SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- The San Diego Humane Society is over capacity, and they say taking in hundreds of animals as the community rang in the new year only made matters worse. “It is a very busy time for us. A lot of pets run away during fireworks,” said San Diego Humane Society Director of Public Relations, Nina Thompson. From December 31 to January 6, the local Humane Society took in more than 230 stray animals, but so far only 61 have been reclaimed by their owners. “In the last two years, we’ve seen a decline in pets being reclaimed by their owners,” said Thompson. Loud New Year’s celebrations causes increase in lost pets They attribute the decline to the increasing cost of pet ownership and a pause in spay and neuter surgeries during the pandemic. “There were a lot of people who got pets who weren’t spayed or neutered, so now those pets are having litters and those litters are becoming unwanted litters,” said Thompson. This means they have more pets in their care than they can handle. “We put up emergency kennels in classrooms, conference rooms, warehouses. These spaces are not built for animal care in the long run,” noted Thompson. First US bird flu death reported in Louisiana, health officials say The San Diego Humane Society is pleading with pet owners to pick up their animals. “We have very single animal who has come into our care as 'lost' on our website. You can scroll that page and there are hundreds and hundreds of pets waiting for their owners to reclaim them,” added Thompson.