DORAL, FLA. (WSVN) - Some animals in shelters are being transported to make space for pets who are now displaced due to the storm.
Most shelters are filled with animals looking to find a home, but after Hurricane Irma, some pets who got lost are hoping to reunite with their owners.
Miami-Dade Animal Services reached out to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in order to match pets with their owners.
More than 100 unowned shelter dogs at the animal services location in Doral were transported to an ASPCA shelter in South Carolina to make room for the lost animals. “We have an emergency facility we set up outside of Greenville, South Carolina,” said Dick Green. “It has a holding capacity of about 700 animals. Currently, as of this morning, we have about 350 in there.”
Most of the dogs at the Doral location were in the shelter before Hurricane Irma hit.
“The main goal is to make sure that Miami-Dade Animal Services has enough room to bring animals in from the field,” Green said. “We’re looking for animals that were affected by the storm and we want to make sure they have plenty of room, so we’re pulling the animals that have been here for a while and giving them a little bit of space.”
Hurricane Irma has stretched Miami-Dade Animal Services to the breaking point and the amount of animals that have been brought to the shelter is sky rocketed.
“Usually on a typical week, we get 250 animals a week,” said Miami-Dade Animal Services Director Alex Munoz. “So with the increase of animals coming in from the storm, the situation is worse and we have to save the animals and get them out.”
So now workers and volunteers are doing everything that they can to help these four-legged friends.
“It feels great because we’re helping the community,” Munoz said, “and at the same time, working with the ASPCA helping us to get animals out and create room for more animals that might be coming in from other areas that have also been impacted.”
For more information on adoption or to make a donation, go to http://www.miamidade.gov/animals/.
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