Disaster event effects on cat and dog populations within United States animal care facility services: A cross sectional study

Abstract

It is unclear how disaster events, which are expected to increase due to climate change, will affect animal care services. Understanding the impacts they have on cat and dog populations, and how to integrate animal welfare into disaster preparedness, can facilitate disaster response and improve population health outcomes. Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) disaster data were merged with shelter intake data from SAC (Shelter Animals Count) to compare total number of animals and total number of animals euthanized the month of disaster to the subsequent month and to the same month in the subsequent year. Analyses were stratified by animal (dog /cat), disaster (hurricane/fire), and animal care service type and compared using Wilcoxon Signed Rank test. On average, government animal services (GAS) in counties experiencing a hurricane report an increase in dogs in the facility the month (p<0.05) and year (p<0.05) after a hurricane. In contrast, government contract (GC) and non-government contract (NGC) organizations report fewer cats the month after (both p<0.001) a hurricane. While fire in the county had limited effect on dog occupancy across all facility types, more organizations reported higher numbers of cats the month of a fire compared with the month after (GC p<0.001, GAS p<0.05) and more cats euthanized the month (GC p<0.01) and year (GC p<0.05, GAS p<0.05) after a fire. These findings indicate significant fluctuations in animal service needs during and after disaster events. Using a One Health approach to incorporate animal service organizations in human climate adaptation planning can increase community resilience during disaster events.