Sunday, October 7, 2012
The task force will study ways to reduce the number of dogs and cats that are killed at Hillsborough County Animal Services.
Charged with finding ways to reduce the number of animals euthanized at the Hillsborough County animal shelter, the newly created Animal Services Task Force will hold its first meeting Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. The meeting will be held in the 26th Floor Conference Rooms A and B at County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., in downtown Tampa. Reacting to charges from animal welfare groups that Hillsborough County Animal Services is euthanizing too many dogs and cats at its facility at 440 N. Falkenburg Rd., Tampa, in May the Hillsborough County Commission called for the creation of the task force to study ways to reduce the number of euthanized animals. Now, with a new Animal Services director, Ian Hallett, on the job, the task force is …
Monday, August 13, 2012
Ian Hallett comes to Hillsborough County from the Austin Animal Services where he saved 90 percent of the animals under the shelter's care.
Just two months on the job, Ian Hallett, the county's new director of Animal Services is busy getting acquainted with the staff of Animal Services as well as the animal rescue groups and veterinarians that work closely with the county agency. A Riverview native, he said he began working with animals at the age of 16 as a veterinary technicial at the Riverview Veterinary Hospital. Hallett is a 1995 graduate of the International Baccalaureate Program at Hillsborough High School. He went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in biology and economics from the New College of Florida, and his master's degree in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin. Hallett is intimately familiar with the issues and concerns facing animal rescue agencies…
Monday, May 28, 2012
Problems reported at a nearby animal services center are a grim reminder of all the scared, sad and lovable animals in shelter that want nothing more than to find someone to show them what love is.
I was recently sent a story to read, and I have to tell you, it made my stomach turn and made me angry. The story was in the Tampa Bay Times, and it discussed the problems associated with euthanasia at Hernando County Animal Services. The story discusses how some animals were not weighed to figure the right amount of anesthesia to be given, and the animals were not checked to make sure they were anesthetized completely before injecting the euthanasia medication into the heart. In fact, it states that one cat was injected three times before its heart was ever found. The story points out that some cats were allowed to walk around the room after being anesthetized instead of in a nice calm space, and that euthanasia was being done in front …
Monday, April 30, 2012
Hillsborough County is taking steps to drastically reduce euthanasia of shelter animals.
Hillsborough County took a huge step forward in the animal community a couple of weeks ago by moving toward making its animal shelter a no-kill zone. Hillsborough County Animal Services has been trying to get its euthanasia number down. It has gone down from 30,000 in 2005 to 14,000 last year. What a great feat! Now, the county is trying for even fewer. Now, there are always going to be some exceptions to the rule, such as very sick dogs that cannot be saved, but those things cannot be helped. Animal Services employees are being redirected in how to maintain operations while saving most animals from euthanasia. Some of the steps that they are working on are: This is a huge thing, and I hope that it will come to other nearby counties, too…
Joan Z
10:21 pm on Sunday, October 7, 2012
If 50+ other communities of all kinds -- north, south, east, west, rich, poor, urban, suburban and rural -- can save 90+ percent of all animals who come into their open admission municipal shelter, so can we, with or without a budget increase. It does not bode well for this task force that Amy Howland, who is on it, has apparently already made up her mind that the shelter and community can't do … more ›