Thursday, May 3, 2012
County Commissioner Ken Hagan said the county's current 65 percent euthanasia rate is unacceptable.
There's changes on the horizon for Hillsborough County Animal Services as a new director comes on board and the county studies ways to reduce the number of animals euthanized at the shelter at 440 N. Falkenburg Rd., Tampa. At the Hillsborough County Commission meeting May 2, County Administrator Mike Merrill said the county will release the name of the new director of the shelter. For the past several years, Animal Services has been overseen by interim directors, most recently Jack Carlisle. Merrill told commissioners that the chosen candidate was selected after a comprehensive review of candidates including members of the veterinary community and members of the Hillsborough County Animal Advisory Committee. "There were a lot of …
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
What should Hillsborough County do to reduce its animal euthanasia rate?
An estimated 14,500 animals are euthanized each year by Hillsborough County Animal Services. Those numbers, according to The Tampa Tribune, have at least one commissioner concerned. “I think we can do better,” Commissioner Ken Hagan told The Tampa Tribune. To that end, Hagan is expected to ask commissioners to look into studying the possibility of adopting a no-kill policy in Hillsborough. Under a no-kill policy, healthy animals that are deemed worthy of adoption are never euthanized to make room in a shelter. Other communities around the country, including Manatee County, have adopted no-kill policies with some success. Austin, Texas, for example, has a 90 percent save rate, the Tribune reports. (Read the Tribune’s full story by …
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…
kathy shemack
6:08 pm on Friday, May 4, 2012
i adopted 2 dogs from hillsborough and i think its about darn time that its made a no kill shelter, in fact, i think all these county shelters should be made no kill. its sheer nonsense to think that animals can be adopted out in these shelters 5 day policies. more ›