Spring Break
Animal shelter blamed for lost pets
By: Candace Birkelbach
Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: News
 Stephen Fogg - The Battalion A feral cat lays outside the Biological Sciences Building Thursday and yawns. The cat is being taken care of as a part of the Aggie Feral Cat Program. |
The Brazos Valley Animal Shelter was accused of losing cats that were captured from traps set by Brazos Valley Animal Control last month. The complaint was said to be "a serious disconnection" between the animal shelter and animal control, said Sheng-Mei Yeh, who saw her cat being trapped by animal control.
The animal shelter holds stray animals in its facilities for 72 business hours, during which time the animal can be claimed, adopted or euthanized, said Ashley Wesp, executive director for the shelter.
The exception to the 72-hour rule is that if an animal has a microchip embedded into its skin that is registered with the county, it will be held for an extended time frame of 10 days. The shelter has a record of the phone number and address of all microchipped animals that are registered with the county and will make phone calls and write letters to track down owners, Wesp said.
Yeh, a graduate genetics student, said she begged the officer to release her cat, but the officer told her to contact the shelter. She then made dozens of calls to the shelter, but the shelter could not confirm that her cat was there.
When the shelter was accused of having cats "vanish without their knowledge" by Yeh, Wesp responded that this was simply a matter of miscommunication.
"We don't give out the disposition of the animal if we aren't certain of its location," Wesp said. "We had more than 8,000 animals come through the shelter last year, and that's a lot to keep track of."
Janice Kemp, sergeant of special services for animal control, said that anyone can request a trap for stray animals, and that trapped animals are taken directly to the shelter, even if the owner tries to claim the animal during the process.
The process that pet owners can go through to find their animals at the shelter is to look through the kennels, ask the employees to look in the isolation area where sick or injured animals are kept and leave a description of their animal in the shelter's lost and found book, Wesp said.
"I think people are accusing the shelter of losing animals, because they are upset and worried about their pets," Jahnke said. "We love our animals, and it's scary when they get lost."
Be sure to include your name, major, and class year. Submissions without this information are subject to deletion.
By submitting a comment, you agree to thebatt.com's Terms of Use.
You may also send a Mail Call to The Battalion at mailcall@thebatt.com