BC SPCA’s Pet Food Banks are facing increasing demands and fewer donations.
With the ongoing economic uncertainty in the Province and rising cost of living, BC SPCA Outreach Specialist Diane Waters said those appear to be contributing to a decline in donations of pet food and supplies to animal centres across BC.
“We completely sympathize that people’s ability to donate is difficult right now, but without an increase in donations we may not be able to support all the pet guardians who need our help.
Waters said the BC SPCA has a limited budget to purchase food to make up the difference in donations, but that is being stretched thin due to the rising cost of pet food and increased demand.
As of May 31, 2025 the number of animals helped by pet food banks in the Cariboo and North: dogs 623 and cats 851.
“It’s a little bit harder distribution wise and getting donations in the Cariboo region just because everything is little more spread out so a lot of folks aren’t able to drop supplies off right at the centres as they would in more urban areas. So we’ve been trying to put out donation requests on our Facebook page (BCSPCA). We link to put out Amazon links for folks who may not be able to leave their house, those are easy ways to donate.”
Waters noted that you are able to donate online through the BC SPCA website by offering to pay for a meal for a pet in your community.
“It is harder to source materials in the Cariboo and to get materials from A to B. Thankfully we do have some volunteer drivers up in that area and some volunteers helping to pack the food up there which is awesome. It’s definitely harder to maintain the donations up there.”
As of May 31 2025, the BC SPCA’s pet food bank program has provided 298,681 meals to pets in need, and increase of 4,180 meals compared to the same period last year.
These meals have already fed more than 20,000 vulnerable animals in BC this year.
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