Stop the Destruction of Charlotte Animal Shelter’s walking trails

APRIL 9 UPDATE: updated news article linked here regarding airport commitment to build new walking trails: Thank you to everyone who signed and shared the petition to raise awareness! Your care and concern for the animals and people involved allowed leaders from the city and airport to work together on a solution. We are grateful to CLT Airport for their promise to build new trails on a section of wooded property adjacent to the shelter and for their pledge to allow continued use of portions of the existing trails until the new ones are completed. We appreciate our City of Charlotte leaders for hearing our voices and treating the situation with importance. We recognize that there are many issues facing our city and extend our sincere thanks for the attention and focus that was shifted to this urgent request. --- 🚨 The Charlotte airport decided to start cutting down all the trees around the animal shelter today. All. Of. The. Trees. Not only are these woods home to our walking trails that are so important to the dogs’ well-being and volunteer/staff safety, they’re home to countless other wildlife. There are deer, coyotes, and snakes wandering the trails. We have a small colony of feral and dumped cats that relies on staff to care for them. Shelter staff have been told that every single tree is coming down by May 1. And why, you may ask? What’s the urgent need to demolish dozens of acres of forest and leave Animal Care & Control sitting in a barren clay lot? Something about the airport needing room for a dirt pile. Details are still coming out but it’s shameful that city leadership can’t properly communicate and balance the needs of different city divisions. Like many parts of Charlotte, the tree canopy around the animal shelter has distinguished us from animal shelters in similarly-sized cities. The walking trails are a critical part of the volunteer dog walking program. There’s no nice way to put it - wildlife and domesticated dogs will die with this habitat loss. D