CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County Commissioner Lance Wheeler is proposing $10,000 dollars go toward helping with low-cost spay and neuter operations in an effort to alleviate the influx of stray animals in the community.
Recently the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association has announced that the adjacent Fix Charleston Clinic will have to scale back its services due to the loss of one of its lead veterinarians.
Lance Wheeler
In turn, this has led to them having to re-focus their efforts on the low-cost spay and neuter program the clinic offers, meaning that those services provided to walk-ins will be scaled back so they can focus mainly on the spay and neutering of the foster and adopted animals they already have.
Wheeler said on 580 Live Monday that he was very concerned of this when he first heard the news of these cutbacks and how it will impact the large number of walk-ins who use the clinic for the spaying and neutering of the many stray animals they find on the streets.
“We have a lot of activists I will call them, we have a lot of community activists, we have a lot of volunteers that do a lot of trapping of their own in their community with feral cats and stray dogs, and they will bring them to the animal shelter just for the intention of making sure they’re spayed and neutered and that we’re not re-overpopulating our community with feral cats and stray dogs,” Wheeler said.
He said these are services that are too expensive to do in a private veterinarian and he wants to make sure that it’s continuing to be taken care of so the animal overpopulation doesn’t get too out of control.
However, he said he understands that the shelter must prioritize their efforts where they can due to the extreme influx at the shelter.
“It’s getting a lot more expensive to run just about anything these days, and the animal shelter is no different, so they’re looking at what they can do with the adoption and fostering and making sure they’re focusing on those animals and taking care of them,” he said.
Wheeler said that’s where the Fix’Em Clinic in Charleston will come in.
He said he has reached out to the non-profit Fix’Em clinic, that provides low-cost animal care, and they have agreed to help create a plan with the animal shelter to continue to provide low-cost spay and neuter services to the walk-ins.
Wheeler said the shelter will now refer any walk-in needing a spay or neutering service done on a stray to the Fix’Em Clinic who can treat the animal at the same low-cost that the Fix Charleston Clinic offers.
He said he knows this is a service that’s desperately needed, and these walk-ins need somewhere else to go.
“I think that’s important, again, for these community activists who are doing such a great job of making sure that we don’t have an overpopulation, but giving them the option to go somewhere outside of a private veterinarian,” he said.
However, Wheeler said by the Fix’Em Clinic having to take in more of these spay and neuter cases, it’s going to come at a higher cost for them.
He said he plans to propose $10,000 goes to the clinic to help them in this transition of taking in more animals at this Thursday’s commission meeting.
Wheeler said he feels this contribution will help a lot and it’s highly necessary.
“It’s not something that’s cheap, they run as a non-profit, this is a loss to them every single time,” he said. “I think this $10-thousand dollars would help, and I would like for this money to come from the dog tax fund, this is the non-traditional tax dollars that people pay for the dog tax.”
He said the commission always uses these dog tax funds to help with animal care.
Without these extra funds, Wheeler said he thinks it would be very difficult for them to take on this much demand, but he knows this partnership will be effective.
“This is a great partnership between the humane association and Fix’Em Clinic, and being able to do this is going to be great for our community.”
The shelter had recently said that they have close to 500 animals in their care, nearly double the number their shelter is designed for.