Paper: Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
Title: DEATH AT THE POUND - ANIMALS IN THE CHARLOTTE REGION ARE KILLED
AT MORE THAN TWICE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE, AND LITTLE IS BEING DONE TO
STEM THE PROBLEM
Author: MICHELLE CROUCH AND SCOTT DODD STAFF WRITERS - STAFF WRITERS
KYTJA WEIR, JAIME LEVY, HANNAH MITCHELL AND KATHRYN WELLIN CONTRIBUTED
TO THIS REPORT.
Date: June 29, 2003
Section: MAIN
Page: 1A
On the same day last month, these dogs and cats entered the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control shelter, where seven out of 10 animals are
put to death. Learn more about them on Monday.< Dogs and cats are
being killed in shelters throughout the Carolinas at rates that far
surpass the average across the country.
Every year, more than 80,000 animals, many of them healthy and
adoptable, are put down in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties. The regional
rate of 37 animals euthanized per 1,000 people is more than double the
national average of 16.The doomed dogs and cats often spend their last
days in crowded, stench-filled shelters that haven't adopted the best
practices experts recommend. Most die in gas chambers, a method animal
advocates consider outdated and potentially inhumane.
Not one county in the region has spent public money on the only method
proven to reduce the number of unwanted animals killed in shelters:
spaying and neutering pets to cut down on population growth.
Charlotte's shelter, the region's largest and best-funded, kills about
70 percent of the animals that enter its doors, all by lethal
injection. And the numbers are going up, even as they drop around the country.
The percentage of animals killed in surrounding counties, usually by
carbon monoxide, is even higher.
Caldwell killed 91 percent of dogs and cats at its shelter in 2002.
Gaston killed 90 percent and Iredell 89 percent.
Rural Anson County, east of Union, kills almost every animal at its
shelter. It has one animal control worker who has to shut down the
facility every time he goes on a call.
In county after county, the explanation is the same: Officials say they
don't have the money and can't make animals a priority at a time when
growth is increasing the need for human services such as police and
schools.
"There's only so much public money to go around," said Reggie Horton,
Gaston's animal control administrator. "And by the time you get down to
animal issues, the coffer's dry."
Experts say solving the problem isn't just a matter of more spending.
What needs to change, they say, are attitudes and priorities - adopting
methods proven to save animals rather than spending money to kill them.
Other cities and states have saved both money and animal lives by
investing in high-volume, low-cost spay-neuter programs, particularly those
that target pets in low-income communities.
The South in general and rural communities in particular tend to lag
behind urban areas and other parts of the country, in part because of an
agricultural background that views animals as commodities, not
companions.
"The attitude is: `We kill animals. So what?' " said Bob Christiansen,
an Atlanta author and animal population consultant.
The Observer found:
All but two counties in the 15-county Charlotte region use carbon
monoxide to kill animals, even though it's discouraged by national animal
welfare groups. Though experts say carbon monoxide is painless if used
correctly, the Carolinas require no training for the shelter workers who
administer the gas, and some animals have to be gassed twice because it
doesn't always kill the first time.
More than half the counties spend less than $4 per person on animal
control, which is the minimum recommended by the International City/County
Management Association to finance an adequate program. The lack of
spending - as low as $1.42 per person in Anson and $2.80 in Catawba - makes
it difficult for shelters to provide adequate care.
Shelters are frequently overcrowded, and some are rundown and
disease-ridden. The Union shelter is so rodent-infested, its supervisor called
it "a giant mouse heaven." Even the best shelters aren't large enough to
handle all the animals that come in daily.
Many counties in the region don't follow the best practices recommended
by national groups, including sterilizing all animals before they're
adopted and vaccinating animals in shelters to prevent disease outbreaks.
The majority of Charlotte-area counties don't require owners to license
their pets, a basic step used by many communities nationally to track
the animal population and raise money for preventative programs.
Conditions in the Charlotte region are reflected across the Carolinas.
Statewide, between 35 and 40 animals per 1,000 people are killed in
North Carolina, compared with the national average of 16, according to a
publication that tracks such figures. South Carolina does not compile
statewide numbers.
Neither state regulates county-operated shelters, although private N.C.
facilities must be registered and inspected. And state officials say
they know of no Carolinas county that requires owners without a breeding
permit to neuter their pets, as some communities elsewhere do to keep
down population growth.
"The counties don't want state government involved," said Dr. Charles
Kirkland, the director of animal health programs in the N.C. state
veterinarian's office. "At the same time, there need to be some sort of
standards."
The N.C. General Assembly created a commission last fall, Kirkland
said, to examine the state's animal welfare laws and suggest changes.
So far, it hasn't met.
*
`Horrible way to die'
The majority of counties in the Carolinas use gas to kill most animals
- a method banned by at least two states, Maryland and California.
In the Charlotte region, only Mecklenburg and Burke counties always use
lethal injection. When Sheriff John McDevitt took over Burke's animal
control in 2001, he was so opposed to the gas chamber that he had it
knocked down with a sledge hammer.
"It's a horrible way to die," he said. "You gas them, then you listen
to them howl and bark."
Officials in other counties say they want to be humane. They put down
young and sick animals by lethal injection. But they say they can't
afford to use that method every time. It's more expensive, requiring more
time and at least two people. One must be a trained technician to handle
the drugs.
Some animal welfare groups object to gas because it takes longer to
work - several minutes, as opposed to the usual five to 20 seconds for
injection - and is more subject to misuse.
"If it's done correctly, according to the proper guidelines, it is
painless," said Kirkland, with the N.C. state vet's office. "They just lie
down and go to sleep."
But the Carolinas don't require animal control workers to undergo
training before administering the gas, even though some counties do it
anyway.
National groups offer standards for using gas, but not all counties
follow them. Often, animals are loaded into cages or a chamber together,
where they can fight and hurt one another as they die. Recommendations
say to keep animals separate and avoid crowding.
"You put a bunch of strange dogs or puppies together," Kirkland said,
"they're going to be scrambling all over each other."
Cabarrus puts several animals in a cage together - separated by species
- and rolls them into the gas chamber. In Union, as many as 10 dogs are
gassed together in a 4-by-4-foot steel container. It replaced a
cinder-block chamber that leaked, causing some animals to survive the gassing.
Stanly County still has that problem. "After you bring them out, some
of them aren't all down," said animal control officer Randy Palmer, who
has had the job for 25 years. "Sometimes we have to put them back in."
With lethal injection, animals are held by technicians who can comfort
them as they die and feel their heartbeats fade.
"The one kindness you can give an animal that's had a rough life is
that final little scratch behind the ear and a very quick death," said
Martha Armstrong of the Humane Society of the United States. "You can't do
that in a carbon monoxide chamber."
Union shelter worker Chuck Davis said it's tough to wake up knowing
he'll have to kill six or seven puppies that day. He and other workers
console each other by saying the dogs are going to a better place.
"I'm going to hell," he said, "cause they're going to heaven."
*
Aging and overcrowded
Many shelters are old and rundown, and even new ones aren't large
enough to handle all the lost and stray animals, or pets surrendered by
owners who don't want them anymore.
In Union, flies land on bags of donated dog food, which the shelter
depends on because it gets only $300 to $400 from the county budget each
year to feed up to 8,000 animals.
The shelter has one room with air conditioning. Cats are housed there.
"It's kind of ironic to me that the Health Department runs the shelter,
but it certainly wouldn't pass any health inspection," said Union
humane society president Cindy Poppino.
Gaston has so many animals right now, during the breeding season, that
some kittens are being housed temporarily in cages outside the main
building.
Several counties, including Lincoln, Caldwell, Cabarrus and Alexander,
recently built new shelters. Charlotte-Mecklenburg opened a new
facility in 1993.
Even those can't keep up with the growing animal population. They often
house more than they were built to hold.
Overcrowded conditions allow disease to spread easily, and only a few
counties vaccinate every animal that comes in to prevent full-scale
outbreaks.
Teri McAllister, president of Recycled Pets Inc. in York County, S.C.,
said many animals the group rescues from the shelter are sick. The
county often puts as many as eight dogs in 8-by-8-foot pens at its
25-year-old pound, which is scheduled to be replaced next summer.
Kristin Baidel of York adopted an orange-striped kitten there last
month. Her daughters named it Tigger.
Eight days later, Tigger died of panleukopenia, a highly contagious
disease that spreads when animals are crammed together.
"My little girls wanted to know where their cat went," Baidel said. "I
would never go back there."
*
Underfunded, overwhelmed
Animal shelters, like everything else in tough budget times, face
cutbacks and shortages.
A decade ago, Gaston had 25 animal control employees. Now that's down
to 23, and two positions remain open, even as the county's population
grows and it copes with a rabies epidemic.
It was so bad last summer, when a flood of emergency calls came in,
that the department often had to put off dealing with strays, sometimes
for as long as three months, said Horton, the animal control
administrator.
"Euthanasia numbers are down because total impoundment numbers are
down," he said. "We just don't have the people out there doing the job."
Union's animal control didn't receive any new staff positions between
2000 and 2002, supervisor Susan Marsh said - even though officers
responded to 2,394 more calls in 2002, a 23 percent increase.
That means tasks that could save more animals have been pushed to the
side. For example, the shelter hasn't updated pictures on its adoption
Web site for six months. The Union humane society, which tries to fill
the gaps, paid for catch poles that the city of Monroe's animal control
officers use to snag strays.
Often, it takes a crisis for political leaders to pay attention. In
Lincoln County four years ago, deputies shot 33 dogs they were rounding up
at the home of a man who'd gone to the hospital.
It generated outrage, but also change.
The sheriff's office revamped its animal control bureau, providing new
training and procedures. It finally moved out of a small concrete
facility built in the 1940s - which had only a frayed tarp blocking the
euthanasia area from view.
In Burke, Sheriff McDevitt said he begged for years for money to
increase his staff. But it wasn't until a dog bit a little girl that
officials agreed to double his officers to four.
*
Attitudes hinder change
While a lack of resources plays a big part in why so many animals die
in the Carolinas, the problem is far larger.
Rural residents tend to have different views and values when it comes
to dogs and cats, animal control officers and humane society leaders
say.
"People think every female dog should have her puppies, and every male
dog should keep his testicles," said Susan Summerall, a leader with the
S.C. Animal Care and Control Association. "That's the unfortunate way
of life in the South."
She said it's no surprise that the Carolinas kill more animals than
elsewhere. Many rural S.C. counties didn't even create animal control
bureaus until the 1970s, she said. In other parts of the country, bureaus
have been around for more than a century, and have had time to change
attitudes and adopt better practices.
Rural counties face resistance to methods commonly used in other places
to help control the animal population and reduce breeding, such as
leash and licensing laws and spaying and neutering programs.
"They're operating with the kind of dog regulation that existed right
after the Civil War," said Merritt Clifton, a national pet population
expert. "It's a matter of deciding that they want to come into the 21st
century."
Iredell officials actually did away with the county's licensing program
about eight years ago because the county didn't have the staff to
enforce it. Residents who paid for the licenses lobbied to have the law
repealed because so few people were following it.
The fee was $5.
*
Spay-neuter efforts stalled
Charlotte-area officials don't devote public money to spaying and
neutering, which has cut kill rates dramatically elsewhere in the country.
Other cities and states provide vouchers to poor residents, pay for
sterilization clinics and engage in large-scale public education campaigns.
In the Charlotte region, humane societies, concerned veterinarians and
other groups provide some low-cost options. But counties have left the
job up to those private groups, or they charge people who want to adopt
pets for the cost of sterilizing them.
Most counties require animals adopted from their shelters to be
neutered, but many don't perform the operation themselves. They require new
pet owners to sign contracts pledging to do the job at a private vet, but
officials often don't have the legal authority or manpower to follow
up.
Statewide spay-neuter efforts have had little impact, as well. In 2001,
N.C. lawmakers created a fund to reimburse counties that provide those
services to low-income residents.
But resistance from the N.C. Veterinary Medical Association weakened
the proposed law, legislators say. Instead of paying for those programs
by collecting an extra 50 cents from everyone who bought a rabies tag,
the state created a separate tag that pet owners had to choose to buy.
And animal advocates say vets, who sell the tags, don't promote them.
The program, which also gets money from special vehicle license plates,
raised about $40,000 last year. Only four counties have applied for a
share of the money - none from the Charlotte region - because it isn't
enough to make a difference, officials say.
"Vets have hobbled this program from the very beginning," said N.C.
Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange, who sponsored the legislation. "It's not
working the way we intended it to. It's been very disappointing."
Kinnaird has introduced a new bill that would revive the original plan,
but vets are already lining up against it. They say the extra 50 cents
could discourage people from getting rabies vaccinations, which are
required by law.
"As much as we can solve this problem privately, we should do that,"
said Dr. Sarah Brown, a leader of the vet association. "Government
intervention can't solve everything."
Shelter workers who deal with the results of animal overpopulation have
their share of horror stories. They're about people, not pets.
Like the Catawba County family that drops off a litter of pit bull
puppies at least three times a year to be killed - but won't agree to have
the dogs neutered.
Or the Union County woman who brought in puppies to be killed, then
tried to adopt a cat.
"Sometimes you would like to put to sleep some of the people that bring
animals in," said Davis, a shelter worker.
"They are idiots."
*
About This Series
TODAY
More than 80,000 unwanted dogs and cats were killed last year in animal
shelters across the Charlotte region. That's more than double the
national average of animals killed per 1,000 people.
Most die in gas chambers, a method animal welfare groups consider
outdated and that at least two states prohibit. Neither North Carolina nor
South Carolina requires training for shelter workers who administer the
gas, or regulates and inspects county-owned facilities, which are often
crowded and underfunded.
Local governments plead that their budgets can barely meet all the
needs of their fast-growing human populations, much less do better by
animals. Mecklenburg and surrounding counties now spend no public money on
spaying and neutering programs that could help reduce the animal
population and have proved cost-effective in other places.
Coming Monday
Charlotte is killing more animals at its shelter even as other cities
around the country cut their death rates.
Coming Tuesday
The Humane Society of Charlotte, the area's largest animal welfare
group, faces questions about how it uses its resources.
Series Staff
Lead reporters: Michelle Crouch, Scott Dodd
Lead regional reporter: Hannah Mitchell
Reporters: Jaime Levy, Jennifer Talhelm, Kytja Weir, Kathryn Wellin,
Sharon E. White
Project editors: Lisa Munn, Cynthia Montgomery
Copy editors: Shelly Shepard, Colleen Spencer
Designer: Kerry Bean
Graphic artist: Michelle Hazelwood
Lead photographer: Todd Sumlin
Photographers: Robert Lahser, Diedra Laird, Gayle Shomer, Jeff Siner,
Jeff Willhelm
Editors: Joanne Miller, graphics; Cory Powell, design; Peter
Weinberger, Judy Tell, photography
We Would Like to Hear From You
Here's how to contact the project's reporters and editors:
E-mail: Readers@charlotteobserver.com. Please write "animals" in the
subject field.
Write: The Charlotte Observer
P.O. Box 30308
Charlotte, NC 28230-0308
Attention: Animal project editor
Call: (704) 377-4444. After the greeting, enter category 1008. You will
have 30 seconds to leave a message, including your name, phone number
and county. If you would like to be contacted by e-mail, please include
your e-mail address.
Caption:
GRAPHIC:4 PHOTO:8
Caption:
1. TODD SUMLIN - STAFF PHOTOS. A veterinarian technician comforts a
dying kitten, waiting as a lethal dose of poison takes effect. The
procedure is repeated dozens of times a day at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
animal shelter. The golden-brown dog shown above spent six days at the
shelter awaiting his fate. See his story on Page 10A.; 2. TODD SUMLIN -
STAFF PHOTO. Fluffy came to the Charlotte animal shelter abused and
neglected. His chain had cut into his neck; he was 40 pounds underweight and
covered with mats of hair. The shelter workers decided to save him,
nursing him back to health and hoping someone would take him home. It's a
way to improve morale and deal with the strain of their jobs.; 3.
Siberian Husky, killed; 4. Collie mix, killed; 5. Tabby kittens, killed; 6.
Lab/chow mix, killed; 7. Laborador Retriever, returned to owner; 8.
Siamese-mix kitten, Adopted
Author: MICHELLE CROUCH AND SCOTT DODD STAFF WRITERS - STAFF WRITERS
KYTJA WEIR, JAIME LEVY, HANNAH MITCHELL AND KATHRYN WELLIN CONTRIBUTED
TO THIS REPORT.
Section: MAIN
Page: 1A
Column: Death at the Pound - First of three parts