The Roanoke City Police Department is facing a staffing shortage that impacts its ability for now to respond to animal control calls. For the immediate future, it will focus on helping the animals that are sick, hurt, neglected, abused,or in immediate danger. For now it will no longer provide an in-person response for Stray or loose animals, wildlife on your property, animals detained on a property or safely caught. The Roanoke police department will still respond to all calls involving animals that are hurt or have injured others.
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NEWS RELEASE: The Roanoke Police Department constantly strives to protect and serve all members of our community – whether they be our two-legged or four-legged residents. Unfortunately, our Animal Protection and Services Unit is facing a staffing shortage that impacts our ability to provide the best service possible to the animals of this city. In order to maximize our efforts and serve the animals who need us the most, we are modifying our response to certain animal-related calls for service. For the immediate future, we have to focus current staff and our efforts on helping the animals that are most in need of our services: those that are sick, hurt, neglected, abused, or in immediate danger.
Therefore, these are some of the calls for which we will no longer provide an in-person response:
Stray/loose animals
Wildlife on your property
Animals that you have detained or safely caught
***We will still respond to all calls involving animals that are hurt or have injured others.***
We ask the public to assist us during this time by transporting strays or lost/found pets to the shelter and working with our partners to get them back safely to their homes and owners. If you are able to catch a stray pet, you must immediately contact the Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection for tracking purposes. That number is (540) 344-4922. We know that we have an amazing community and many partners who will help supplement our work while we do our best to fully staff the Animal Protection and Services Unit. Thank you for your help and patience with us as we try to do what is best for the animals in our community.
For further assistance with the calls that we are no longer responding in-person to, please reach out to our community partners:
Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection — (540) 344-4922
Angels of Assisi — (540) 344-8707
Friends of RCACP — [email protected]
