Beaufort County Council endorses sterilization rules for local pit bulls
Pit bulls and pit bull mixes that live in Beaufort County must be spayed or neutered under a new animal control law that received initial approval this week from County Council.
The controversial rule has been in the works for months because Beaufort County Animal Services is crowded with pit bulls and mixes that it struggles to adopt out and must euthanize more than any other breeds in the county shelter, animal services director Tallulah Trice said.
"It's so difficult; we just can't move them or adopt them," Trice said. "Basically, we're like a pit bull sanctuary."
Of the about 900 dogs that animal services has taken in this year, more than one third have been pit bulls or pit bull mixes, Trice said.
Now more than half of the roughly 50 dogs at the shelter are pit bulls, which is fewer than normal after six were adopted this summer and another 18 pit bulls, mostly puppies, were transferred to Atlanta and Charleston, Trice said. At any given time, however, up to 90 percent of the shelter's dogs are pit bulls, she has said.
Most alarmingly, 64 of the 92 dogs the shelter has euthanized this year have been pit bulls or pit bull mixes, she added.
Those numbers underscore the county's breed-specific approach to the new rules, Trice and council leaders agreed.
"People may get mad we're breed specific, but it's like the S.C. Department of Natural Resources," Trice said. "They look at species of fish all the time and put (catch) limits on them ... The reason they do that is demand and supply. It's the same thing with us. We have way too much supply of pit bulls, so we have to act."
Despite some push back from state and national organizations, shelter officials and some who run local rescue groups support the breed-specific sterilization rules.
"It's needed to be revamped for a long time," said Kim Bonturi, president of the animal rescue group Chain Free Beaufort. "As a rescuer myself, I have the luxury of choosing which kind of animals to bring into the rescue group, and I cannot take in pit bulls, and it's mainly because I cannot place them."
Hilton Head Humane Association Frannie Gerthoffer agrees.
"We are behind Tallulah (Trice) and her team 100 percent," said Gerthoffer, who partners with the shelter to help spay, neuter and adopt animals. "Hilton Head Humane is committed to working just as long and just as hard to help Tallulah keep as many animals off that chopping block as possible."
The new pit bull measure is part of more comprehensive revisions to the county's animal control rules to standardize the codes across the county and municipalities, said Councilman Stu Rodman, who has shepherded the revisions in the council's Governmental Committee.
The new rules incorporate Port Royal's restrictions on keeping livestock within town limits, and Bluffton and Hilton Head Island's rules about allowing dogs off their leashes in dog parks and on the beach during certain times of the year, Rodman said.
The rules also prohibit the importation of exotic animals weighing more than 50 pounds, seemingly in direct response to the stir caused by Beaufort Liquidation owner Jeff Lowe's insistence on displaying big cats on his property off U.S. 21.
The new rules would include exemptions for accredited zoos, circuses and licensed research facilities, such as monkeys on Morgan Island, the ordinance and council members have said.
The council unanimously approved the rules in its first of three votes Monday. Council members Steve Fobes and Cynthia Bensch were absent.
Follow reporter Zach Murdock on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Zach and on Facebook at facebook.com/IPBGZach.
July 10, 2015 As the Beaufort County Animal Shelter bulges with pit bulls and pit bull mixes, and as bites rack up, breed-specific sterilization becomes an option. | READ
Related content:
- The pit bull predicament, July 10, 2015
- Exotic animals banned from entering Beaufort County, June 22, 2015
- Proposal would mandate spaying for pit bulls in Beaufort County, June 1, 2015
This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Beaufort County Council endorses sterilization rules for local pit bulls."