The overpopulation of dogs in Manitoba has reached a “breaking point” and is now a public health emergency, a letter signed by 45 animal welfare groups from across Canada says.
The Monday letter is addressed to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn, Indigenous Economic Development Minister Ian Bushie and Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer.
It asks the province for $2.5 million annually to go toward spay and neuter programs accessible to urban, rural and remote communities in Manitoba, as well as an action plan to curb backyard breeding and funds to send pet food and supplies to remote communities.
Manitoba is facing an “ongoing animal overpopulation crisis,” the letter says, leading to increased dog attacks and risks of rabies.
“We're out of resources, we're out of funding, we have no space. We have nowhere left to put animals, so basically everyone is at their breaking point,” Kareena Grywinski, founding director of Winnipeg-based Feed the Furbabies Canada, told CBC News.
The groups behind the letter banded together because they've been hearing of more incidents of dogs attacking people lately, she said.
“A lot of the reaction to that has led to culls being announced within the communities, and that has been happening more and more frequently over the last few months,” Grywinski said.
“We're asking for help. Basically we're asking for funding for … mobile spay and neuter clinics.”
There is also a “huge shortage” of foster homes willing to take in dogs in the province, she said. Manitobans can help by adopting animals or donating to the organizations involved in the letter.
The province has not yet responded to the groups behind the letter, but Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn told CBC News on Tuesday that “we definitely will.”
He says the province has given $150,000 to the Winnipeg Humane Society to deal with stray animals, meeting with its board director as well as Manitoba's chief veterinary officer last week to discuss a way forward.
‘We are tired'
There were 1,700 animals in 23 remote, northern and Indigenous communities seen in 2023, with just under 1,200 spayed and neutered as a result, according to Kostyshyn.
“We're continuing to work first and foremost [toward a] long-term strategy,” he said.
“The dollars are hard to come by, and we continue to move forward in any way we can with other organizations as well.”
Katie Powell, president of Save a Dog Network, a Manitoba organization that provides vaccines as well as spay and neuter clinics to communities overpopulated with dogs, said the letter sent Monday was a “long time coming.”
“We are tired. We are broke,” she told CBC News. “It's like emptying the ocean with a spoon, and then we start to wonder [if] anybody hears us.”
Communities without active veterinary clinics to spay and neuter dogs or bylaws to prevent backyard breeding and puppy mills suffer from overpopulation, she said, and dogs “become hungry, often feral, and they start attacking community members.”
Over the last week, she's heard of two incidents where people were attacked by dogs, she said. She's also heard of eight dog culls in the last two months, which largely took place in Indigenous communities.
Powell said the groups behind the letter do not want to vilify the communities where the attacks and culls are taking place, but instead rally together leaders across the province and levels of government to find sustainable solutions.
“The Band-Aid solution of rescuing and rehoming [dogs] without providing that care and resources to these areas that are saturated — as well as the lack of laws for backyard breeders in our province — has turned this into a total crisis,” she said.
“Us rescues alone are not able to dig ourselves out of [it] anymore, and that's what basically the push is: for the provincial, federal, as well as the band leaders to realize that this is going to take a collaborative effort.”
Other provinces ‘saturated' by Manitoba dogs
While the majority of the 45 groups that signed the letter are from Manitoba, there are just under 10 groups involved from Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
“They've helped alleviate the burden, and now what has happened is Manitoba has pretty much saturated these other provinces,” Powell said.
Many of the groups that signed the letter are primarily motivated by the stories of community members who are scared of dogs or have lost their pets to culls, she said.
Those community members “want to do better, and they want to have an opportunity to go to the vet and have their kid play safely outside, and they recognize that it's not going to come from within,” she said.
“We lean on them for the knowledge and guidance of what specific communities need what, and that's where we want to inspire these Indigenous-led programs.”
