rss
mobile
Feeds
The existing county shelter can only hold so many animals. The shelter almost certainly would have to be expanded, and the cost to care for more animals would go up.
The Hilton Head Humane Association has operated a no-kill shelter since 1976, but it takes substantial private investment to do it. The group's IRS filing for 2008 shows that its expenses totaled $766,724. It reports net assets of $3.6 million.
Over the years, the group's dedicated volunteers have taken animals home with them when the shelter was too full. The shelter has since been expanded. Today, it cares for more than 200 animals, according to its Web site.
Beaufort County Councilman Rick Caporale, who represents part of Hilton Head Island, is advocating for a no-kill county shelter.
The number of animals killed at the shelter is disturbing -- 3,876 of the 5,604 animals the shelter took in last year.
Some were feral or too aggressive or sick to be adopted, but others fell victim to inadequate space and scarce resources. The shelter has enough cages for 48 adult dogs and 68 cats, said Toni Lytton, director of Beaufort County Animal Control and shelter.
Volunteers willing to foster sick animals until they can be spayed or neutered and adopted are hard to find, she said. People willing to adopt also are hard to find.
Caporale recognizes that it would be impossible to turn the existing shelter into a no-kill shelter. There are too many animals that would have to be accommodated.
He raises a good question, though: Is the $1 million the shelter gets each year from the county being used to best advantage?
Can things be done in a different way that would result in more animals' lives being saved?
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals points out that a no-kill shelter won't solve the problem of too many stray animals. The way to become a "no-kill community" is to become a "no-birth" community.
"Euthanasia is a kindness and a necessity that can't be undone by manipulating numbers, limiting drop-off hours, relaxing adoption standards, 'storing' animals indefinitely, or promoting impulse adoptions -- all policies that we have seen implemented at shelters that claim to be lowering euthanasia rates," a representative of the group writes in a letter published Saturday.
Moving to a no-kill shelter is a worthy goal, but more of us will have to do our part to reduce the number of animals that end up in a shelter, and we'll have to be prepared for the additional costs.
