PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Dana Hice, Representative from Brooklyn Animal Action
6:00:09
·
99 sec
Dana Hice, representing Brooklyn Animal Action, testifies about the challenges faced by animal rescue organizations in New York City. She highlights the increasing costs of animal rescue operations and the overwhelming demand for their services, emphasizing the need for city support.
- Brooklyn Animal Action has been operating for over 14 years, with annual costs rising from $100,000 to $350,000
- The organization is volunteer-run and struggles to keep up with the volume of requests, with 25,000 unread emails in their inbox
- Hice stresses that animal rescue is a city issue and expresses hope for solutions arising from the current discussions
Dana Hice
6:00:09
Hi.
6:00:10
My name is Dana Hice, and I'm here on behalf Clear Corey and Brookline Animal Action, and I'm also a member of Nunn with Dana Jacobs.
6:00:18
As Brookline Animal Action is a rescue that's been going for over 14 years, our hope was that this situation was gonna get better, not worse.
6:00:26
Brookline Animal Action vets and adopts out 100 to a 1000 cats a year.
6:00:30
Our costs in 2010 were a $100,000, and they're now $350,000.
6:00:37
And our intake our intake capacity did not increase.
6:00:40
Costs did.
6:00:42
We are a volunteer run we are a volunteer run, and we are all working full time jobs.
6:00:46
I personally got involved in this when I was when I moved here from Australia 5 years ago, and I lived across the street from a nicer complex.
6:00:54
There was over 40 intact cats living in a cockroach infested crawl space, and I had no idea how to help them.
6:01:00
I quickly realized that there was no city agency that was gonna come in with a solution where Brooklyn Animal Action did.
6:01:06
We don't get paid for this, and we have to beg for money to cover these bills.
6:01:10
And we run ourselves ragged trying to help as many as we can, but we'll never get there without help.
6:01:15
Our inbox, Abercrombie, auction, currently sits at about 25,000 unread emails.
6:01:20
We just can't get to them all.
6:01:22
But, boy, do we try?
6:01:25
We are drowning, and I know for a fact that there are rescuers here today that have had to dip in and out of this meeting because we're running to vet appointments.
6:01:32
We're taking calls from emergency vets.
6:01:34
We're consulting with foster homes.
6:01:35
And we're trying to decide if we can actually intake that cat that we've just been beg to take in, or while working our full time jobs.
6:01:43
This is a city issue, and we're excited to see these issues are now on the agenda, and we're hopeful for the solutions that may come from this.
Kathy Nizzari
6:01:49
Thank you.