Animal rescue organization received more reports last year than in 2023

Stichting AAP received more requests for shelter and reports of animals in need than the year before. The association, which shelters animals in need, received 1,478 reports from ten different countries. The organization received 1,168 in 2023. In 2024, reports were more likely to involve sugar gliders, which are popular on TikTok because the animals can float for short distances.

Furthermore, the reports mainly concerned small mammals such as degus and prairie dogs, but also raccoons, servals, apes, and lions.

A total of 87 reports came in about sugar gliders, with most of those being about the animals that are in the Netherlands, said a spokesperson for Stichting AAP.

In previous years, there were only five to ten reports about sugar gliders, but it is now the animal that has the most requests for shelter in the Netherlands. They are nocturnal animals, and that is why people quickly get tired of them, according to the spokesperson.

This has displaced the serval, which was regularly in the news for escapes, from the "first place" as the animal that most often needs shelter. The number of reports about the feline "is dropping a bit", according to the spokesperson.

The serval and the sugar glider have been on a banned pets list since July 1, 2024, along with other animals like chinchillas and degus. Pet owners who already had one of the animals on the list were allowed to keep the pet until it dies.

The list ensures that animals for which shelter is often requested can no longer be bought and bred by private individuals. AAP received a total of 234 reports about animals on the list last year, compared to 206 reports in 2023. "The expectation is that this number will decrease again as the last generations of popular but unsuitable animal species disappear from living rooms," according to the foundation.

In total, the organization saved 82 exotic animals last year, which is over 20 percent more than the year before. These were mainly animals that people kept at home, but they also consisted of animals from circuses and illegal trade.

Of these animals, 47 were rescued in the Netherlands, the rest in six different European countries. The foundation also arranged permanent new homes for 108 animals, which means that at the end of 2024, there were still 374 animals in AAP shelters in Almere and Villena, Spain. That is 50 fewer than at the beginning of last year.