Environment & Pollution
Houston ranks as the second highest city in the country in euthanizing cats and dogs, only San Antonio fares worse. Animal rights activists say the city should donate more money to spay and neutering programs, and pet owners should take more responsibility caring for their animals.
For one feline that was a stray nine months ago, getting adopted off the streets saved him from euthanization. Dude was one of 41 cats and dogs sterilized Wednesday by the non-profit Spay-Neuter Assistance Program.
“I brought him up here today to get neutered because I have another cat and he (Dude) bothers her because he is in heat,” said Jennie Widaski, Dude’s gaurdian.
Jim Weedon, the veterinarian and chief executive officer of SNAP for the past three years, explains the over-population of pets in the city.
“A cat over the course of seven years, it and its offspring could produce 420,000 kittens," said Weedon. "Theoretically a cat can have three litters a year, she could have six kittens a litter, and then those kittens have kittens.”
Weedon says no city could adopt that many kittens. Nearly twice as many cats and dogs were killed in Houston and Harris County shelters as SNAP was able to spay or neuter last year.
Gwen McGough, manager of the Houston Surgery Clinic on Shepherd, says their numbers are better this year.
“I know we spay and neutered 56,000 last year, and I’m 1500 ahead of that this year, said Gwen McGough. "So, we’re making slow progress.”
Weedon says the answer to reducing the number of homeless animals is prevention.
“Our real mission is to stop the destruction of homeless animals by educating and making available the sterilization of animals,” said Weedon.
SNAP’s Houston mobile clinic, the first free spay and neuter clinic on wheels, is in Houston neighborhoods four times a week 52 weeks a year. In 2004, the mobile clinic spayed and neutered 4,439 animals. SNAP has run programs in California, New Mexico and even Mexico.
Weedon says nationally, the amount spent on prevention is a faction of the cost of euthanization of cats and dogs.
“In the United States today we are spending over $2 billion to round up, house, kill and discard animals in shelters,” Weedon said. “That’s a huge amount of money. It’s much better it be to take some of that money and put it into preventing these animals from ever being born.”
It costs $176 to hold, destroy and dispose of each animal in Houston. An animal is held three days on average before it is euthanized. More than 7 million cats and dogs were euthanized in 2004 in the United States, and 100,000 in Houston. The city has the second highest killing rate in the country. The city pound is known locally as the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care. Out of 18,000 animals taken in last year, BARC euthanized around 90 percent.
Deoneice Arnold, Interim Chief at BARC, says the kinds of cats and dogs they house are either strays or are turned in by their owners because they are sick.
“We are essentially picking up the downfall or the downtrodden of the Earth," said Arnold. "So not a high percentage of those animals are adoptable, which is why we have so many that are euthanized.”
The city contracts with a landfill to take the the euathanized animals.
“Once they are dead, we have a scheduled pick-up by solid waste, said Arnold. “It’s called dead animal pick-up.”
Arnold asserts that the high euthanasia rate is still lower than years past and said a more comprehensive animal care plan is in the works.
“Along with that came short and long term goals, establishing programs, establishing infection control program, expanding our volunteer effort, expanding our adoption effort," said Arnold. “This is all an educational process with regards to appropriate pet ownership, doing the thing that you should for your animals, treating them the way that you should and controlling the population through spay and neuter.”
Cynda Lewis, manager of the Quality of Insurance Team, says BARC has volunteers who bring cats and dogs to Petsmart on Saturdays for adoption. Lewis said if its first storefront adoption in September is any indication, the November 12 outing should be a success.
“They adopted out all but one dog, and probably if they had a little more time that dog would have been adopted, said Lewis.
The king of the local adoption ring is the Houston SPCA. The director of development and community outreach Alice Sarmiento said they placed nearly 14,000 animals in homes out of nearly 35,000 admitted in 2004.
“If they go up for adoption, our rates for last year was 98 percent of all adoptable dogs were adopted and 97 percent of all adoptable cats were adopted,” said Sarmiento.
Despite the non-profit's success in adopting out their animals, the Houston SPCA still euthanized nearly 40 percent of the animals it took in.
“We really try to push the importance of spay-neuter by offering free spay-neuter services, said Sarmiento. “In our humane educational programs, we are out in the schools everyday teaching the importance of spaying and neutering your pets. That’s what all our public service announcement’s focus on is spay-neuter. We want to control the pet overpopulation.”
Sarmiento said she would like to see more funds directed towards public education, but unfortunately the non-profit group she believes is doing the city’s job.
“When the city started cutting the budget and BARC started pulling back on their services, we were looking at having four or five dogs in our lost and found area that are meant to hold two," said Sarmiento.
Animal rights advocates contend that if Houston can bring its licensing rate of cats and dogs to the national average of 28 percent, the city could collect $3.5 million additional dollars in the first year. Activists believe the city could spend this money on more pro-active programs such as spray and neuter. Currently, the licensing rate in Houston is at 4 percent.
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
Top of Page
|
