Bergen County Animal Control continues to be committed to our mission of stopping the spread of zoonotic disease, the safe handling of lost and stray domestic animals, and the humane treatment of sick and injured wild animals.  The COVID-19 emergency may have affected our daily routines, but the safety of our County residents is still a priority. 

Please be advised the Bergen County Animal Control can still be reached 24 hours/7 days a week.  However, during this COVID-19 emergency, Animal Control will only be responding to Emergency calls overnight  between 12AM to 8AM.  Please contact 201-785-8500 for emergency animal control assistance during those hours. 

The Bergen County Animal Control operations during this COVID-19 period will be as follows:

High Priority/Emergency Calls:  This would include law enforcement assistance, injured or sick stray animals, and cruelty complaints.

Non-Emergency Calls:  These calls include non-aggressive stray animal pick-up, off-leash complaints, barking and nuisance complaints, trapping and transport of feral cats, and conflict mitigation scenarios.

Shelter Intake Reduction:  We are taking active measures to reduce non-essential shelter intake, such as returning pets in the field, suspending non-emergency animal intake, and encouraging owners to keep their pets at home whenever possible.

As this situation evolves, the Bergen County Animal Control will provide updates as needed.  We ask that all Bergen County residents follow the recommended preventative measures and stay safe during this time.

Responsibilities

We are a county-operated Shelter providing comprehensive animal control to 50 communities in Bergen and Hudson counties. Our Animal Control team is made up of 14 state certified officers (ACOs) whose job it is to enforce municipal, county, state and federal laws concerning the care and treatment of animals and educate the public about animal safety.

In addition to State-mandated services (like rabies control, stray animal housing and care, confinement services for stray and owned animals involved in bite cases, and emergency veterinarian services for sick or injured domestic stray animals), Animal Control provides the following to our contracted towns:

• Fully-staffed animal control shifts, 24/7, 365 days per year. We are never on-call.
• Impoundment of stray, domestic animals, reptiles and birds
• Wildlife rescue including injured animals and orphaned juveniles
• Feral and dangerous animal trapping
• Disaster response in all emergencies
• Investigation of calls relevant to cruelty to animals and resolve problems by educating owners or pursue complaints in court as necessary
• Dead on Arrival (DOA) carcass removal from all municipal public areas
• Deer carcass removal from all public and private property free of charge
• Comprehensive feral cat Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) program
• Animal mobile adoption vehicle available for town and county events and community education services
• Fully equipped, temperature controlled vehicles that are 100% compliant with current state requirements

Animal Control is not a pest control service and will not remove healthy wildlife from any property. An ACO can remove wildlife from living quarters for a fee payable by the resident at the time of the service.

Animal Control can be reached 24/7, 365 directly at 201-229-4616 or through the Bergen County Public Safety Dispatch Center at 201-785-8505. 

Service Areas

The following towns have animal control contracts with Bergen County Animal Shelter and we will accept stray domestic animals from any of these towns:

If you find a stray in any other town, please contact the local police for the animal control contractor for that town.