By Nika Shakhnazarova
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter is facing a loss of funding after it waived its $75 pet adoption fee as part of an effort to alleviate unexpected overcrowding in its Baltimore facility over the past month.
Shelter representatives said their financial resources included donations from the public as well as the grants they have received in the past.
They also said that they still need people to adopt these pets or the shelter will have no choice but to search for alternative ways to overcome overcrowding, which, in some cases, means having to euthanize some. The shelter is located at 301 Stockholm Street.
“Overcrowding is something that has always been a struggle for us,” said Lisa Morabito, the director of operations at BARCS. “We share a building with animal control, so we tend to help them out with hoarding cases, which then fills up even more space than we had originally predicted.”
Formerly known as the Baltimore City Municipal Animal Shelter, BARCS is now a privately owned non-profit animal rescue shelter that has been dedicated to saving over 11,000 unwanted, abused and stray animals each year – primarily dogs and cats.
Within the last month, though, shelter officials said the facility has reached a crisis. An extreme shortage of space for incoming surrendered dogs has left the animal shelter scrambling to find homes for the pets.
Morabito said the shelter normally takes in about 30 animals each day. In January, that number jumped to 200 dogs and cats.
Morabito said the reason for the overcrowding is because BARCS has taken in more and more animals, which left the shelter with not enough space to meet current demands.
The shelter is currently looking for a bigger location and possibly relocating the facility shelter to a place where overcrowding will occur less than in its current location, Morabito said.
Shelter officials said BARCS was left with no other option but to waive the adoption fees so that more people would adopt these animals.
“The waiving of adoption fees really helped our numbers decrease, so now we’re at a capacity which we can handle, because so many people have been coming in to adopt these past few weeks,” Morabito said. “Word-of-mouth has also helped us overcome overcrowding in the past and it certainly has helped us this time around as we have teamed up with different pet stores within the community such as PetSmart, Petco and Pet Value, which has helped increase adoption.”
Due to standard shelter medicine policy, BARCS separates ill dogs from healthy ones, Morabito said.
“Last month was a tough one in terms of intake, but we did whatever we could to not euthanize animals unless that was the only option we had,” Morabito said. “Last month we had to euthanize around 10 animals which were either ill, very old and had low quality of life or animals which were deemed vicious by animal control.”
After BARCS temporarily waived its adoption fees last month, lines of people increased outside its main building for two days in a row.
One of these people was Mackenzie Scott, a Towson University student who was eager to adopt a dachshund by the name of Bailey.
“Usually I wouldn’t have adopted a dog, because I’m a college student and can’t afford that right now,” Scott said. “But I heard about BARCS and how they took the fees away and I saw this as a great opportunity, and I’m glad I went through with it.”
“Because BARCS is an open-admission shelter, we take in any and all animals that need our help,” said Bailey Deacon, the director of communications at BARCS. “We have a contract with Baltimore City Animal Control to house and care for all animals that are surrendered to them, which means that there is always a level of uncertainly about what the day will bring in terms of intake and cage space.”
The shelter put out a plea on its Facebook page, encouraging people to adopt animals more than ever before.
BARCS will be hosting an upcoming event later this month, which will support pet adoption. The Pours for Paws will be held on March 25. More information about upcoming events can be found on BARCS’ website.