NC animal shelter statistics finally released

The NCDA&CS finally released the 2012 animal shelter statistics. Virginia releases theirs on March 1 every year like clockwork, but down here in Cackalacky things move much more slowly. The NC numbers come out whenever they come out (last year they were out on April 23.) You can get the reports at the NCDA&CS website in PDF and Excel format.

Many counties did not bother to report, and some of the numbers look obviously bogus. For example, the Pender County pound reported the exact same numbers of intakes, adoptions, reclaims and kills for cats as they did for dogs:

The cat numbers shown above are clearly a complete fabrication because according to receipts obtained through a public records request, the Pender County pound sold 660 dead cats to LBS Biological Inc. for $4 each between June 26, 2012, to Jan. 31, 2013,  or slightly more than seven months. What’s more, records obtained show that the Pender pound killed almost that many cats and dogs from Aug. 1, 2012 to Jan 31, 2013 alone, so the real number is certainly much higher.

There is no auditing or verification of any of the numbers in the report, so they could all be complete hogwash for all anyone knows.

Good riddance to the Sampson County gas chamber

The Sampson County gas chamber is gone at long last.

Photo: Sampson County Animal Shelter. See the whole series on Facebook.

Gas chambers remain in the following NC counties: Alamance (Burlington), Ashe, Beaufort, Cabarrus, Cleveland, Davidson, Gaston, Granville, Iredell, Martin, Nash, Randolph, Rowan, Union, Vance (not in use, but may be put back into use at any time), Wilkes, Wilson.

Animal advocates need to keep the pressure on until all gas chambers are removed from NC animal shelters. Contact information for gas chamber counties can be found here. A sample letter for inspiration is here.

Iredell County investigating animal control director

Iredell County officials are investigating allegations that Animal Control Director Chris Royal killed animals she shouldn’t have and sold animals for personal gain.

According to an article at wsoctv.com, someone sent an anonymous letter to county commissioners last week that was so detailed officials believed it may have come from someone inside the department.

One commissioner said the letter accused someone in animal control (presumably Royal) of seizing livestock and selling the animals. It’s not clear what is meant by the allegation that she killed animals she shouldn’t have (especially considering that almost every public “animal shelter” in the state is killing healthy and treatable pets they shouldn’t be killing …)

Iredell is one of the North Carolina counties still using a gas chamber.

Inspector finds cats kept in traps for three days at Pender County pound

On a surprise visit to the Pender County pound on Monday, March 11, the NCDA&CS inspector discovered two cats who had been held in traps without litter pans for three days. “Feces was noted on the floor where they sat,” according to the report. The inspector “advised manager not to allow traps to be set unless there is an adequate shelter enclosure available for the cats.”

The impulse to bring in more cats than there is room for could be because dead cats are a revenue source for the Pender County pound. Between June 26, 2012, to Jan. 31, 2013, the Pender County Animal “Shelter” sold 660 dead cats to LBS Biological Inc. for $4 each, according to receipts obtained through a public records request. That’s $2,640 in revenue over a seven-month period, which means that over the course of a year, dead cat sales could potentially bring in nearly $4,500 in revenue. The cat-selling practice raised at least one county commissioner’s eyebrows when it was revealed last month.

LBS Biological sells the cats to Carolina Biological Supply, which turns them into dissection kits so that school children can learn all about the miracle of life in biology class.

Is this your lost kitty?

A request for records of all animal-killing drugs purchased for the Pender pound between August 2012 and Jan. 31, 2013 revealed that $636.60 was spend on Fatal Plus and Ketathesia (ketamine) during that time period. During the same period, pound staff used the drugs to kill 769 cats and dogs, one chicken, one dove and 27 opossums, raccoons and foxes.* The revenue from the sale of dead cats appears to more than cover the Pender County pound’s business of killing animals.

Given that the capture and sale of cats is a revenue source for the Pender pound, it’s not hard to see why they would disregard animal welfare laws to trap more cats than they have room to house.

Pender is not the only so-called “shelter” in NC that  profits from killing and selling animals. LBS Biological obtains cats from shelters in 34 NC counties and cities (including Brunswick, Onslow, New Hanover, Duplin Beaufort, Lenoir and Surry). LBS is just one of many dealers operating in NC and elsewhere in the US to obtain animals for dissection or experimentation.

Other problems found in the March 11 Pender County pound inspection included:

• 18 sick cats with matted eyes and nasal mucus who had not been provided any medical care. Shelter staff killed the cats during the inspection.
• Dog biscuits lying on top of a storage cabinet and an open box of dog treats were noted in multipurpose room. 
• Spilled dry food inside an outdoor storage building
• Holes in the metal walls of indoor dog kennels. Dogs noted urinating and sticking their feet through the holes.
• Chewed dog houses in the outdoor kennels.
• Seven cats in a kennel with two litter pans (acceptable ratio is one  pan per three cats).
• Cat urine and and feces and spilled dry food inside an outdoor  food/bedding storage building.
• Trash around the storage building and the kennels.
• The cat isolation area is in a poor location in that workers must pass through the healthy cat room therefore may easily transmit disease to the healthy cats. (It was recommended that fixing that deficiency be a long-term capital improvement project.)

There is  to be a follow-up inspection to see if the deficiencies have been corrected on March 25, 2013.

Pender County Photo Gallery (all photos taken while shelter open to public):

Keeping the cigarettes dry.

I wonder why more people don’t go to shelters to adopt?

The smoking lounge?

“Damn this shelter sucks.”

Watch where you step

A dog enjoys the cleanest place in his kennel.

Dog in poop-filled kennel at Pender County Animal Shelter.

Harvesting the cash crop.

Very skinny dog.

Dead cats wait to be stuffed in the freezer for pickup by LBS Biological.

Dead cats waiting to be stuffed in the freezer for pickup by LBS Biological

Dog food with a side of poop.

___

* The killing log notes that many opossums and raccoons were killed for being “feral.”  Isn’t that pretty much a NORMAL way to be for wild animals? Why are they not being released back into their habitat? Depending on how and why they are trapped, the impoundment and killing of these animals may not actually be legal under NC law. According to The NC Division of Wildlife management, if an ACO sets a trap for a cat and by chance captures an opossum, the animal must be released from the trap on sight and should not be relocated or euthanized. If a depredation permit has been issued for the removal of an animal causing damage then it could be euthanized by the animal control officer or at the animal shelter if that is where animal control captures are killed. Also, if an animal is rabid or displays disease-like symptoms for rabies ACO’s are responsible for capturing those animals euthanizing them and submitting them for testing. The NCWRC statues and rules addressing this issue are G.S. Chapter 113 Article 21 and 22 and Title 15A NCAC 10B .0106. Back

“Nobody wants to kill animals” — Guilford County edition

NOTE: Amanda Liston provided the information and opinions attributed to her in the following post while she was Carolina Care Bullies president. I have since learned that she resigned from the rescue a few days before the post was published.

The next time someone says “Nobody wants to kill animals” to defend the killing of shelter pets, remember Coco. Robin Meadows, a volunteer for Carolina Care Bullies rescue, expended a lot of effort trying to save Coco from the very first day the dog landed in the Guilford County pound, a pet-killing facility where almost half the animals ended up dead in 2011 ¹. Despite days of effort by Meadows and other CCB rescuers, the staff of the Guilford County pound killed Coco anyway.

Coco was a friendly, young pit bull belonging to a boy who lived near Meadows’ sister. On Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013, the boy arrived  home from school to discover that his stepfather had surrendered Coco to animal control. The boy told Meadows, who knew Coco had a wonderful disposition and got along well with her dog Skyleigh (adopted from Carolina Care Bullies). Knowing that Coco was definitely adoptable and that at best she could give Coco a forever home herself, Meadows called the Guilford County pound that very day to ask what she needed to do to get Coco out of there.  (The Guilford County pound refuses to adopt dogs they identify as pit bulls directly to the public, so rescue pulls are generally the only ways such dogs get out of that pound alive.)

Meadows gave pound staff a detailed description of Coco and told them where and when she had been taken by animal control. “At first they told me they weren’t sure what dog I was talking about and they would have to see if they had her,” she said. Then they told her she could pull Coco if she brought along the owner who had surrendered her and paid about $60 in reclaim fees. Meadows posted the situation to the CCB forum, and another volunteer offered to put up the money for the fees. On Thursday Meadows went to speak to Coco’s former owner, who agreed to meet her at the pound Friday afternoon.  She said she called the pound three times on Thursday to make sure that she was making the correct arrangements to save Coco.

The former owner stood Meadows up late Friday afternoon, shortly before the pound closed. Frustrated, she turned for help to CCB president Amanda Liston. Pound staff told Meadows that in order to pull Coco under CCB, Liston would have to speak directly to pound director Marsha Williams on the following Monday.

Liston called the pound Monday morning. “The shelter manager told us that she was expecting our call,” Liston said  ”She also informed us that she would in no way release the dog to Robin, that myself and [CCB vice president] Terry [King] would have to pick up the dog personally. We explained that Robin was a local Greensboro volunteer that wanted to foster-to-adopt the dog, and that we lived 45 minutes away, there was no reason for us to come from Hillsborough to pick up a dog.”

Liston said that Meadows is a trusted CCB volunteer and is just as much a part of  the organization as anyone else. “CCB is not one or two people, we are a large network of volunteers, and myself and the vice president can not be expected to do every rescue errand. However, we would have been glad to if that was the last resort,” she said.

“Half a day later, our Vice President Terry King received a voicemail that the dog in question was euthanized early that morning because of inability to identify the dog based on no owner information.”  Liston said. “They played games and stalled us over an entire weekend, telling us we couldn’t get permission to release the dog until Monday—well after they planned to euthanize the dog,” Liston said. “They said they tried to identify the dog and were unable to do so—but they didn’t need to—Robin could point out the dog and provide all the owner surrender information for them.”

Meadows was devastated. “She survived the weekend just to have them kill her the day I was going to pick her up.”

“Five minutes of Guilford County’s time would have confirmed that allowing Robin to pull the dog was a far better alternative than euthanasia for Coco,” Liston said.

“I find it impossible to believe that they were unable to identify this one dog with the level of Robin’s description in addition to the information she was able to provide about the owner, ” Liston said. “The only foreseeable way this could have occurred is if they throw every pit bull that comes into the shelter in a large, multi-dog holding pen with no ID, and I know that to not be true.”

A public records request for Coco’s records was sent to Guilford County pound director Marsha Williams and the county attorney, who forwarded it to Guilford County Animal Control. Animal control responded promptly with their paperwork on Coco, showing where, when and how she was surrendered by her owner and picked up.

Williams, however, did not respond until a second request was sent, when she refused to comply. “I have spoken to the board of Directors and the United Animal Coalition attorney and they have advised me to inform you that The United Animal Coalition that operates the shelter is a private organization and therefore does not fall under your public records statute any information you requested for Coco that falls under that statute can be provided by animal control and the county attorney’s office whom you cc’d on your previous email and this one,” she said.

Williams and UAC seem to have no problem collecting more than $1 million of taxpayer money from the county to operate a de facto government agency “for the mutual benefit of the Parties and for the citizens of GUILFORD COUNTY” in a building and on property owned by Guilford County. But when it comes time to be publicly accountable for what they do with the community’s shelter pets, they want to hide behind non-profit status and claim they don’t have to tell anyone what goes on in their pound.

According to the NC Attorney General’s office, whether a non-profit operating a government service is subject to public records disclosure is “a matter of legal opinion.” There exists legal precedent of courts upholding that municipalities can not hide records from the public by contracting with a non-profit.

In fact, the contract between Guilford County and UAC is very similar to a scenario that UNC Professor of Law and Government Frayda Bluestein sets forth as an example of when a non-profit WOULD probably be subject to transparency laws. She describes a scenario in which a city contracts with a non-profit group that promotes arts:

If not for this contract, city employees would carry out this function. The city appoints three of the five members of the nonprofit board. The city owns the property the nonprofit uses for its offices, and leases it to the nonprofit for nominal consideration. The nonprofit receives most of its funding from the city. Is the nonprofit organization subject to the transparency laws? The answer is probably: yes.

The UAC leases its building and land from Guilford County for $1 per year. The Guilford County board of commissioners has the right to appoint a county commissioner to serve as a fully participating member of the UAC board of directors. The UAC receives most of its funding from the county. In addition, the UAC must obtain written approval from the county manager before it is allowed to change any fees, hours of operation, policies or procedures affecting the public.

The claim of exemption from public records laws by Williams and the UAC is pretty much begging for a legal opinion.² Essentially, Williams and UAC are claiming the right to kill their community’s pets completely in secret. Meanwhile, the Guilford County taxpayers are footing the bill.

Consider the implications: Suppose you live right on the county line between Guilford and Alamance. One day, your dog bolts through the door and takes off. If he heads east, gets picked up by Alamance County animal control and taken to the pound in Burlington, you would have every right to find out exactly what happened to him if he died in kennel or was killed there. But if he were to head west, get picked up by Guilford County animal control and end up in the Guilford county pound, his fate could remain a complete mystery to you. Marsha Williams and her staff claim that you would have no right to find out what happened to your beloved family pet during his last days or hours in their facility.

Despite replying to the public records request by claiming she doesn’t have to send any records, Williams did send one record: a photo of part of a document she says was all her pound received from animal control with Coco:

Williams says that because the form from animal control identified Coco as a stray, no one at GCAS could figure out which dog Meadows and CCB were trying to save until after pound staff had killed her.

“The lack of proper information did not allow the shelter staff to locate Coco in time to transfer her to CCB,” Williams said. Were they in such a hurry to kill Coco that they couldn’t be bothered to take a few minutes to see if maybe the small female pit bull pup marked “stray” who came in from Cotswold Ave. on the morning of Feb. 6 could possibly have been the same small female pit bull pup brought in from Cotswold Ave. on the morning of Feb. 6 that Robin Meadows so desperately wanted to save?

As director of that pound, Williams has the power to decide NOT to kill pets, at the very least for long enough to sort out which dog a rescuer wants to save. It’s not as if there is an unstoppable killing machine conveyor belt that pets are put on as soon as they enter the pound (as much as Guilford’s kill rate makes it seem as if there could be). Williams runs that pound and can decide which pets live, which pets die, and how much time they are given before she or her staff inject them full of death syrup.

Williams and her staff kill more than 6,000 dogs and cats per year. Assuming 260 business days in a year, that means they kill, on average, more than 23 pets per day. Perhaps, given the sheer magnitude of killing they do there, no one at the Guilford County pound saw the point of taking any extra time to kill one fewer healthy and adoptable pet.

What does the fact that Williams sent a record she believes vindicates her and her staff imply about the records she is withholding? Her refusal to release Coco’s records might reasonably lead folks to wonder what is there that she does not want to reveal. Was there more to the runaround Meadows and Liston were given than just disorganization or disinterest on the part of Williams and her staff?

“Were they hoping we would give up before we discovered that the dog was already euthanized?” Liston said. She believes the claim that Coco could not be identified “in time” was an excuse given “when there was nothing else they could say to deter us from rescuing the dog.”

“The dog didn’t have to be euthanized. And had any other shelter manager in the state been in that place, at least the ones we have had experience with, that dog would have lived,” Liston said.“I want the public to know that Guilford is not the amazing shelter that they are often hailed as. They treat pit bulls as criminals, they treat those that want to rescue them as suspicious, and would rather kill these dogs than give them a chance at a new life.

“The glaring difference between this shelter and others I have worked with, no matter how small-staffed or how large their intake is, is that other shelters can easily identify dogs based on even a mediocre description,” Liston said. The larger facilities such as Orange County Animal Services or Wake County Animal Center will mark kennel cards  ”rescue hold” or “rescue interest” as soon as CCB calls, she said. “Its uncomplicated. We call, they send a volunteer to mark their kennel card, if they can’t do it themselves.”

“Guilford has made clear to us in the past we are not to try to advertise dogs in their shelter that need homes,” Liston said. “I’m confused about this, as they advertise them on their own FB page, so I don’t know why we cannot. We have also asked them to email us photos of pit bulls at their shelter and we will try to find foster homes. Unsurprisingly, we have never received a single photograph or even personality description of any dog in their shelter. Despite the non-response on their end, we were expected to provide a list of past adopters, references, adoption policies and a copy of our application, all of which we worked hard to compile and provide to them.” Liston said CCB never heard from Guilford again after supplying that information.

“As we have grown, understandably we have had many volunteers want us to help pit bulls in their shelter,” Liston said. “I try to explain what happened, and they insist the shelter manager tells them ‘We would love to work with CCB!’ It’s true, the shelter manager does repeat this, over and over to compassionate pit bull lovers and visitors to their Facebook page. But, it is 100% untrue. They go out of their way to make sure no pit bull leaves their shelter, unless it is in secret, unless we somehow magically find a foster without advertising for one, unless we agree to take a dog we’ve never met or seen.”

Liston said Williams has claimed policies dictated by the Guilford County Commissioners are the reason it’s difficult to extract pit bulls from that pound.  “I know this to also be false, as other counties with similar ‘no public pit bull adoption’ policies have no trouble allowing rescues to share photos, meet dogs, secure foster homes and use their volunteer-base to pick up dogs for their foster homes,” Liston said.

Liston said she suspects a personal prejudice against pit bulls may possibly be what makes it so hard to save them from the Guilford pound. “Why else would one person guarantee the death of so many dogs that have other options?”

Folks who wish to discuss the Guilford County pound or its pit bull policy with the Guilford County Commissioners may find their contact information here. A sample letter regarding anti-pit bull policies can be found here.

—
A NOTE REGARDING THE COMMENTING POLICY ON THIS POST: Because free and open discourse is only possible when there is full access to information, all comments defending the UAC/GCAS etc. will be held in moderation until such time as Williams and the UAC release Coco’s records. If they never release them, the comments will never be published. Anyone bothered or inconvenienced by this policy may contact Marsha Williams.

¹2011 numbers are the latest available for the Guilford County pound, which is not transparent enough to make their statistics available on their website. Back

²In NC, this will most likely require a lawsuit. Animal advocate Holly Nielsen filed suit last year against the Johnston County SPCA, which received funds from the town of Clayton, over the same issue. The case never went to court because the JCSPCA board voted to dissolve itself immediately after the suit was filed. If you are interested in helping bankroll or helping find pro-bono or contingency legal representation for a potentially precedent-setting lawsuit against The United Animal Coalition, please email me. Back

Pender County forming Animal Shelter Advisory Committee

Attention Pender County No Kill advocates: Please, please apply to be on the county’s new Animal Shelter Advisory Committee. County commissioners will select three members for the positions of citizen-animal rights champion, citizen at-large and veterinarian.

The application is here.

If you don’t end up getting selected, please go to their meetings anyway, which will be subject to NC’s open meetings law. They need more watchdogs over that awful pound.

What is your county’s “rabies alert area” policy?

NC statutes specify that  an animal control or peace officer can, after reasonable effort has been made to apprehend animals who run uncontrolled in areas under rabies quarantine the animals, “destroy” those animals “and properly dispose of their bodies.” In Person County, they interpret this to mean that they can and should kill all the pets that they apprehend from such areas, even if there is no evidence the pet had any contact with a rabid animal.

When a case of rabies is confirmed in Person County, the area is declared under “rabies alert” for the next six months. Per the Person County animal ordinance, animals from rabies alert areas “will not be adoptable for a period of six (6) months, unless that animal has been vaccinated against rabies prior to custody at the shelter.”

So Person County pound policy is to kill them, even if they are too young to be vaccinated for rabies and have never been at-large or in a situation likely to expose them to rabies. Such as, for example, the 6- to 8-week-old puppies pictured below, who were surrendered by owners who happened to live in Flat River Township. That area is under a “rabies alert” until July 2013 because a rabid raccoon was found there in December 2012. The puppies pictured were all killed on Feb. 13, 2013.

These 6 to 8-week-old owner-surrendered shepherd mix pups were killed at the Person County pound on Feb. 13, 2013, without being made available for adoption because the surrendering owners happened to live in a township where a rabid raccoon had been found two months previously.

Puppies need to be 12 to 16 weeks old before they can be vaccinated against rabies. Since the Person County pound refuses to release animals from “rabies alert” areas without proof of vaccination, the policy is an automatic death sentence for puppies. And it’s a death sentence for most of the other pets picked up from the quarantine area as well. In 2012, Person County pound employees killed 86 cats and 28 dogs because they came from a rabies alert area. Below are just a few of the dogs killed during the past year by Person County Animal Services as a result of the rabies alert area policy.

Does your county have a policy for pets that come in from a “rabies alert” or quarantine zone? If you know, please post it in a comment. If you don’t know, you can find out by filing a public records request. (You can read more about North Carolina’s open government laws here.)

Davidson County pound killed almost 10 times more pets than were adopted out in 2012

According to this article, the Davidson County pound adopted out 669 animals last year, “which is up from the past two years.” Yes, it’s 42 more pets than the 627 they adopted out in 2011. (The 2011 number is 132 pets more than the 495 they adopted out in 2010).

The Davidson pound killed  6,591 animals in 2012, which is 417 fewer than they killed in 2011. It’s also 9.85 times more animals than they adopted out in 2012. Without knowing the total intake for 2012, we cannot calculate if the actual kill rate went up or down from the 87.12 percent killed at the Davidson County pound in 2011.

One small tiptoe toward progress is that fewer of these animals died in the barbaric gas chamber (2,341) than by relatively more humane lethal injection (4,250). However, given that more than 90 percent of the killing at shelters is unnecessary and completely preventable, it’s very small consolation.

Pender County pound volunteers required to attend re-education session

More than two months ago, Pender County pound employee Darlene Clewis sent all of the pound’s volunteers a notice telling them they were not welcome at the shelter until further notice:

From: Darlene Clewis <darleclew@aol.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 5:14 PM
Subject: updated volunteer procedures

we are currently updating our volunteer procedures until this is done we ask that you be patient with us every one will be notified with the new volunteer sheet. no volunteers at the shelter until the new policy is in place.

Some believe this was done because Pender volunteers were telling other folks what sort of things went on that the pound, and apparently Clewis and former director Keith Ramsey* didn’t like that.

The new policy appears to be in place now, because the volunteers have all been invited back to the pound for a volunteer orientation, or re-education in the case of existing volunteers, this Saturday, February 16, at 11 am.

Would it be surprising if the re-education includes volunteers being made to sign an unconstitutional “confidentiality clause?” Maybe not. Directors and staff of high-kill pounds like Pender often prefer to intimidate volunteers into keeping their mouths shut than to be held accountable for dismal conditions, questionable practices and high kill rates.

Fortunately for animal advocates who want to improve conditions for and save the lives of pets in pounds, it is illegal to ban or retaliate against volunteers or rescuers who exercise their First Amendment rights by talking about what they see going on at the pound. A federal statute best known as “Section 1983,” has been successfully used by animal advocates whose ability to help or save shelter pets was restricted  after they went public with their observations of shelter conditions and neglectful treatment.

In fact, the very existence of a mandatory “confidentiality” agreement could be considered a threat of retaliation against a volunteer or rescuer exercising his or her constitutionally protected rights. In the words of attorney Sheldon Eisenberg, (who successfully sued the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control in such a case):

A question may arise as to whether a volunteer or rescuer needs to wait for a government official to follow through on a threat to retaliate before filing a claim under Section 1983 or whether a threat of retaliation alone is sufficient to trigger one. For example, some volunteers have been told by officials that publicly speaking about a shelter will result in the volunteer being banned. Since the whole point of a Section 1983 retaliation claim is to prevent the “chilling” (discouragement) of constitutionally protected rights, it seems clear enough that a threat of retaliation for exercising those rights, which is specifically designed to obstruct the exercise of those rights, should be sufficient to satisfy the actual injury element of a Section 1983 claim. (From: Section 1983 To The Rescue)

There is also precedent under US statues for the prevailing party to recover all attorney fees in a suit filed in vindication of civil rights. This means that volunteers and rescuers, who often don’t have a lot of money to hire lawyers, may be able to find an attorney who would take such a case on contingency. For more about Section 1983 and its application to animal shelters, see Sheldon Eisenberg’s slide show.

The Pender County pound volunteer orientation is open to new and existing volunteers. The pound is located at 3280 New Savannah Rd. Burgaw, NC 28425. Phone: 910-259-1484.

*In January, the animal shelter was taken from under the control of the Pender County sheriff’s department and put under the county manager, so Ramsey, a sheriff’s lieutenant, is no longer director and Darlene Clewis (who was director before the sheriff  took over the shelter) is back in that spot.

Johnston County may be getting rid of gas chamber for real

Forwarded emails aren’t always the best source of information. But I got one the other day that a knowledgeable source says is true. It originated from someone who had spoken to Ernie Wilkinson, the director of the Johnston County pound and said:

He was happy to share the following news — use of the gas chamber to euthanize was discontinued last week.  The chamber is still on site, temporarily, but is no longer in use and all gas canisters have been disposed of.  The chamber will be dismantled and removed in the near future.  The shelter was waiting for issuance of its drug license, which came, and now all euthanasia will be done by injection.

Wilkinson had announced in December that he was planning to reduce gas chamber use but retain the contraption for use on “vicious”animals.

While getting rid of the gas chamber altogether will represent progress, there is no reason to be killing healthy, treatable and rehabilitatable animals at all in the face of lifesaving alternatives. The next step for Johnston County should be to implement ALL of the proven lifesaving steps of the “No Kill Equation“:

• Feral Cat TNR Program Trap-Neuter Release (TNR) programs allow shelters to reduce death rates of free-living cats. Traditional methods of managing the feral cat populations have involved removing cats from their home territories and euthanizing them. Modern community cat management strategies involve neutering the cats and returning them to their capture site (TNR). As a neutered community cat population ages, the number of cats will decrease by natural attrition and will not be replaced by subsequent generations. Numerous studies have shown that trap/neuter/return is the most effective way to reduce community cat populations over time, and it is the only successful method to keep feral cats from being euthanized.
• High Volume, Low Cost Spay and Neuter Services No-and low-cost, high-volume spay and neuter reduces the number of animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives. These services should be readily available to targeted populations of people unable to afford the surgery at the normal rate and/or specific jurisdictions within a community known for having a large number of unaltered animals. These services have been proven to reduce shelter intake, making spay and neuter incredibly cost effective.
• Rescue Partnerships Rescue groups provide a valuable resource to shelters. An adoption or transfer to a rescue group free up kennel space, reduce expenses, and will improve a community’s rate of lifesaving. Partnerships between shelters and rescue groups are vital, and rare is the circumstance in which a licensed rescue group would be denied an animal.
• Foster Care Volunteer foster care is a low-cost and often no-cost way of increasing a shelter’s capacity, caring for sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals, and thus saving more lives. Providing temporary foster care to litters of puppies or kittens that are too young for adoption, animals who are shy, those that need some extra TLC, or animals who need special medical attention can dramatically increase the lifesaving capacity.
• Comprehensive Adoption Adoptions are vital to the lifesaving mission. The quantity and quality of shelter adoptions is in shelter management’s hands, making lifesaving a direct function of shelter policies and practice. If shelters better promoted their animals and had adoption programs responsive to community needs, including public access hours for working people, providing a welcoming atmosphere and excellent customer service, offsite adoptions, adoption incentives, and effective marketing, contrary to conventional wisdom, shelters can adopt their way out of killing.
• Pet Retention While some surrender of animals to shelters are unavoidable, others can be prevented-but only if shelters work with people to help them solve their problems. Saving animals requires shelters to develop innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together. And the more a community sees its shelters as a place to turn for advice and assistance, the easier this job will be.
• Medical and Behavioral Programs To meet its commitment to a lifesaving guarantee for all savable animals, shelters need to keep animals happy and healthy and keep animals moving efficiently through the system. To do this, shelters must put in place comprehensive vaccination, handling, cleaning, socialization, and care policies before animals get sick and rehabilitative efforts for those who come in sick, injured, un-weaned, or traumatized.
• Public Relations/Community Involvement Increasing adoptions, maximizing donations, recruiting volunteers and partnering with community agencies comes down to increasing the shelter’s public exposure. And that means consistent marketing and public relations. Public relations and marketing are the foundation of a shelter’s activities and success.
• Volunteers Volunteers are a dedicated “army of compassion” and the backbone of a No Kill effort. There is never enough staff, never enough dollars to hire more staff, and always more needs than paid human resources. That is where volunteers make the difference between success and failure and, for the animals, life and death.
• Proactive Redemptions One of the most overlooked areas for reducing killing in animal control shelters are lost animal reclaims. Shifting from a passive to a more proactive approach has allowed shelters to return a large percentage of lost animals to their families.
• Compassionate Director The final element of the No Kill Equation is the most important of all, without which all other elements are thwarted–a hard working, compassionate animal shelter director who is willing to be accountable to results by implementing these programs. Get the right people on the team who bring strong, knowledgeable, flexible, and inspired leadership!