WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Animals that were temporarily relocated due to the City of West Des Moines’ fireworks display are being returned to the Furry Friends Refuge animal shelter.

Britt Gagne, the Executive Director of Furry Friends Refuge, said that Furry Friends Refuge relocated all of its animals ahead of the fireworks display due to the trauma the fireworks can cause the animals.

“Each year we have begun to need to evacuate all of the animals because it is extremely loud. It shakes the building. It’s just way too much for these animals who already have a history of trauma to have to go through that,” Gagne said.

Gagne said that the City of West Des Moines originally planned to hold the fireworks display across the street from the shelter for one year.

“Unfortunately, after we built our new location off of Mills Civic Parkway, the city decided to relocate their display to be directly in front of the shelter building. We were told the one year that it had moved, that it was due to COVID and that it would be a one-time event,” Gagne said.

Gagne said that after the fireworks display, the shelter found debris scattered around the shelter property from the fireworks.

“There was certainly some time that had to be set aside rather than spending time with the animals, spending time caring for our property. Some concerns that some of that’s falling on our roof, too. It’s not a real safe idea, but that’s probably the least of the concern. The evacuation was a very extensive process and required a massive amount of effort from a lot of people.”

Gagne said that she invited the West Des Moines city council and mayor to see how disruptive the fireworks display is for the shelter, but they declined.

“We certainly invited city leaders, the mayor, city council, to come out and view what it was like at our facility and how much debris fell. Unfortunately, nobody responded. There was a city employee who provided feedback and said that we had poor planning for not foreseeing that in the future the city was going to relocate the event to in front of our shelter,” Gagne said.