Fresno’s stray pet crisis will worsen without more spay, neuter funds, advocates say
More than 25 local animal welfare advocates are urging the Fresno City Council to immediately fund public spay and neuter services to combat Fresno’s stray pet and overpopulation crisis.
The city-run shelter, Fresno Animal Center, has been on modified intake for over two years. Meaning, the facility is at capacity and will not take in healthy, stray animals.
Mell Garcia, founder of Mell’s Mutts, a Fresno-based rescue, and co-founder of California Spay, said the consequences has been severe.
Since the shelter went to modified intake over the past two years, Garcia has seen an increase in dogs having litters of puppies in the city, she told The Bee.
“Us rescuers, we’re tired, we can’t take in any more dogs,” Garcia said. “We’re drowning in dogs in the city. So, what other option do we have? We have got to fix these dogs, and the city has got to make it a priority.”
The Fresno Animal Center has said that accepting every animal has resulted in severely overcrowding and an unhealthy environment for the animals.
“We have heard loud and clear from the community that euthanizing healthy animals is unacceptable,” the Fresno Animlal Rescue website says. “Accepting healthy strays will absolutely result in euthanizing healthy animals to reduce capacity.”
Advocates told the City Council at last Thursday’s board meeting that widespread surgical sterilization procedures are one of the few long-term solutions to the city’s large number of homeless animals.
Previously, the city had provided about $74,000 to Garcia’s nonprofit to provide public spay and neuter services, in which customers are responsible for covering the co-pay, and standard veterinary clinic fees are free of charge.
Despite the funds being less than what was originally promised, the program was still able to fix 565 dogs with the allocation.
The nonprofit has not received any additional funds for over six months now, and has around 1,000 people on the waiting list to receive spay and neuter services.
“Every day that goes by that we’re not helping these individuals is more of a risk of those dogs having litters of more puppies, and then the euthanasia rate is going to increase, and then the intake numbers,” Garcia said. “It’s just a vicious cycle, and we really want the city to start allocating and start budgeting for public spay neuter.”
Councilmember Miguel Arias said the city has exhausted all funds for spaying and neutering services, and called on pet owners to follow the rules.
“Owners are not being responsible,” he said. “And you are asking us as government to force the change of behavior or to fully commit more millions of dollars for the prevention side, which I think is important, and we’ve done a lot of it, but even then, we can’t force someone’s animal to be spayed and neutered.”
Garcia feels optimistic after addressing the City Council. She said Councilmembers Mike Karbassi and Annalisa Perea have been receptive, and she is hopeful that the nonprofit will receive the funds by March.
Alyssa Stevens, chief of staff for Karbassi’s district, said securing additional funding for a spay-neuter program will be one of his priorities going into the mid-year budget process, but will still be subject to a council vote.
“We are making progress, and I think that we’re finally getting through, and they see it, and the reason why is that it’s affecting everybody now,” Garcia said.