Manatee County Unanimously Approves No-Kill Plan

Animal advocates and workers with Manatee County Animal Services have worked for more than three years on a plan to make the county a no-kill community and to convince every commissioner to adopt the policy. 

Manatee County is one of just a handful of communities in the country to adopt an official no-kill policy community-wide. And officials with animal services want Manatee to be a model for other counties in the state.

The county has been consistently reducing the number of animals that are killed each month, but it's still too high. Currently nearly half of all animals that come into Manatee County Animal Services are killed.

The new policy comes with a goal that by December 2012 the county will be able to foster of adopt 90 percent of all animals that come into the shelter. The plan is designed so that it will save the county money.

The goal is at 90 percent because county officials recognize that some animals coming into the shelter will be too sick or too aggressive to save.

A big part of the no-kill plan is dependent on pet owners spaying and neutering their animals to help reduce the number of unwanted animals in the county. The county will also need volunteers to help foster dogs and cats that can't be immediately adopted. Without foster volunteers the animal shelter gets overcrowded and the animals there become stressed.

The county also depend on the local veterinarian community to provide shots, other medicines and spay and neutering services at low or no cost to the county. Other volunteers are needed to write grants and raise money for services that the animals will need.

Several people spoke out at Tuesday's meeting to say the county needs to step back and deal with issues such as noise coming from animal shelters or the trap, neuter and release efforts for feral cats.

Mike Picchetti, who lives near Honor sanctuary's animal shelter, said that he doesn't believe the policy is "sustainable."

"As the number of saved dogs and cats increase in shelters it will create more noise at the shelter," he said.

Two residents of a mobile home park in Ellenton were concerned about the trap, neuter and release programs, because they did not want the feral cats release back into their communities after they had been trapped and removed.

Still most of the people in attendance were in favor of the county's no-kill policy. And even though applause is frowned on at county meetings, there was applause after the commissioners unanimously approved the policy.