LYNN – Leash Love owner and animal rescuer Angela Shankar spends most of her time trapping feral and stray animals so that they can be properly cared for. But with a lack of resources in the city, she is becoming overwhelmed, overworked, and running out of capacity.
“The pace that we’re going this year, we have hit the number of cats in one quarter than I typically do in six months,” said Shankar in an interview. “So we are on track, if we keep going at this pace, to quadruple our numbers this year of cats that we are helping.”
Shankar has been rescuing animals for 20 years and took over the All Sentient Beings animal rescue team in 2018. While she takes in all kinds of animals, her primary focus is rescuing cats. On average, she said she takes in 3 cats per week. She attributes the stray and feral problem to a number of factors.
The biggest, Shankar said, is a lack of neutered and vaccinated pets. When stray animals become pregnant, more unneutered strays are born who then go on to produce even more strays. This results in a cyclical overpopulation problem consisting of animals that can become sick and have no proper care available to them.
“There’s too many people that don’t fix their animals,” she said. “Most of the families that we take from, they don’t have the money to get them fixed, or they want their kids to experience having a litter of babies.”
The other issue lies in the lack of a kennel in the city. On December 16, 2022, North Shore Animal Hospital on Neptune Boulevard closed its doors after being in operation for 40 years. This left a huge hole in the city’s ability to care for all types of animals, whether they are pets, strays, or feral. With no kennel nearby, and Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem being the closest place to bring animals, many rescuers in the city are left wondering if there are plans in the works to open a new kennel in Lynn.
“That’s the question that everyone has but nobody has an answer for,” Shankar said. “I have no problem helping them get that going if that’s what they need, I just want what works for Lynn.”
Taking in so many animals is becoming costly for Shankar. As a rescuer, she works closely with Animal Control in Lynn, taking in animals that they acquire. After receiving her first cat from Animal Control last year, she spent $3,000 trying to save the cat who was deathly ill, nearly emptying her rescue account.
“If the kennel was open, the city would have paid for it,” she said.
With limited capacity and a cat rescue rate currently exceeding four times that of last year, Shankar is expecting a difficult road ahead when kitten season begins.
“I’m kind of worried about kitten season this year. Usually in the winter months, we don’t really get a lot, maybe a half a dozen cats. This year was nonstop, so I’m really nervous for what’s to come for this year’s kitten season.”
As the head of All Sentient Beings, Shankar has been able to get a number of foster homes to adopt animals and said that is a big help when it comes to making sure that she does not run out of capacity.
While the issue of stray and feral animals is not limited to Lynn, having a place in the city where rescuers can bring animals to have them properly treated and evaluated before putting them up for adoption would create a much smoother and more effective process.
“It can be pretty pricey and if we had the city kennel to at least take that initial overview, just standard appointments to see what’s going on, and then get to me, that would be great,” said Shankar.