By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer on Jul 15, 2013, at 2:55 AM??Updated on 7/15/13 at 7:02 AM
City councilors last week worked up to the last minute trying to find a way to include funding for the Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter on their list of proposed capital improvement projects.Here?s why: A lot of killing still goes on there.
Not like it used to just five years ago, when 90 percent of the animals brought in were euthanized. It?s not that bad.
Now the figure is closer to 50 percent or 60 percent.
?Last year we had (approximately) 11,500 animals come into our shelter and 7,000 were euthanized,? said Jean Letcher, manager of animal welfare for the city?s Working in Neighborhoods Department.
So when councilors learned that nearly half of the $2.75 million Animal Welfare had requested would go to construct adoption areas at the 18-year-old shelter at 3031 N. Erie Ave., they rolled up their sleeves and found the money.
?It all kind of came together nicely because the initial interest (on the council?s part) was, ?How can we encourage and increase the rate of adoption?? ? said Councilor G.T. Bynum.
In addition to funding the construction of adoption areas, which would serve 30 dogs and 30 cats, the $2.75 million would pay for an adoption reception area, new administrative offices, an indoor temperament assessment room, a ?get acquainted? room and a second crematorium.
As currently configured, there is no area ? save, too often, for the lobby ? where people hoping to adopt an animal can interact with it. The animals are all caged ? cats up front, dogs in the back.
?We have people who come and would love to adopt, but they cannot bring themselves ? because it is too heartbreaking ? to go back there and look,? Letcher said. ?We have rescuers who won?t go back and look.?
The adoption areas would provide more natural settings where people interested in an animal could interact with it, Letcher said.
Cats ready for adoption, for example, ?would have a room with furniture that someone could walk into and sit down with them to see which animals approach and which ones don?t,? she said.
The 16,000-square-foot shelter is nearly always full. Friday was no exception, with 115 dogs, 72 cats, two rats, a cockatiel and a horse welcomed.
Letcher said she has to farm out horses and other livestock because she has no barn to house them. The $2.75 million would help solve that problem, too, she said.
There?s not much room for the staff at the shelter, either. Its adoption, rescue and foster coordinator works out of a phone room.
The city in 2007 moved its Animal Control program out of the Police Department and into the newly created Working in Neighborhoods Department and renamed it Animal Welfare.
That?s when Letcher arrived, charged with implementing recommendations proposed by a mayor?s task force and the Humane Society of the United States.
?My charge was to see a culture change from animal welfare ?catch and kill? to true animal welfare,? Letcher said.
?Let?s reduce our intake, let?s reduce our euthanasia rate and increase our live exit rate.
?It was: ?Let?s get the strays off the street, bring them here and if they are adopted, fine, if they are reclaimed by an owner, fine ? we?re not going to expend much energy trying to do anything different.? ?
Letcher said the shelter?s euthanasia rate has dropped since it stopped doing the killing for other communities as part of what was a long-standing ?gentleman?s agreement.?
The shelter is also more aggressive in promoting adoption, spay and neuter programs, and the use of computer chips to tag animals.
The goal, Letcher said, is to keep animals out of the shelter in the first place. Because once in, far too many never get out. And so the need for a second crematorium.
Letcher said that in the summer it runs as many as six days a week and about half that time in the winter.
Sometimes the old thing breaks down and doesn?t run at all. When that happens ? as it did recently for three straight days ? the shelter turns to Plan B.
?If the crematorium isn?t working than we have to take them to the public dump,? she said of the euthanized animals. ?We don?t like doing that, and I think the public would find that disrespectful.?
PUBLIC MEETINGS
The City Council last week approved a draft list of $919.9 million in capital improvement projects that it will present to the public in town hall meetings over the next month. Councilors will use the input from those meetings to complete its list before sending it to voters on Nov. 12.The list of meetings is as follows:
Tuesday: Hardesty Regional Library, 8316 E. 93rd St. (Council Districts 7 and 8)
July 30: Martin Regional Library, 2601 S. Garnett Road (Council Districts 5 and 6)
Aug. 5: OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center Auditorium, 4502 E. 41st St. (Council Districts 4 and 9)
Aug. 6: Rudisill Regional Library, 1520 N. Hartford Ave. (Council Districts 1 and 3)
Aug. 13: Carbondale Assembly of God, 2135 W. 51st St. (Council District 2)
Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter
Location: 3031 N. Erie Ave.Telephone: 918-596-8000
To find a lost animal or to view animals up for adoption, go to tulsaworld.com/petharbor and click on Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter.
For more, go to tulsaworld.com/tulsaanimalwelfare.
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
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