MIAMI (AP) - As always, Garson Dupuy was out on street patrol this week rounding up strays and responding to reports of vicious dogs or vicious people doing bad things to animals.
A Miami-Dade animal welfare officer, he’s been designated an essential worker doing a job that, in normal times, is fraught with risk. Throw a coronavirus outbreak in that volatile mix, and even routine daily encounters like one outside a dilapidated South Miami Heights House turn tense.
Wearing a mask and gloves, Dupuy tried to maintain distance in a cramped walkway strewn with beer bottles as unmasked neighbors screamed at each other over a goofy looking golden mutt named Rocky. The dog was a menace who’d attacked before, yelled Miriam Falcon, 65, her left hand wrapped in blood-stained gauze. Rocky’s owner, Marianella Figueroa, 59, angrily insisted the dog was defending himself and Falcon’s injury was really from a broken bottle used to threaten the pooch.
Dupuy, 31, decided to order Rocky into isolation, like millions of other Floridians.
“Keep your dog away from everybody,” Dupuy told Figueroa. “Your dog should not leave your property.”
Dupuy is just one of many in South Florida’s animal welfare and rescue community working under the pressure of a pandemic that has made interacting with the public - and their pets - more difficult than ever. Despite the lock-down orders on humans, there is always a steady stream of animals, domestic and wild, to be tended to.
It’s baby season in South Florida, for instance. Every day at the South Florida Wildlife Center, dozens of wayward or injured young squirrels, possums and bird hatchlings are still getting dropped off by human do-gooders - except now, they can’t go inside the facility and must wear masks when dropping them off.
Not all facilities remain open. Flamingo Gardens, in Davie, which takes in birds from smaller private rescue groups, has closed its doors.
But people are still streaming to the Wildlife Rescue of Dade County, a private non-profit hospital and sanctuary, to leave injured animals. Founder Lloyd Brown says he’s also fielding more calls from people sheltered at home.
“I had a family call me because they’d found a baby blue jay,” Brown said. “The mom and kids wanted to keep it. Under normal circumstances, the children are in school but now they’re stuck at home and they want to take care of it and raise it themselves … but you can’t take care of it, so they’re bringing it to me tonight.”
Brown’s staff has had to pick up the slack - because he’s also a Miami-Dade firefighter, he’s had to largely stay isolated from other humans because he has been exposed to possible COVID-19 patients on the streets.
Over at the South Miami-Dade ranch of the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, homeless horses, goats and chickens are still finding refuge. But staffers now have more chores because the volunteers who sweep stalls, collect manure and bathe the animals are largely home in isolation to protect themselves from the coronavirus.
Miami-Dade County’s Animal Services department, which employs 240 people, remains open but operations have been scaled back significantly.
Clinic services - which include rabies vaccinations - have been suspended, along with spaying and neutering programs that are normally crucial to keeping down feral cat populations during the spring. Volunteers, some who walk and play with dogs at the shelter, have been asked to stay home to avoid spreading the virus.
But the pandemic has been a boon in one sense.
With fees waived, more than 400 sheltered dogs and cats have been fostered by people wanting furry companions while sheltered at home. As of Tuesday, only 47 dogs and 21 cats remain at the shelter. The department has also started weekly virtual adoption events on Facebook Live, with hopes that many of those foster animals will get “forever homes.”
Seventeen animal welfare officers like Dupuy, plus six animal-cruelty investigators and three aides, are still in the field, deemed essential workers. Calls ebb and flow - everything from animal bites to dogs being left outside with no water or shade.
FINANCIAL WOES
But even for the county-run department, the challenges aren’t just physical.
Miami-Dade County, as a whole, is expected to lose at least $300 million from its budget because of a loss of revenue from taxes and fees. That’s going to hit animal services, which estimates it may lose up to $2 million from the fees it is no longer collecting through the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
For now, as with the entire county, no staff members have lost their jobs.
“We anticipate that we will be able to recover a majority of those revenues in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year,” said Flora Beal, an animal services spokeswoman.
Private groups, which often rely on donations for fund raising, may feel the financial crunch more.
Even though the Humane Society of the United States has had to cancel some spring fundraising events, it announced Thursday it plans to distribute over $1 million to needy animal shelters and groups across the country. “We’re just doing what we can to mitigate against the worst of it,” said Humane Society CEO Kitty Block. “We’re all in the same boat.”
That type of relief funds will be needed in South Florida.
The South Florida SPCA had to cancel several fundraisers and donations are down, said Laurie Waggoner, the head of ranch operations. The group had to cancel one May fundraiser, known as the Rally at Robbies, which normally brings in up to $10,000.
Waggoner said the organization will scrap and claw to help care for the the ranch’s 40 horses, 21 goats and four sheep. “We’re never going to turn our back on the animals,” she said.
At the Paws4you Rescue, a private shelter and “retreat” in Southwest Miami-Dade, fosters and adoptions have skyrocketed as people sheltered at home have sought companions. Even with strays coming in, the facility only has about 20 dogs, its lowest number in years.
But the non-profit was forced to furlough six employees. The reason: the shelter lost about $20,000 in revenue it normally makes for boarding people’s pets during the spring-break vacation season.
Director Carol Caridad said the rescue has applied for federal stimulus aid to help them get through the next few months. Fewer dogs in the shelter has also meant less work for employees.
“We plan to bring them back as soon as we get going again,” Caridad said.
For Caridad’s group, despite the furloughs, the victories during the pandemic have been small but satisfying.
Lola, a black lab mix with a bad skin condition, spent time at the county shelter before Paws4u took her in one year ago. A foster family took her in - and returned her days later after she ate chunks of their couch.
“That same day, this couple came in and adopted her,” Caridad said. “They said they would never bring her back.”
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