For animal rescues across Alberta, the situation is dire with winter fast approaching.
“Right now it’s quite possibly the worst we’ve ever seen,” explained Jani Painter, president of Arts Senior Animal Rescue.
“We’ve never been closed for intakes for this long. We’ve been closed since about August and that’s mainly due to funds.”
For ARTS, the economy is playing a big role.
“Donations are slower than we’ve ever seen. We’ll have a week where we will get not a cent.”
As a senior rescue, turning animals away is especially hard. They fear they’ll be euthanized.
“It’s had a real impact on our volunteers,” Painter said, tears welling up in her eyes. “The morale is pretty low when we know that we’re saying no every day, and it’s not one or two nos a day. It’s 15, 20 nos a day.”
“Personally, it feels like I’m giving a death sentence every time we say no.”
Amanda Annetts is having to tell people the same thing at Second Chance Animal Rescue Society (SCARS).
“Twenty calls per day, easily. Out of those 20 calls, we usually only can say yes to one or two of those intake requests,” she explained.
SCARS has been around for 20 years and is now the largest rescue in the greater Edmonton area.
A lot of people think spring is the hardest time of the year, but many Alberta rescues said they find fall is the hardest time of year as the weather starts changing.
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“We currently almost have about 500 animals in care, 200 of those being kittens,” said Annetts.
She recalls thinking 2024 was as bad as it could get, but says 2025 has been exceeding those numbers by about 30 each month.
And each animal they take in is also costing more, thanks to inflation.
“We’re definitely noticing that the extreme cost of vet care… even just food in general, the cost alone has gone up substantially.”
With 130 cats already in care, Community Cats Edmonton has also closed its intake.
Co-founder Vanessa Freeman said with foster homes having to shelter cats in bathrooms, it was obvious they were out of space.
“Every rescue right now is struggling.”
But making the decision on the cusp of winter was especially challenging.
“We know when we close our doors that in a week or two, the snow will hit and a lot those cats will struggle to survive,” Freeman said, her voice faltering.
“Know that when we are saying no it is because we cannot in good conscience keep up with the amount of cats that are being requested.”
Freeman said the government needs to take action to take some pressure off rescues.
“There are 73,000 stray and feral cats in Edmonton. We need more than just a community of rescuers. We need government support.”
For Erin Deems with Saving Grace Animal Society in Alix, Alta., this is a societal problem.
“It’s people not spaying and neutering their animals and then it being our burden to carry when they have overpopulation issues,” Deems said.
Saving Grace is also full, with 275 animals in care — they’re now only able to help the most vulnerable.
“Quills, emaciation, leg amputations, embedded collars. All of our animals are recovering from more dire situations,” Deems said, adding those pets require more expensive vetting and take longer to get adopted.
Similarly, Edmonton Cold Weather Animal Rescue is using its limited resources on saving pregnant cats and females with kittens.
“We receive the majority of calls just as the cold weather is starting up… If a cat is healthy, even though it’s cold, we don’t have room,” explained treasurer Al Buttnor.
“These cats don’t come from nowhere. And they’re not born out there.
“They are abandoned. Edmonton has a major cat abandonment problem.”
With 170 cats in foster homes for ECWAR, kitty litter and cat food are always in high demand.
But they say with rescues overwhelmed, other people need to step up and help save lives.
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