animal shelters, overflowing, most overcrowded

 U.S. animal shelters will start 2024 the most overcrowded they have been in years, a symptom of persistent economic concern as the country’s pandemic pet-adoption boom finally cools.

There are roughly a quarter of a million more pets in animal shelters this holiday season than there were in the same period in 2022, according to Shelter Animals Count, a nonprofit that tracks unhoused pet populations. That figure would be higher, said Stephanie Filer, the group’s executive director, if shelters were not already overcrowded and had more space to keep animals.

Pet adoptions skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1 in 5 households adopted a pet during the pandemic, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. But as the economy turned sour and inflation rose to historic heights, consumers’ buying power dwindled and the pace of adoptions slowed. That, in turn, put a strain on rescue facilities, which have limited space to house unwanted cats and dogs, Filer said. Now about two-thirds of households own a pet, according to APPA, and half own dogs. https://wapo.st/3TJdO4r

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