From 16 October 2022, the Animal Welfare Facility in Epping will be managed by the City of Whittlesea in partnership with Moreland and Darebin councils after the councils made the decision to take animal shelter management services in-house.

RSPCA Victoria is currently working with the councils during the transition period in the lead up to the official handover.

RSPCA Victoria team members continue to prioritise animal welfare and have a structured plan to transfer post-quarantine animals out of EAWF. This plan is already well underway so we can ensure excellent animal welfare outcomes and support the needs of all animals in our care.

All transferred animals will remain under the care of RSPCA Victoria and will progress towards rehoming. The work we are doing includes:

• Continuing to perform health and behaviour assessments on all animals to ensure we can meet their needs moving forward
• Moving animals from Epping to our other RSPCA shelters – we have transfers running multiple times a week across the RSPCA Victoria network
• Running major adoption promotions in the coming weeks to encourage members of the community to come forward and adopt
• Successfully adopting out our FIV cats by providing extra information and support to people to help them care for these animals.

We would like to reassure the community that RSPCA Victoria does not euthanase animals for capacity reasons.  As a socially conscious shelter, RSPCA Victoria believes every animal that can be treated, has the capacity to live a quality, healthy life and is safe to be rehomed in the community should be made available for rehoming.

We thank the local communities for their support and their concern for animal welfare.