Manitoba municipality to fine residents for abandoning pets

‘It’s unfair to the animal’ Maralee Caruso learns about an alarming trend of animals being abandoned in rural settings, and the new bylaw to curb it.

Rural municipalities in Manitoba are sounding the alarm about a growing trend that’s putting pressure on local animal services.

According to these municipalities, unwanted pets are being driven outside of city limits and then abandoned. This has become such a large problem in the RM of Ste. Anne that the council passed a new bylaw with the hope of preventing pet owners from doing this.

Randy Eros, the deputy reeve of Ste. Anne, said this animal abandonment is not a new issue.

“Many rural municipalities have been experiencing this ongoing for a long time,” he said in an interview on Monday.

“People who have animals that they no longer want to care for, well, they take the opportunity to drive away from home and drop the animals off unattended in rural communities.”

Eros noted that animal shelters are filling up quickly because people opted to get pets during the pandemic, but now that things have gone back to normal no longer want to care for the animals.

To deal with the issue, the RM of Ste. Anne brought a bylaw forward to deter residents from this type of behaviour.

“We have chosen to apply the highest fine that we can under provincial legislation,” Eros said.

“This carries a $1,000 fine per offence.”

To find out more about this bylaw and the animal abandonment issue, watch the video above.

- With files from CTV’s Maralee Caruso.