Cloquet Discussing Stray Animals Plan

Situation became more complicated when Friends of Animals announced they will close

CLOQUET, Minn. – Animal lovers and Cloquet city officials converged Tuesday evening at City Hall to figure out what to do with stray and rescued animals.

This comes after the recent shocking announcement that the Friends of Animals shelter is shutting down next month because of growing debt and an uncertain financial future.

Friends of Animals has forty-eight animals right now, mostly cats, that will need to find new homes before the facility closes on August 5th.

In addition, the city of Cloquet still has no plan in place to deal with the city’s stray animal problem.

Many people came to the Cloquet city council meeting to ask questions and understand the city’s plan to handle stray and homeless animals.

According to City Administrator Aaron Reeves, until a week ago, the city had been considering paying Friends of Animals more money to take in the strays but, since the shelter announced they would close, only two options remained:

For the city to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and run their own animal facility, or to stop taking in strays altogether.

“We’re probably going to have to rescind our ordinance that deals with animals at large and strictly deal with the statutory requirements for dangerous animals, so if we have a dog bite, a dog attack of another animal, a menacing animal, things like that, we do have a small facility that we would use for that,” explained Reeves.

Reeves went on to say the city has no plans to euthanize any animals and that it was only brought up as part of a discussion about all their options.

Friends of Animals employees say they could re-open shortly with more financial help from the city.

“We have the facility, we’ve worked so hard to get where we are now and have this facility that we’ve been wanting for years and we need more support is basically what it comes down to,” said Katy Goodman, Friends of Animals’ administrative assistant.

The shelter has been receiving about $30,000 per year from the city.

The city tells us Friends of Animals has not officially asked for more funding to help stay open.

According to the city, Duluth’s Animal Allies is full and cannot commit to taking Cloquet’s strays.

Friends of Animals say they need about $150,000 in donations and other funding to reopen.