S7E05 - Fluttershy Leans In

So.

I got to taking a discussion of this episode into wayyyyy too much detail, and I believe I've completely overthought the whole thing well past the point that was ever intended when writing it. But it's fun to speculate, so I did, and I've taken that speculation to the point that I think I'll do a blog post and see what sort of input people have. Here's my hangup:

In this episode, we see Fluttershy, determined to create a sanctuary for animals who have nowhere else to go. Was that really necessary, or was she just using the situation as an excuse to pursue her "dream". What exactly happened that caused the animals to have "nowhere else to go"? Is the forest suddenly not good enough?

Now I realize that animals can require a sanctuary for many reasons. Abuse from their owners, generally poor living conditions, injuries, and so forth. But in this case, it's never explained to us exactly why Ponyville is suddenly being overrun with animals who have "no place to go". It wasn't happening before, so why is it happening now? Ponyville has the Everfree and Whitetail Woods bordering it...did something happen to these habitats? It seems unlikely that all of these animals were owned by somebody and suddenly turned loose all at once. I look at Fluttershy in this ep and I think, well...if you're so upset that these animals have nowhere to go, why aren't you looking into the reason why they suddenly have nowhere to go? An animal sanctuary didn't appear to be necessary before. It's fine if you want to build one anyway, but since you didn't bother to track the source of the problem, are you building it because it's needed, or just because you want to build one and this strange happening is a convenient excuse?

Too much idle thought time