The owner of a family-owned pet store in St. Stephen is turning to the community for help.
Harper’s Exotic Animals & Pet Supply first opened in the border community more than six years ago.
But it is being evicted from its Milltown Boulevard location after not being able to reach a lease agreement with a different landlord.
Doug Harper said they have to be out in January and were unable to find a new location in the community on such short notice.
“We have to try to find a home for 150-plus animals. At least 60 of those animals that cannot be rehomed due to health issues and high vet bills,” Harper said in a phone interview.
Harper said his business has worked with the New Brunswick SPCA over the years to take in abandoned exotic animals that the organization is unable to.
He wants to build a room in his home to house the animals until they can find appropriate homes for some and to keep the ones that cannot be rehomed.
But the venture will not be cheap. Harper estimates it will cost at least $5,000 just to build the room, not counting the cost to care for the animals.
“We’re really scared that animals are going to have to be euthanized, that we won’t find homes for them,” he said.
After giving back to the community over the past few years, Harper said he is hoping residents will step forward and give him a hand.
He has turned to the online crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to help raise money. The fundraiser had already raised $3,800 as of Thursday evening.
“We’re just really relying on the community at this point to try and raise the funds to not have the animals suffer and go back to what they came from before they came here,” he said.
Since announcing the closure earlier this week, Harper said hundreds of people have reached out to him by email, phone and social media.
He said the support from residents far and wide over the past few days — and the past six years — has been overwhelming.
“I want to reach out to the community and thank them,” said Harper.
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