Shared Spaces, Shared Suffering: Exploring the Effects of COVID-19 on Urban Animal Advocacy Organizations in Chicago and Kansas City, USA

ABSTRACT

COVID-19‘s impact on the daily lives of millions of urban residents around the world has been significant, yet next to many humans are companion animals who have shared the "lockdown” experience. Much as the pandemic has upended human socio-economic lives, the pandemic has also upended companion animal lives, as well as the organizations working to help them in urban areas. This chapter, grounded in the perspective of animal geography, explores the positive and negative effects of COVID-19 on three U.S. animal advocacy organizations two in Chicago, Illinois and one in Kansas City, Missouri. From early lockdown closures that temporarily stopped all direct care and outreach services, to a post-lockdown recognition of the increasing need for economic support to help families care for their companion animals, to the time lost managing feral populations, we show that the impact of COVID-19 cannot be seen as purely a human phenomenon, but must be seen as a more-than-human experience with long-term ramifications for human-animal relations in urban areas and beyond. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.