RSPCA fear that higher temperatures will mean more calls to their Animal Centres

KentOnline / KMTV

The charity once had more than 1,000 calls on the 10th of July, which marks their busiest day every year, and it only increased this year.  Kristin Hawthorne reports.

Transcript

00:00Many of us, including me, think that the Christmas period is the busiest time for

00:04animal charities but the RSPCA says that it's actually the summer. This is due to

00:09animals like guinea pigs getting heat stroke and with record high temperatures

00:14this summer they fear that that figure could get even higher. Every day in the

00:19summer it's very busy we get a lot of calls roughly just over 300 a day which

00:23can be roughly one every two minutes which is quite a lot to deal with. It's

00:27roughly up around 33% compared to previous years and there's a number of

00:30different factors that really consider the reason why this happens. It's usually

00:34due to because in the summer months it's a lot longer days, there's a lot more

00:38light out, people are out for longer, they see a lot more things happening so we get

00:41a lot more calls. Within the summer months they say that July 10th is the busiest

00:45overall. Last year they had a total of 1,157 cases in just one day. When it's

00:53warm weather we always get lots and lots of these sort of jobs. Obviously I haven't

00:56got a hand to the figures but I'm guessing it's going to be a lot like it's a very

00:59warm sunny day we're probably going to get a lot of calls about dogs in hot

01:01situations even get a lot of collapsed animals in the heat so lots of cats

01:05horses so I think it's going to help well not help but it's going to increase the

01:09figures drastically yeah. And he was right as this year the number rose to 1,205.

01:16It's been busy we've had a lot of animals moving around we've had some more

01:19animals coming in some going out it's been really hot and so yeah it's been a

01:25busy day. With Kent facing three heat waves this summer already the charity

01:30say they are worried about the future. From everything I've heard I'm not a

01:34climate scientist myself but everything I've heard things are going to

01:39warm up and get you know get more extreme weather conditions and the heat

01:45does make it harder to look after animals certainly. Hershey is just one of

01:50the animals rescued by the RSPCA this summer. He was left outside the Leybourne

01:55Centre in a cardboard box with no food or water at just 10 weeks old. So with

02:00financial strain, heat and neglect all pushing the number of cruelty cases up

02:04the RSPCA says the need for help is greatest when it's least expected because

02:10for animals like Hershey abandonment came not with snow but with a heat wave.

02:15Kristen Hawthorne, KMTV, Leybourne.

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