LOIS HENRY: Planting seed for animal welfare is worthwhile
Big bucks for program unlikely
| Saturday, Jun 27 2009 08:42 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Jun 27 2009 08:52 PM
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A potential solution to our depressing animal overpopulation problem has been staring the Board of Supervisors in the face for months now, and they've done nothing. I'm not talking about a theoretical solution (and no, not mandatory spay/neuter, either).
This is tried and true and not just in far-away places like Calgary, Canada. This technique has worked right here in Kern County and Bakersfield.
Getting it done takes political courage, however, and so far supervisors have only been willing to talk, talk, talk about animal control problems. Time to walk the walk, fellas.
It's all about licensing.
We need to ramp up our public outreach to let people know A) they need to get their dogs licensed B) how to get them licensed and C) what will happen if they don't get them licensed. Then follow up.
In Calgary, which has a very aggressive and successful licensing program, they've shown that once you can get people and their pets into the system, you can work with them to get their animals fixed, return lost animals and deal with problem owners. Licensing also brings in the money to pay for it all.
We actually had survey crews years ago that did this, but foolishly got rid of them to save costs. We've watched our unwanted pet population, and costs, skyrocket ever since.
The program sounds simple, even a bit tedious. But it works.
The city did a four-month trial starting last September, sending a team of two people door-to-door 40 hours a week in randomly selected neighborhoods. They used one city-owned vehicle.
Costs for salaries, benefits and the truck were $24,649 during that trial period, September to December last year.
License and rabies vaccination revenue jumped -- substantially -- each of those months.
Overall license revenue increased 81 percent over 2007 for that four-month time period, and rabies vaccination revenue (at the low-cost clinics) jumped by 107 percent.
The program not only paid for itself, the city made a net profit of $14,836.
The county, meanwhile, knew all about this program and Animal Control officials were trying to get supervisors to cut loose with some money so they could try it as well.
They aimed way too high, though, asking for more than $400,000 last summer to pay for three outreach teams and fund a low-cost spay/neuter program.
After much delay, supervisors wouldn't give up the money and said to do it with existing staff.
At the time, I rolled my eyes (I do that a lot). But their shortsighted, invertebrate-edness, so to speak, ultimately underscored how well this approach works.
County animal control officers fit their outreach duties in as best they could, maybe canvassing neighborhoods one or two days a week. A county report lists only 106 hours spent in field work between January and April.
And STILL the program made money.
After all the costs were subtracted (including volunteer time, which struck me as odd) the county made more than $4,000.
When I spoke with Guy Shaw, director of animal control, he was somewhat timid about the program. He agreed, that, yes, it had made money but, "it's just not feasible using existing staff without hurting our customer service."
And he's about to cut five positions, including Animal Control Chief Denise Haynes, who had coordinated the outreach program -- the only program ever to make money for the department -- one other person and the department's extra help.
He said he was hoping to wait until after all the budget dust had settled before going back to supervisors about the outreach program.
"The problem is you have to pay up front, so you have to really sell it to the board so they're sure this $300,000 will work," Shaw told me.
There's that $300,000 again, which I think is overshooting.
Tammy Davis with Bakersfield Animal Control told me her department just got the OK from the City Council to spend $40,000 on another six-month trial that will again use their team of two, plus a blitz of advertising.
When I spoke with Supervisors Ray Watson and Don Maben, both supported the idea of bumping up outreach.
But $300,000 wasn't going to fly. A $20,000 or $40,000 program, now that's different.
"We could invest a little, get one team going full-time and then look at it from there," Maben said. "Hopefully, if we gave it some seed money, it should grow and fund itself."
He wasn't sure about the other supes, though.
"I've heard comments about 'people before animals,' so it could create some conflict."
We've been "working" on this problem for nearly five years, however, without much progress, and this is the first real glimmer of hope. It's worth the seed money.
Maben agreed.
"I don't want, 20 years from now, my grandkids seeing barrels of dead puppies and kittens on the front page of The Californian again."
Believe me, we don't either.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com.
