Pet Save Sudbury sees increase in cats being abandoned by owners

Sudbury -

A local organization that cares for animals in Sudbury is continuing to cope with the pandemic. Recently, officials with Pet Save said they have never seen so many cats at the shelter at one time.

Staff at Pet Save are currently caring for 130 kittens and approximately 100 cats.

The director of Pet Save, Jill Pessot, said these numbers are significantly higher compared to previous years.

"Normally at this time of the year, I'd be going on with either 60 or 70 cats and maybe 30 or 40 kittens. This year, we are going in with really high numbers," Pessot said. "This fall has been the busiest we’ve seen in over a dozen years."

Pessot said COVID-19 plays a factor and she is finding this year many people are just dumping their cats on the streets and leaving them to fend for themselves.

"Most of them are coming in friendly, so they were owned by somebody and they’ve been let go. So, when those cats are let go and they are unspayed and unneutered then we end up with them populating on the streets," she said. "So, that’s what we’re seeing a lot of this year. Normally, we see a high feral cat population compared to our domestics on the streets, and now we’re seeing a lot of domestics."

Not only does Pet Save have more than 200 cats to care for at this time, it just recently received 15 dogs from a northern community.

"We’ve got dogs, puppies, that sort of thing. And their temperatures are already dropping significantly up north.. some of them are already seeing snow," Pessot said. "So, we are looking to try to remove as many as we can to help keep those populations under control."

She said with the large influx of animals, more volunteers, dog walkers, and fosters are needed.