The recent California wildfires have mounted to levels of irreparable damage and hardship for those affected. Entire communities have turned to ash, and many have lost everything, including their pets.
The financial strain forced upon fire victims immediately resulted in shelters all across Los Angeles overflowing with surrendered animals. With little choice of where to go and few to no belongings, many people made the choice to give up their pets in the hopes they would be better taken care of at a shelter.
One of the many shelters impacted by these events was Harbor Animal Services Center.
Located in San Pedro, HASC is the focal animal shelter in the South Bay community, and an institution frequented by high school volunteers and philanthropic organizations.
In the days following the wildfires, Harbor Animal Services Center was exceeding capacity, with more and more dogs, cats, and rabbits being surrendered every day.
As if this wasn’t difficult enough, the shelter had already been shifting between full capacity and over capacity due to California government protocols introduced in 2020 due to COVID-19.
These protocols drastically reduced the amount of money being pledged to shelters, and has not since changed.
Shelters have sadly been enduring limited funding for the past five years. Because of this, most shelters have struggled to find the resources needed to take care of their animals. No-kill shelters have been filling up since these protocols were instated, tragically resulting in many dogs being forced into kill-shelters where they are euthanized.
The influx of pets being surrendered to these already stressed shelters during the first days of the wildfires proved to be short lived.
A staff member at Harbor Animal Services Center described how the California community banned together to prevent the dispersal of pets to kill-shelters.
“People from all over California, places that weren’t affected by the fires, came out to shelters all around LA and adopted almost all the dogs…we haven’t had this low a number of animals in years…it’s incredible.”
Many dogs that had been at HASC for over a year were adopted by these animal lovers, who traveled from cities such as Oceanside and San Diego to make sure these animals would have safe and loving homes.
Los Angeles shelters haven’t been this vacant in years, and numerous dogs and cats that had been shelter pets their entire lives finally know what being a part of a family feels like.
The tragedy of the California wildfires has caused suffering for so many, but the unanticipated finding of homes for animals is a wonderful, surprising outcome