York Animal Home has closed to the public as the city’s RSPCA branch launches an emergency appeal.
RSPCA York took the decision to close its doors at Water End today (Tuesday, 24 March) in response to the coronavirus outbreak. In addition, all rehoming of animals will stop.
Front line staff will still be working in the home to look after the animals already there, and accepting animals brought in by the RSPCA inspectors.
In a statement the charity added:
We will not be able to accept animals from the general public during this time, this includes injured wild animals.
We will only be accepting donations of food, but ask that members of the public do not break lockdown to deliver these donations themselves.
‘We desperately need your support’
The number of staff working at the branch has been reduced so the charity will be unable to respond to general queries regarding fostering, adoptions or volunteering.
This is another blow to the charity after it was badly affected by the flooding last month.
A spokesperson said:
In the last week we have seen 90% of our income disappear.
We rely almost entirely on self generated income and unlike other businesses we cannot close down to save costs.
The branch costs around £60,000 a month to operate and we are today launching an emergency appeal to try and secure some of the funding we need to run.
We desperately need your support at this time.
You can either make a donation or give to the new Coronavirus Emergency Appeal on JustGiving: