Kern County Animal Shelter - UC Davis 2008 Report PDF |
David Price
Director of Kern County Resource Management Agency |
- directly oversees Kern County Animal Control |
Denise Haynes - Animal
Control Department |
Denise often claims to reporters and others to now
be the Director of Animal Control.
In June 2008 we believe Denise is the Animal Control
Administration Chief
- who does seek future employment as the new Animal
Control Department Director.
NO ENDORSEMENT FROM US
We do not endorse Denise Haynes for the new Animal
Control Department Director position.
We hope she moves on and wish her well.
The
Move On Team is seeking a Director who has compassion for animals
and understands residents who love their pets.
See: DeniseHaynes-MoveOn.org
|
Kimi Peck Challenges
As of June 23, 2008 Denise Haynes may have turned
the Kimi Peck project
over to Kern
County Code Enforcement Compliance folks.
We'll see what happens. Wish us luck.
We have been informed and believe Denise Haynes knows
when to smile and work the system.
She is very good at putting up roadblocks to getting
good things done.
You may not know what this means but we believe
Robyn Berkenfeld is now a "special interest lobbyist"
who enjoys attacking Kimi Peck and often calls Denise
Haynes.
Some folks with financial backing "hate Kimi Peck's
guts" we've been told.
UC Davis | Shelter Medicine
UC Davis | Shelter Medicine
University of California at Davis
The 41-page report was prepared by the UC Davis staff.
UC Davis Study says animals unnecessarily suffer at Kern shelter. Animals get sick, suffer and too many are put to sleep because of bad management at the Kern County animal shelter, according to a university study on the pound.
The situation is so bad, according to the founder of Bakersfield's biggest dog rescue organization, that Animal Control Director Denise Haynes should be immediately fired.
Marilyn Stewart, the founder of Alpha Canine Sanctuary, said she got the report by filing a California Public Records Act request with the county after Animal Control administrators didn't give it to her voluntarily. Her sanctuary is a no-kill shelter north of town that houses about a 100 homeless dogs.
It says there is ''a breakdown in care leading to illness, animal suffering and likely unnecessarily high levels of euthanasia and death.''
The report says the animal shelter needs more money and a better spay-neuter-adoption program.
But, the report says, much of the blame goes to the administration of the shelter.
That's where Stewart puts responsibility.
''Many of the problem areas mentioned in this report are clearly the result of pet overpopulation,'' Stewart said in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. ''But other highly disturbing situations are the direct result of shelter administrators ignoring repeated pleas to improve shelter situations where animals are horribly abused.
''I have sent copies of this report to all the Supervisors,
as well as a cover letter asking that Ms. Denise Haynes be removed from
any and all animal control duties immediately. It's impossible for me to
just stand by and not make an effort to help,'' Stewart said.
David Price
Director of Kern
County Resource Management Agency - oversees county Animal Control
Denise Haynes - Animal Control Director
Marilyn Stewart - founder of Alpha
Canine Sanctuary |
P.O. Box 5517 Bakersfield CA 93388 (661) 391-8212
UC Davis program slams Kern animal control
BY JAMES BURGER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Wednesday, May 21
2008
Kern County's animal shelter is critically underfunded, disorganized and incapable of humanely dealing with the growing number of animals coming into its kennels.
The result is illness, suffering and death, according to a report developed during "informal animal consultations" done in 2007 by the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program.
Animal Control officials have not previously made the report public.
"We only got it three or four weeks ago," said David Price, director of the county's Resource Management Agency, which oversees county Animal Control.
David Price Animal Control Chief Denise Haynes Resource Management Agency 2700 M St. Suite 100, Bakersfield, CA 93301-2370
Animal Control Chief Denise Haynes said the county received the report on April 8.
Price has not yet read the report, which was requested by county staff, he said.
"We asked for this because this is part of the process that is going to help us improve," he said.
The Californian obtained a copy of the document on Wednesday from Marilyn Stewart, of ALPHA Canine Sanctuary in Bakersfield.
Stewart said the most dramatic section of the report relates to the treatment of feral cats in the shelter.
The report states that feral cats are stacked in cages in inadequate space. The cats are carried into the cages dangling by the neck from catch poles.
On two occasions, the report said, the whole population of the feral cat room has been killed to avoid the epidemic spread of "horrible" infections caused by the cramped treatment of the animals.
Stewart said the situation has been exposed to Haynes by repeated staff and veterinary reports made since 2005.
She has asked, in a letter to the Kern County Board of Supervisors, for Haynes to be removed from her position.
"Anyone that can condone this for that length of time doesn't belong there," she said.
Haynes said she and her staff have been struggling to deal with the feral cat issue — fixing it in small steps over time.
The shelter has many issues that need work, she said.
"We can't fix everything at the same time. We can only put brain power into a few things," Haynes said. "It was not as if we were being callous. It was 'How do we fit this into my fix it pile.'"
Aside from that cruel treatment, Stewart said much of the problems at the shelter are not the fault of shelter staff.
"There is a lot in there that is disturbing due to animal overpopulation," Stewart said.
In general, the report states that the shelter is dramatically underfunded, staff remain overwhelmed and under-trained and systems and procedures need a number of significant improvements.
It also says dramatic levels of animal intake — indicating an animal overpopulation problem in Kern County — are a major factor in the shelter's problems.
"Although many staff members were clearly dedicated and caring, and in some cases were exerting heroic efforts to provide for the animals in the shelter, it was evident that the capacity of programs, staff and facility was exceeded in almost every area of animal housing and care. The result was a breakdown in care leading to illness, animal suffering and likely unnecessarily high levels of euthanasia and death," the report states in its overview.
Price said the report confirms the pervasive truth about animal control problems — there isn't enough money to run the department.
"It's a resource issue," he said. "It always has been."
Chances are that even the report won't change that.
The report becomes public just as Kern County Supervisors, facing a $47.7 million shortfall in their 2008-2009 budget, have publicly rejected the idea of spending more money on shelter programs.
Their reasoning: People are more important than animals.
It also comes as the Kern County Animal Control Commission
makes a final recommendation as to how supervisors should address animal
overpopulation with new programs — and funding.
Kern County Shelter
PHOTOS
1 - Pet populations are on the rise again forcing Kern County Animal Control to euthanized more animals after few years of decline.
2 - A dog looks from behind the fence at one of the kennels at Kern County Animal Control.
3 - An animal care worker, who did not wish to identified, gently pets a shepherd mix before the dog is euthanized at Kern County Animal Control.
4 - In this March 2008 photo, this male shepherd mix was seconds away from being added to the group of dogs, upper right, that have euthanized by Kern County Animal Control.
5 - Male shepherd mix is is "put to sleep" by euthanasia at Kern County Animal Control. The process takes only a matter of seconds before the dog expires.
site: http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/382672.html
|
Kern's euthanization rates rising
again
BY JAMES BURGER
Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Friday, Mar 7 2008
Death comes softly to the tan dog with the liquid brown
eyes.
The needle goes in.
The injection is made.
And the dog, his muzzle wrapped with a leash to prevent
a final bite, slumps over dead.
Animal care workers pull his corpse five feet across
the concrete floor into a small pile of other dead dogs.
Kern County, after three years of controversy and reform,
still hasn't embraced a plan that would one day make the recently euthanized
tan dog the last healthy, friendly animal dragged into that pile.
LOSING GROUND
In 2004, newspaper stories and lawsuits highlighted Kern’s tragic euthanasia rates and the public responded.
Animal adoptions grew. Kern County Animal Control partnered with rescue groups to save thousands of shelter animals. County supervisors doubled the animal control budget to $4.6 million.
Euthanizations decreased from 18,171
in the 2004-2005 fiscal year to 16,743 in 2006-2007.
But nobody, private nor public, did much to address the cause of the high kill rates — the tide of animals flowing into county shelters.
So by mid-2007, animal population growth began to erase the three years of progress the community made to save animals.
Shelter kill numbers have topped last year's totals by more than 100 animals in each of the months between June 2007 and January 2008.
In all of calendar year 2007, Kern County euthanized 18,669 animals — two of every three in its care. That's 3,660 more animals than the city of Los Angeles killed last year, despite L.A. having 3 million more people than Kern.
And it's 498 more than died in 2004-2005.
“We're being overwhelmed by the growth of our communities and the inadequacy of our current program,” said David Price, director of the agency that oversees animal control.
'OVER MY DEAD BODY'
Bakersfield resident Kerri Hanson believes spaying and neutering animals is the best solution to overpopulation.
Nobody disputes that.
Hanson told the Kern County Animal Control Commission in February it should mandate spay-neuter.
She got an icy reception.
“Over my dead body,” murmured Tehachapi dog trainer Teri Kahn from the back of the room.
“If my government is going to tell me, at a certain age, I've got to take my female (dog) and submit her to government-required sterilization, doesn't that sound awfully draconian?” Kahn asked rhetorically in a subsequent interview. “What we're saying is ‘You're too stupid to think for yourself, so government is going to think for you.’”
The commission rejected mandatory spay-neuter nearly two years ago — with little debate or investigation.
“Enforcement and education are the biggest things we have going forward,” said commission member and animal trainer Janice Anderson. “Mandatory spay-neuter is not the answer.”
Hanson said animal breeders have packed commission meetings to make it seem like the general public doesn't want mandatory spay neuter.
Price and Supervisor Don Maben say mandatory spay neuter may one day be the answer, but not now.
“I'm going to need more enforcement capacity (animal control officers) or we will be subject to the legitimate criticism that we need to enforce the laws we've got before we put new laws in place,” Price said.
But it has been done. The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a mandatory spay and neuter law because, it believed, making unaltered animals illegal was the only way to get kill numbers to zero.
A statewide version of the law — proposed in 2007 by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine — would take the county off the hook by requiring spay and neuter, Price said. That Healthy Pets Act is stalled in a Senate committee after being approved by the Assembly last year.
Maben said he prefers a comprehensive state law. A county ordinance wouldn't affect incorporated cities like Bakersfield, Shafter and Taft.
CHANGE AGENTS
The Board of Supervisors created the Kern County Animal Control Commission two years ago to investigate and advocate for solutions to the county's killing problem.
So far it has worked to require permits for keeping large numbers of pets and to increase shelter fees on unaltered animals. The rules are designed to fight animal abuse and hoarding.
But in all reality, Price said, the ordinance changes will do little to solve the animal overpopulation problem.
And even those changes have been stalled for months by vocal opposition from animal breeders and trainers.
“Right now I just want them to get through so we have some regulations on hoarders and kennels and move on (to) the next (issue),” Maben said.
Board member Anderson thinks the new rules will help pay for education, enforcement and low-cost sterilizations.
“We need money so we can have manpower,” she said.
Price said enforcing the ordinance might even be a waste of his staff's time.
“I would rather have some sort of program that gets at the high numbers of animals. I would rather (officers) did community education rather than chasing people with six to 10 animals to make sure they have a permit,” he said.
FIRST STEPS
Denise Haynes, county animal control chief, said some sort of local low-cost spay and neuter program has to be created.
Her department is just now beginning to work with local veterinarians to create a voucher system that would distribute $100,000 this year to people who need help paying for spay and neuter surgeries.
But that money, most of which sits unspent eight months into the county's fiscal year, would only reduce the cost of a surgery by around $60, Price said. Surgery on a large female dog can cost $200 or more from a local veterinarian.
Several local non-profits also offer such vouchers.
And the Fresno-based HOPE Animal Foundation picks up 100 animals from Kern County a couple times each month to be spayed and neutered up north at half the cost Kern County vets charge.
But right now, that's it.
“People all the time say, ‘Well the county should have a spay/neuter program,” Haynes said. “Are you willing to pay a special assessment for it? Are you willing to have fewer paved roads? Are you willing to have fewer sheriff's officers so the money can come here?”
Voluntary spay-neuter programs can make a big difference.
Years of low-cost clinics and programs helped Los Angeles drop its kill rate to 15,009 animals from more than 37,833 in 2001. A full-time, low-cost spay-neuter clinic in Kern County wouldn't bring immediate results.
“It takes at least six years to make a difference,” sid Whitney Mayeda of the HOPE Animal Foundation.
SOLUTIONS
Nothing Kern County can do will stop the killing tomorrow. And any solution paid for by the county is going to cost taxpayers.
Los Angeles’ Department of Animal Services has a budget of $21.3 million this year. Kern County is spending only $4.6 million.
“There really aren't any easy solutions,” Price said.
But there is a problem.
And, Price said, Kern County and its citizens have a moral responsibility to implement a solution.
“By any rational measure the euthanization rates we have in this county are unconscionable,” he said.
Kern County animal control: By the numbers
28,241: Animals cared for by Animal Control in 2007
18,669: Animals euthanized
3,145: Animals adopted
1,692: Animals returned to their owners
Reasons for euthanization
3,555: Dogs that failed behavior tests
3,354: Puppies and kittens that were too young
2,474: Animals that were feral
2,333: Animals too sick
Presumably thousands:
Animals killed because there isn't enough room in
shelters.
The county doesn't keep track of exactly how many.
Commission to mull new animal control options
BY JAMES BURGER
Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Friday, May 16 2008
Kern County's animal control commission on Wednesday will examine actions the Board of Supervisors could take to address animal overpopulation and high shelter kill rates.
County officials lethally injected 18,669 animals in 2007.
The most controversial option — making spay and neuter surgeries mandatory for pets in the county — does not have full commission support. But supervisors have directed the panel to bring them a draft ordinance that could enact the law.
The various plans the commission will look over are:
• Do nothing.
• Create stronger enforcement for current licensing laws.
• Implement a low-cost spay and neuter program — and educate the public — to encourage voluntary altering of animals.
• Establish a breeding permit program.
• Adopt a mandatory spay/neuter program.
The sixth, unspoken option is to mix and match.
Commissioners could choose more than one options and recommend supervisors make a customized plan.
“They're like those Russian dolls,” said Animal Control Chief Denise Haynes. “If you get a big Russian doll you get all the little Russian dolls. If you take the last option, all the other options come with it.”
Alongside and embedded in the five “solution” options are three funding options that outline the additional cost the county would incur.
Program costs and the level of enforcement they would buy include:
• Licensing: Would require one staff position — $28,000.
• Breeding permits: Three staff positions — $136,000 in the first year. $85,000 in the second year.
• Mandatory spay and neuter: eight staff positions — $440,000 in the first year. $236,000 in the second year.
Complicating the discussion of funding options is the county's projected $47 million budget shortfall for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
County budget officials put funding from animal control improvements at the top of spending priorities for Kern.
But three of the five supervisors have expressed that county money should be spent on humans before animals.
County departments have been asked to reduce their budgets by 20 percent, Haynes said.
In light of that, allocations for new staff and enforcement
money are unlikely, she said.
Animal control in need of overhaul
By GRETCHEN WENNER
Californian staff writer
e-mail: gwenner@bakersfield.com | Friday, Mar 7 2008
This story was first published July 30, 2005 Kern's animal control problems are "at a crisis level," says a drastic -- yet kindly -- report by outside consultants released this week.
The 407-page tome recommends a sweeping overhaul of the troubled county unit, which kills some 25,000 unwanted dogs and cats each year with deadly injections.
At the same time, auditors point fingers beyond county staffers, laying blame on the entire community. Animals without proper care, training or housing breed too freely, creating a throwaway culture where kittens, puppies and outgrown pets end up as fertilizer.
Some key recommendations of the $67,000 management audit, prepared by Sacramento-area firm Citygate Associates, LLC (and available online at http://www.co.kern.ca.us ):
* Launch an aggressive, multicultural public education program that will run for the next 20 years. Time frame: Start by January 2006.
* Increase the program director's knowledge about the industry. Time frame: Immediately.
* Reorganize the division into a stand-alone unit that answers directly to the Board of Supervisors. Time frame: three years.
* Build a new shelter and administrative facility able to handle Kern's next two decades of growth. Time frame: five years.
* House a veterinary clinic in the shelter for spaying and neutering as well as general care. Time frame: two years.
* Roll the city of Bakersfield's services into the county's. Time frame: two years.
Auditors found a gaping pit of problems that require "significant, perhaps radical" departure from how operations are run now. "It is uncommon to find such a high level of need for improvement within an organization," they wrote.
At the same time, the report is polite and reassuring.
A direct address to animal control officials reads thus: "Do not be discouraged by this report. You have done everything you can over the past few years to make the program run better."
Sinking in
Reaction among animal rescue groups, who've been deeply critical of the county's operation, was largely positive.
"For the most part, it's very, very good news," said Marilyn Stewart of ALPHA Canine Sanctuary.
Topping the favorite-suggestions list was the recommendation to make animal control a stand-alone agency.
Currently, the division resides in the Environmental Health Services Department, itself a unit within the sprawling Resource Management Agency.
"I'm just thrilled about that," Stewart said.
Liz Keogh, a Bakersfield animal activist and rescue volunteer who's been part of a citizens group working to change the division, agreed.
"That recommendation is definitely in line with what folks want," she said.
Both Keogh and Stewart expect many speakers at the supervisors' meeting Tuesday afternoon, when the report will be discussed and filed.
Steve McCalley, director of the Environmental Health department that oversees animal control, said he fully supports the recommendations.
The document "provides a realistic game plan to implement changes in order to bring the organization up to appropriate and acceptable standards," McCalley said.
Some of the suggested solutions cost money.
That lands the ball in county supervisors' laps, just as they're gearing up for annual budget hearings.
Supervisor Don Maben, who for months has taken a lead role through fix-it meetings devoted to animal control, said the matter has become deeply important to him.
"This one's more personal than the other ones," Maben said of several big issues slated for Tuesday's meeting.
The report, he said, "shows we have a lot of work to do," and "it's obviously going to cost money."
"So, I'm going to see how my colleagues react to it on Tuesday," Maben said. "Most of us have known all along (there have been) some problems, and it's going to take a lot of work to get us out of them."
Animal Control
Environmental Health Services Department
a unit within the sprawling Resource Management Agency.
Steve McCalley
Director of the Environmental Health department oversees
animal control
Liz Keogh, a Bakersfield animal activist and rescue volunteer
Supervisors make animal control own county department
BY JAMES BURGER
Californian staff writer
e-mail: jburger@bakersfield.com | Tuesday, Oct 9 2007
Kern County Animal Control has been given department status, but will remain as a subsidiary department to the Resource Management Agency. Kern County Resource Management Agency |
Supervisors blessed the department's promotion Tuesday afternoon, and directed staff to start the process of hiring a director.
The creation of the separate department was recommended years ago as a way to hold the county accountable for improving care of animals.
Liz Keogh, an animal advocate who called for changes at the outset, hailed Tuesday’s decision as a good step toward the eventual independence of Animal Control.
“I felt that this ordinance would facilitate, rather than hinder, the establishment of a stand-alone agency,” she said. “I think that Mr. Price and Ms. Haynes (have a) sensible and sensitive commitment to animal control.”
Current Animal Control Division Chief Denise Haynes said changes to department operations won’t be immediate.
Once an animal control director is hired (she intends to apply, she said) there can be talk about expanding the structure of the department to do more animal law enforcement and other tasks.
Price and Supervisor
Don Maben say mandatory spay neuter may one day be the answer, but
not now.
“Right now I just want them to get through so we have
some regulations on hoarders and kennels and move on (to) the next (issue),”
Maben said.
Notes:
David Price
Director of Kern
County Resource Management Agency |
- oversees Kern County Kern
County Environmental Health Department | Animal
Control |
Matthew Constantine
Director of Kern
County Environmental Health Department | oversees Animal
Control |
2007 - Animal Control Division
Denise Haynes - Current Animal Control Division Chief
2008 - Animal Control Department
Denise Haynes - Animal
Control Director
Here is the May 2008 UC
Davis Report info. Comments anyone?