Managing Pet Shelter Population During a Community Emergency

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center, the County’s only open-admission animal shelter that will not turn away pets at any time - even when there is no space available, was at 98% of capacity with stray dogs and cats just days before Category 4 Hurricane Irma was expected to make a direct hit on Tampa. Eleven countywide pet-friendly emergency shelters were opened, stressing an already thin animal shelter staff. Meanwhile, pets were being dropped off at the shelter in large numbers and reports of abandoned pets in need of rescue were escalating. In order to give impacted citizens and evacuees time to claim their pets after the storm, all pets coming in at the time of the storm would have a special “Hurricane Hold” for 30 days – ten times the normal stray hold. Hillsborough County came up with an innovative solution that is now recognized as a national “best practice”: utilize public-private partnerships with animal welfare organizations to transport existing shelter pets out of state to be able to care for and protect hurricane pets.