New Sacramento County Animal Shelter Faces Chopping Block
Financial crisis has reached in to nearly every aspect of local government. The new county animal shelter located on Bradshaw is currently facing financial hardship. The shelter needs $1.6 million to continue service every year.
The $14 million facility houses animals including dogs and cats, rabbits, and other, more exotic animals when the need arises. Every year, 14,000 animals are housed by the shelter as employees and volunteers struggle to find them new homes. Volunteers provide much of the necessary work, feeding, walking, cleaning, providing care to the animals and customer service to potential adopters. There are 200 volunteers at the shelter and only 25 employees.
One plan to keep the LEED certified facility’s doors open is to encourage owners to license their pets. Today only 14% of cats and dogs in Sacramento County have licenses. If that rate was increased to 25 to 30 percent of the cats and dogs, that could potentially add about half of the money needed to keep the shelter open.
The shelter, which opened in October, 2009, boasts energy efficiency and greater comfort and ease for both pets and people. Animals no longer have to face the elements in their indoor kennels and have windows, rather than bars to look through, preventing disease.
The previous shelter, located further South on Bradshaw Road, was over 40 years old, cramped, and provided insufficient space the the quantity of animals coming in.
For more information on the Sacramento County Animal Shelter, please see the official website.
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Posted by Michelle Ventress
on Apr 15 2010. Filed under News.
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It is any communities responsibility to maintain an animal control shelter, not just for the benefit of the animals, but for the benefit of the community. Without this facility, the amount of animals that will roam around, multiplying, spreading disease, causing accidents on our roads and highways, and causing harm to people through attacks will skyrocket. The County will ultimately be held responsible for this. It will be more cost effective to keep the shelter opened than to fight all of the lawsuits that the County will be faced with.