The number of animals being dumped during the cold winter months has soared by more than 50% in just three years, new data shows.
A staggering 4,630 pets were abandoned between November 2023 and January this year, revealed the RSPCA, compared to 3,071 over the same period in 2020/21.
The charity released the figures, which highlight the heartbreaking scale of furry critters left shivering outside as the mercury plunges, to launch its ‘Join The Christmas Rescue’ campaign.
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It said: “The RSPCA believes the surge in pet ownership during the Covid-19 lockdown and the increasing financial hardships due to soaring living costs have led to the increase in people dumping their pets.
“And sadly now during the winter months the RSPCA expects the crisis to worsen as more people struggle with the increase in expenditure around Christmastime, with presents to buy and extra food shopping, coupled with an increase in energy bills.”
RSPCA Chief Inspector Ian Briggs added: “We’re seeing a shocking rise in the number of calls reporting pet abandonment to our emergency line during winter, with an eye-watering 51% rise in three years.
“Our rescuers are regularly coming across dogs in poor health, collapsed and left in isolated spots to suffer a lingering death, sick kittens discarded in cardboard boxes, who are lucky to be found alive, or pet rabbits dumped in the wild with little chance of survival against predators.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
“With the cost of living crisis we are also seeing people having to move out of properties due to financial pressures and we are increasingly coming across pets who have been left locked in homes alone after their owners have moved out.
“Heartbreakingly they are unable to survive for long in their own filth, with no food or water, no one to care for them and no idea if anyone will come to help them.”
Mr Briggs said the charity could only help deserted animals if the public backed its Join The Christmas Rescue campaign.
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