy’s Animal Rescue Centre says it can’t take in any more animals as it doesn’t have enough funding or staff.

Adoptions are down compared to previous years, said the shelter’s CEO, D’Arcy Johnston.

“The trends are still there and the adoptions seem to be happening but slowed down a little bit, not like they were last year after the beginning of COVID,” he said.

The centre has a capacity limit of 200 animals, but Johnston said they can’t accommodate nearly that many as they are struggling to care for the five kittens, 12 cats and six dogs they currently have.

Johnston said he is concerned about what the lack of resources will mean in a few months’ time.

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“Spring is coming and there’s going to be a boom of kittens like there always is and we’re just not going to be able to take as many in as we could, because we just don’t have the resources.”

The shelter is privately funded and anything helps. People can help out by donating to the shelter, adopting a pet or volunteering, he added.

D’Arcy’s ARC is not the only animal shelter in the province that has struggled to take in animals this year.

In August, the Winnipeg Humane Society announced that it was pausing intakes because it had no space.

“We’re walking a thin line continuing to accept animals as we are full to the brim right now,” Winnipeg Humane Society CEO Jessica Miller told 680 CJOB on Aug. 3.

At the time, Miller said the humane society had 500 animals in the house as well as 33 being brought in from Manitoba wildfires, most of them puppies, with some dogs and kittens.

Miller said it was due to a combination of kitten season filling up the shelter with babies, plus the wildfire impacts and others being surrendered due to the financial impacts of COVID-19.

Global News has reached out to the society for an update on its capacity situation.