Health & Fitness
BLOG: Lowering Our Animal Shelter's Kill Rate; The Possible Creation of a New Animal Services Agency
Currently the Yolo County Animal Shelter has a high kill rate 45%. The goal of the animal welfare groups is to reduce the kill rate to 10% -- or as we like to say, a 90% live-release rate!
The Davis City Council heard a presentation Tuesday that recommended changes in the Yolo County Animal Shelter operations. The recommendations include the creation of a new agency to run animal services in Yolo County.
Currently the shelter has a high kill rate 45 percent. The goal of the animal welfare groups is to reduce the kill rate to 10 percent -- or as we like to say, a 90 percent live-release rate!
There was a great turnout at the Davis City Council meeting, for the informational hearing on the LAFCO report for shared services. I would say around 40-50 people came, but I did not count. The Chamber was full, standing room only.
This was not a voting issue, not yet, purely informational, but the council definitely indicated it was in favor. Council member Dan Wolk said he was in complete support of adopting the LAFCO recommendations, even though it was not officially up for a vote. Brett Lee indicated he was supportive as well but expressed concern that adopting the JPA model would mean people lose their jobs-which is a possibility but by no means a certainty.
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Carolyn Hinshaw, a Davis resident expressed some concerns with the adoption of the recommendations, in particular she thought the priority should be building a new shelter--which is one of the recommendations. It was discussed that should the recommendations be adopted, the JPA could decide to make building a new shelter the priority--but the first step should be to adopt the recommendations and create the JPA or a new agency to manage animal services in Yolo County.
Carolyn also wanted to know why the UC Davis Vet Med school was not consulted--the consultants Tammie Murrell & Sue Marks-Gibbs said they had a very limited scope of work and it did not include interviewing staff at UCD at this time.
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Carolyn also expressed concern that the report recommended a humane society to run the shelter and she was wondering what, if any shelter in Yolo county would be able to take on this type of work. Christine Crawford, ED with LAFCO, said that the JPA could decide if a whole new organization was created to run the animal services shelter or if it would contract with a local humane society. Either way, animal services would be taken out of the purview of the Sheriff's department.
There is also a great website/blog by Fix Yolo that has more information about the issues with Yolo County Animal Services. Here is the address http://www.fixyolo.org/news-blog/
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