Humane Society of Yuma Releases 2025 Report Detailing Intake, Adoptions, Transfers

The Humane Society of Yuma said 7,177 animals entered its shelter during fiscal 2025, and its FY2025 annual report shows nearly 3,000 pets were adopted during the year, including more than 800 cats and nearly 400 dogs. Executive Director Annette Lagunas told the Yuma County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 5 that the shelter has been operating above kennel capacity, citing a facility with 238 cages that recently held about 306 animals on site.

Lagunas credited county-supported microchipping clinics for reuniting many pets with their owners and described the shelter’s role in countywide animal care. “We are the only one in Yuma County that houses animals,” Lagunas told the Board, underscoring HSOY’s contracted services for Yuma County that include animal-control holding and public-health vaccination and sterilization work intended to reduce stray rates, protect public health and shift operating costs among municipalities and nonprofit partners.

The FY2025 annual report and Lagunas’ remarks detail operational programs: HSOY runs a spay/neuter clinic, offers low-cost vaccination clinics, and carries out community-cat sterilization supported by grant funding. Lagunas estimated an Arizona specialty-license-plate grant at about $70,000 as one component of support for those programs; the report also lists total grant support of roughly $224,000 that helped the shelter during the fiscal year.

Financial notes in the annual report state that thrift store revenue is returned to pet services; the report copy supplied to local media shows the thrift revenue listed as “about $188,00” which appears to be a formatting error and requires confirmation of the exact amount. Lagunas told the Board that caring for incoming animals has become more expensive, and the shelter reported that it “does not make money on adoptions,” with adoption fees during the year typically ranging from $25 to $150 and many adoptions occurring at about $50.

The annual report highlights rescue operations as well: it states that “dozens of dogs were rescued from unsafe home conditions and were given a new chance at life.” The report also indicates that transfer figures are included in its tables, but the summary materials available to the public did not provide a complete intake-to-outcome flow; the number of animals transferred to partner organizations, reclaimed by owners, euthanized, or remaining in care at fiscal year end was not detailed in the excerpts provided.

HSOY’s executive-director message closed with a note of community gratitude. “Thank you for continuing to believe in our mission and for helping us create a safer, kinder community for every animal who needs us,” Annette Lagunas wrote in the annual report. As the shelter confronts sustained overcapacity and rising care costs, the report frames grants, thrift-store revenue and county partnerships as critical to maintaining spay/neuter clinics, vaccination services and the holding capacity that serves Yuma County.