Animal surrenders increase amid pandemic

Animal Shelters have been seeing an increase in the number of animal surrenders from this time last year.

According to the South Bend Animal Resource Center, so far this year there have been two-hundred and thirty-seven animals surrendered, and thirteen adopted pets returned last year, two-hundred and fifty animals total.

Last year, the resource center received a total of two-hundred and twenty animals, twenty-eight were returned adoptions.

Janet Graham, Marketing and Outreach for the Elkhart Humane Society said "We're seeing a lot of an increase because, last year at this time, with so many people being remote and at home, if they found stray animals, we were having them hold the animals until the owner was found and people were home more so they were able to take care and maybe in some of those situations they were more able to take care of the animal at the time."

There may be an increase, but the number of returned adopted pets actually went down.