Animal welfare depends on people doing difficult care, often while confronting suffering, death and decisions that carry emotional weight. Organizations cannot separate the quality of animal care from the conditions their workers face. Evidence from shelter staff and animal-protection workers warrants serious attention, while not establishing how common distress is across every role—or which support works best everywhere.
What the evidence says about shelter staff
A 2023 online survey of 243 U.S. shelter staff found mean scores for anger, anxiety, depression and fatigue that were in the mild-to-moderate range and significantly higher than those reported for the general U.S. population. The survey’s self-selected online sample is informative about its respondents, not a census of animal-welfare workers. Its results also describe measured symptoms, not diagnoses.
In the same study, respondents were classified using Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) measure categories. The percentages below are classifications within the 243-person survey sample, not estimates of prevalence across the U.S. shelter workforce.
| ProQOL measure | Low range | Moderate range | High range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burnout | 14.4% | 32.1% | 53.5% |
| Secondary traumatic stress | 0.8% | 8.2% | 90.9% |
| Compassion satisfaction | 11.5% | 39.1% | 49.4% |
These categories are study-measure classifications, not clinical diagnoses. Burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, depression and moral distress are related concerns, but they are not interchangeable terms. The survey’s high-range result for secondary traumatic stress, for example, should not be recast as a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Read the 2024 study in the Journal of Shelter Medicine and Community Animal Health.
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Why the work can carry an emotional toll
Animal-welfare work includes many settings—shelters, rescues, sanctuaries, animal protection and enforcement, and veterinary services—and their duties differ. The American Psychological Association describes routine exposure to animal suffering and death as a potential contributor to burnout, compassion fatigue and mental-health problems among people who work or volunteer with animals. A sense of calling can be part of the work’s appeal, but commitment does not make repeated exposure emotionally cost-free.
The APA’s discussion also includes veterinarians, but its historical comparison of suicide rates—two to 3.5 times the general U.S. population—concerns U.S. veterinarians over 1979–2015. It is not a current estimate for shelter workers or animal-welfare staff generally. The APA reported the comparison in 2019 and advises readers to understand it in that historical, veterinarian-specific context. Read the APA’s 2019 discussion of work with animals and mental health.
What workers say about preparation and pressure
A 2022 Canadian qualitative study interviewed 11 people in animal-protection and welfare work. Researchers reported two themes: feeling unprepared and forced strength. These interview accounts do not show how often all workers have those experiences, but they raise practical questions for employers: Are people prepared for the emotional as well as technical parts of their roles? Can they speak about strain without feeling expected to appear unaffected?
Those questions matter because a response focused only on personal resilience can leave work conditions untouched. Training, supervision, staffing, authority to pause or seek help, and organizational expectations all shape whether workers can ask for support. The study discusses trauma-informed practice as a way to consider how trauma may affect people and how organizations respond; it does not establish one program as effective in every setting. Read the Canadian study on trauma in animal-protection and welfare work.
What organizations can consider
Sources discuss access to social workers and mental-health professionals, including consultation, sessions and debriefs, as possible organizational supports. These are options to consider, not proven universal remedies or a ranked list of interventions. The appropriate mix may depend on the work, available funding and whether support reaches staff, volunteers, enforcement personnel, veterinary teams and shelter-care workers alike.
- Make support accessible: Consider confidential individual support as well as embedded consultation, and clarify how workers can reach it.
- Build prevention into work: Consider emotional preparation, trauma-informed practice, supervision and training before difficult incidents occur.
- Provide response after difficult events: Debriefs may be one option, but should not replace ongoing access to support or be treated as a complete solution.
- Check who is covered: Support arrangements should account for different roles and for volunteers as well as employees where relevant.
- Evaluate and fund the approach: Organizations need to consider feasibility and outcomes; the available sources do not compare interventions well enough to identify a single best choice.
A 2021 article in Frontiers in Veterinary Science discusses social workers in animal shelters as a strategy for addressing occupational stress. It supports considering that model, not assuming every shelter has access to it or that its effects are settled. Read the article on social workers in animal shelters.
Keep related veterinary findings in perspective
Veterinary professionals are part of the broader animal-services landscape, but findings about them should not be generalized to all shelter and animal-welfare workers. A 2022 summary of the Merck Animal Health Veterinarian Wellbeing Study III and Veterinary Support Staff Study reports samples of 2,495 veterinarians and 448 veterinary support staff. Those sample sizes describe the studies; they are not estimates of the animal-welfare workforce. See the study summary in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
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The available evidence identifies real concerns among surveyed U.S. shelter staff and documents difficult experiences in interviews with Canadian animal-protection and welfare workers. It does not establish sector-wide prevalence, prove that every worker will experience distress, or show that one intervention is best for all settings. Organizations can still ask a concrete question now: what staffing, preparation, supervision and access to support make sustained humane work possible for both animals and the people caring for them?
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