Supervisors receptive to SPCA idea

By Lillian Kafka

Published: May 14, 2008

Prince William County could be getting an animal advisory committee, but its top elected board official said that doesn’t mean the animal shelter is getting more money.

Fiscal restraints are showing their signs at the animal shelter, where some adoptable pets must be euthanized because the facility is overcrowded; $2.5 million to expand the shelter was shifted to other priorities a few years ago.

On Tuesday, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors expressed interest in forming an animal advisory committee that could provide suggestions on how to lower the euthanasia rate and increase the number of pets who undergo spay or neuter procedures before they are adopted.

Concerns such as these were raised last year by the Prince William chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which recommends the county create the advisory group.

County staff will return to the board later this year with a recommendation that the board take an official position on the committee.

Board members were hesitant to say they’d funnel money to a new committee.

“I want to make it that clear there will be no significant improvements to the shelter — at least not any improvements that are funded by the county,” said Chairman Corey A. Stewart, R-at large. “We can’t be increasing funds for the shelter at the same time we’re cutting programs for human beings.”

Today, 53 percent of the animals that enter the shelter’s doors are euthanized.

Six percent of those animals are actually adoptable; the rest are wild, sick, injured or euthanized at the request of families, said Sam Newsome, animal control administrator.

Currently, 60 percent of the animals adopted from the shelter are spayed or neutered, Newsome said. The rest are adopted under a contract that the new owners will sterilize the pets, although the shelter does not have enough staff to follow up on those contracts, he said.

“I would very much like to have three more animal control officers and two more caretakers,” Newsome told the board.

He said the caretakers and animal control officers have to make hard decisions at the shelter and they appreciate the support from groups like the PWSPCA.