Before Beaufort agreement, Jasper Animal Rescue Mission considered partnering with Palmetto Animal League

Jasper Animal Rescue Mission and Palmetto Animal League had been working together for months.

During day-to-day operations, the two Jasper-based operations found themselves constantly communicating and collaborating. To them, it made sense to start discussing a merger.

“We were talking so much and we were working so closely together anyway that we just felt it was the right thing to do,” JARM president Keith Hughes said.

PAL was going to take over operations at JARM. The two were going to merge under the PAL name and run both facilities in different functions.

They had an agreement ready to present to the Jasper County council, PAL president Amy Campanini said.

But while this was happening, the county moved forward with an intergovernmental agreement between Jasper and Beaufort counties for animal services. This was following the proposal of a contract with JARM that would require an open-admission animal policy, meaning they could not turn away any animal that came through the doors.

JARM did not have the resources from the county to commit to open intake in a way that would allow them to maintain standards of care at the shelter, Hughes said.

“The old contract was not good, and nobody could have been successful with that contract,” she said. “You essentially had a group of people in a dilapidated building and no control over what’s coming in your door. None of the entities were working together, and our contract was working towards something that we could all work together and make sure that the flow of animals was something that that was appropriate for the size of the shelter.”

PAL did not know about the intergovernmental agreement until after it started. Campanini said PAL did not walk away from JARM or the animals.

“We didn’t have any idea that there was another negotiation going on, and we didn’t know why we weren’t part of any of those discussions,” Campanini said. While the contract was being negotiated with Jasper County, after the first reading of the intergovernmental agreement and before the second, county leaders opted for the contract with Beaufort County. Hughes said he was unaware of this.

PAL even hired more staff in preparation for the merger. The staff is still there, and Campanini said they “have plenty of work for everybody to do.”

The debate of ‘open intake’

Beaufort County Animal Services is an open-intake shelter.

They have enough resources to remain open-admission for the animals of Beaufort and, now, Jasper County.

However, animals from across the Lowcountry show up at their door.

Tallulah McGee, director of Beaufort County Animal Services, said people from across the area are not telling the truth about where they have found animals so they can get them into the county’s shelter. JARM limiting intake, she said, would have worsened this problem.

This partnership will support them in taking in the animals of Jasper County in an official capacity.

“I can’t be next to a county that is not going to be open admission,” McGee said.

One month of Jasper-Beaufort County combined services

Beaufort County and Hilton Head Humane Association are now operating the facility in Jasper County.

Pro bono partners in construction and landscaping services have come to help clean and fix the facility, including M&M Construction services and Hilton Head landscaping.

Hilton Head Humane executive director Franny Gerthoffer called what they have accomplished with the community’s help a “perfect storm” of members of the community showing up to help.

So far, the shelter has installed drainage to divert water from outside kennels during storms, filled gravel and created more usable space in the parking lot. Some tent structures that collected rainwater have also been removed.

They are now are doing walkthroughs of the facility to plan for next phase of temporary improvements.

Beaufort animal services and Hilton Head Humane trapped, medically treated and updated all feral cats on the JARM campus and documented them to ensure proper care.

JARM is also still in operation as an organization with animals in their care, just without the facility.

“We have quite a bit of animals still in our foster care,” Hughes said. “We are still supporting them. We have animals that still need to get spayed and neutered, so we are still working with those folks to get those done.”

After the animals in their care are spayed and neutered, they will adopt them out themselves, not through BCAS.

The Beaufort and Hilton Head shelters both said they are full, but not at capacity.

“We definitely need to continue to push dog adoptions of the adoptable animals, because we’re not over capacity, but we’re full,” Gerthoffer said.

Importance of spaying and neutering

Hilton Head Humane provides free TNR (trap, neuter, release) services.

Beaufort County has an ordinance that requires animal spay and neuter. Jasper County currently does not.

“But I think if we all work together to structure and get one ordinance, it will get so much better when everybody has the same thing, because we’re right across the street,” McGee said.

Spay and neuter treatments are important for maintaining the animal population, preventing overcrowding of shelters and avoiding animal euthanasia.

Contact your local animal shelter to learn more about adoption or treatment of animals.

This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 12:35 PM.