Lack of humane shelter puts city and town in a quandary
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
City of Burlington Mayor Bob Miller has heard the horror stories, he says, of out-of-control animal control – places where stray animals are kept for seven days with little effort to place the animals through adoption and then taken outside and shot.
As the city – and the Town of Burlington – both search for replacements in light of Racine-based Countryside Humane Society’s decision to exit animal control at the end of the year, Miller wants to make sure the city doesn’t end up with its own horror story.
“I do not want to get into a program where the animals are euthanized,” said Miller. “We’re kind of looking at this thing like, ‘uh-oh, what’s next?
“We want to make sure we are covered without incurring a tremendous annual cost, but at the same time, are running a humane-type operation.”
The problem the city has now is where to take stray animals that are captured. The ideal situation would be to a facility like Countryside that operates as a Humane Society.
In the meantime, both the city and the town have received an offer from Clawz and Pawz to provide transport for stray animals. For the town, the cost would be a flat fee of $250 a month, plus extra per transport as needed.
Given that the town usually only ends up with a handful of animals that remain unclaimed, it is an attractive offer, said Town Administrator Diane Baumeister. The town currently pays Countryside $9,200 a year for animal control. The Clawz and Pawz proposal would cost less than a third of that total.
“We don’t have that many animals in a year that we don’t find the owner for,” she said. Baumeister said the animals would go to either Countryside or Safe Harbor in Kenosha.
According to Miller, the Wisconsin Humane Society may take over Countryside. If that happens, there will likely be a place for animals to be taken. However, as things now stand, the city has no options on where Clawz and Pawz would take the animals. Miller said the city has been told Lakeland Animal Shelter in Walworth County cannot handle any extra animals, and other inquiries have also come up empty.
Until the city has a place to transport animals to, he said, it’s a moot point on how good a transport offer will be.
“It’s nice that we have someone who wants to take the animals to somewhere, but we have nowhere to take the animals to.”
-
-
-
-
-