Pet surrenders fuelled by affordability crisis, longer kitten seasons add to crunch for animal shelters

Montreal Gazette

19-05-2025

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With more than a month left to go before moving day, Montreal's animal shelters are already slammed with admissions and demands for help even before the summer influx of abandoned pets.
Several factors are contributing to the crunch, according to those on the front lines. Some people can't afford care for their pets because of the rising costs of living, others no longer want animals they adopted during the pandemic and the annual kitten season — when cats reproduce and birth rates soar — has been getting longer in recent years.
Refuge Animex, which is located in Montreal's Verdun neighbourhood, has received a lot of cat admissions since the beginning of April — earlier than usual. They generally take in more animals in May and June, ahead of the traditional July 1 moving day when many residential leases expire.
'We don't know if it's because they're moving,' said Brigitte Croteau, who is in charge of the adoption process and sits on board of directors of Refuge Animex. 'Or, a lot of people are telling us it's because of financial difficulties.'
Laurence Massé, executive director at the Montreal SPCA, pointed to pet owners not having the 'time, energy or money to take care of their animal.' Aside from higher costs of living, many furry companions adopted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are also being given up.
'Last year, it was a record year in terms of admissions and it was the highest level of admission in five years,' she said in a recent interview with The Gazette. 'And, unfortunately, we're seeing that that tendency as well this year.'
As the increase in both general affordability struggles and pet care expenses play a role in more abandonments, both organizations say they also bear the financial and emotional toll.
'I mean, people are having a hard time doing their groceries, so it's really, really hard,' Massé said.
Animal food and medication may be more expensive for individuals, but that also means they cost more for shelters, she added. The SPCA has 'seen an increase of heavy medical cases in the surrender of cats' because of high veterinarian fees.
That stress isn't lost on the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.
'We know dang well the cost of veterinary medicine is going up,' said CVMA president Dr. Tim Arthur. 'We are terribly worried that we're leaving a lot of people behind and that's just not what we should be doing. But we're having a devil of a time trying to figure out, like, what do we do?'
Vets can hit economic walls with mounting expenses and sometimes 'end up in an ethical dilemma of, you know, I could fix that, but we can't afford to do this,' according to Arthur.
Refuge Animex is composed of volunteers and limited foster families. While they do the best they can, there is always more that needs to be done. The organization receives up to five emails per day requesting they take cats or kittens, Croteau said, but they don't have enough resources to do so.
'We get a lot of pressure because people are writing us. They want us to help, but we cannot always help,' she said, adding it's 'not easy.'
At the SPCA, cats top admissions. But in 2024, there was a 35-per-cent increase in the surrender of dogs and that number is growing.
'We're seeing that same tendency this year as well,' Massé said. 'So, unfortunately, people are surrendering more dogs than the previous year.'
Longer kitten seasons add to the crunch
Alongside those challenges, animal shelters are dealing with another emerging issue.
Montreal's kitten season typically began in mid-March or the beginning of April, but Massé said it 'has been two or three years that we (start) receiving our first kittens in February.' Last year, one newborn had lost part of his tail because it was frozen.
'We tend to see kittens arrive earlier and kitten season is longer than years before,' she said.
On its website, the SPCA says the birthing period for cats, which have prolific reproduction cycles, lasts longer because of climate change and entire unweaned and orphaned litters are 'left at the shelter every week.' They need constant care and attention to survive.
The SPCA took in 499 unweaned kittens in 2023 and 585 in 2024, with the peak spanning from spring to the end of fall. Massé said those high numbers could be because of a number of factors, including the SPCA being responsible for 15 of the city's 19 boroughs and often taking on cases from outside its territory.
'What we can say is for any kittens that are born outside, climate change can really help them to survive, since it's getting warmer earlier,' Massé said.
But between a longer kitten season and high admission levels 'we don't have any downtime,' Massé said.
At Animex, Croteau said this year's kitten season wasn't quite as early as recent years, but she believes that is probably because of back-to-back snowstorms in February.
'But we know that it doesn't mean anything because we see in the years before that we had more and more kittens appearing after Christmas,' she said. At Animex, foster families help cover food expenses, which can quickly add up to nearly $20 per day for a growing litter beginning to eat food.
The issue of longer kitten seasons hasn't been 'put on our radar' at the CVMA for now.
'If the humane societies are starting to see increased kitten numbers, there will be a delay before the veterinary profession finds out about it,' Arthur said. 'Because we don't, you know, outside of spaying and neutering, it's not a primary role that we're involved with.'
Arthur explained a cat's heat is triggered by photoperiods (duration of daylight) and that hasn't changed. There isn't much in terms of literary research yet to prove changing temperatures can lead to earlier reproduction cycles in felines, he added. But like Massé, Arthur suggested it's easier for them to survive outside as temperatures rise.
'Food is probably much more available and the better the nutritional status of the mother, the healthier the kittens and the higher survivability of the kittens. You have a set of kittens out there and you get into a snowstorm and ice for three days, it's questionable how many of those kittens are going to survive,' Arthur said. 'If that doesn't happen, then all of a sudden you've got more kittens on your doorstep.
'And, of course, the other factor: It's very hard to do a census of how many wild cats there are running around able to reproduce. But certainly if there's more stray cats, there's going to be more kittens.'
To curb overpopulation, both shelters stressed the need to sterilize cats. Croteau also called on owners not to let their felines roam outdoors. As one of two rescues in Verdun, she said it's already hard to meet the demands for help.
'We're going to have a lot of problems in 10 years when too many cats are outside,' she said.
Those on the front line of animal care and adoptions in the city say the best way Montrealers can help is by donating.
'We're living on donations, so we can't do anything that we do without donations,' Massé said.