Saturday, July 23, 2011

Brevard County, FL Animal Services: Reactive vs. Proactive

Regarding the resignation of our current county animal shelter director and the search for yet another one:

This entire situation makes me so sad...I've lived in this county since 1965 and here we are in 2011 yet hardly a thing has changed in all those years. Brevard is 72 miles long and currently home to over 500,000 people. But we still have ONLY two animal shelters, both of which are in abhorrent shape. NACC should've been demolished decades ago (I used to work there so trust me on this one) and SACC never lived up to its touted expectations. So, if it weren't for the various humane societies, rescue groups, etc., I can't even imagine how our abandoned animals would suffer...as if they're not suffering enough already.


But it always seems to boil down to the same crap: money (not enough) and politics (too many). Animal services in this backwater county has always been reactive vs. proactive. As someone who has been involved with animal issues for over 30 years, I've never seen a time when this place didn't have serious issues with how we handle homeless pets.

For the record, I am not a proponet of "no kill" shelters UNLESS and UNTIL there are sufficient funds and space to make this program work. Nor am I a TNR fan. Sorry, but as a former shelter employee, I'd much rather see an animal humanely euthanized than to live out its life in a cage or simply "sustained" in a colony.

Do I have an answer? Well, I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more "publicity" (ie, adoption events, foster programs, etc.). I'd also be in support of a mandatory spay/neuter law for a set amount of time, one that was heavily enforced. But all that takes money. Personally, I'd like to see our shelters privatized as Brevard's powers-that-be still have their heads up their butts and I doubt a new director is going to be able to change a damn thing.

But since I know my "ideas" won't ever come to fruition, I just continue to beat my head against this wall that should've been demolished long ago. In my dreams, huh?