New Animal Shelter Opens in Jacksonville

[Green Builder]

The architect was Ebert Norman Brady Architects

[I-10east]

There's alot of new things on Forest St; the new animal shelter, the recent Fire Station no.5, and the recent Forest St/Myrtle Av I-95 Northbound ramp. The animal shelter looks nice. It's gonna be interesting to see what they're gonna do with the land were the abandoned school, and park sits on Forest St.

[jbroadglide]

Allow me, if you will, to point you all here.
http://www.coj.net/Departments/Environmental+and+Compliance/Animal+Care+and+Control/default.htm

Its a 4:30 video of the new shelter Grand Opening. It has great narration, if I do say so myself.

[Jason]

Great stuff JD.  Thanks for sharing the video.

[thekillingwax]

It's a great place. They also pump something into the air because I went in just wanting to look around and somehow I walked out with three cats.

[JaxNative68]

three cats?  very ambitious.

[jbroadglide]

Great stuff JD.  Thanks for sharing the video.

Thanks Jason. The video is now linked from jacksonville.com. its had close to 500 hits so far..

[ErikSetzer]

Looks brilliant!  That's a good thing, too.  People are more likely to stop into a shelter that looks really nice, and adopt one of those animals.  Kind of sad that aesthetics make a person more likely to do what's right, but I'll cheer the end result and leave the lamentation of mankind's priorities for later.

[Lunican]

The monthly statistics for Jacksonville Animal Care & Protective Services have been compiled.  More information is being provided this month regarding the outcome of live animals; specifically we are tracking how many animals are saved through rescue groups and adoptions as well as how many are returned happily home.  Please let me know if you have any comments on these numbers or suggestions for improvement either in regard to how the numbers are presented or more importantly how these numbers might be improved by JACPS.  Please note the small number of cats returned to their owners, only 1% of those making it out alive.  Does anyone have any ideas as to why the great disparity between the number of cats returned to their owners vs. the number of dogs?



       

Code Select Expand

JACKSONVILLE ANIMAL CARE & PROTECTIVE SERVICES STATS

Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Avg Avg %
DOGS
Intake 920 811 842 858
Outcome 907 795 872 858
"EUTHANIZED" 544 469 560 524 61%
Adopted Out by JACPS 147 143 113 134 16%
Transfer to Rescue/JHS 150 132 137 140 16%
Return to Owner 58 43 51 51 6%

CATS
Intake 1176 1219 1105 1167
Outcome 1151 1254 1180 1195
"EUTHANIZED" 597 745 573 638 53%
Transfer to FCNMHP 428 365 468 420 35%
Adopted Out by JACPS 80 85 43 69 6%
Transfer to Rescue/JHS 28 27 76 44 4%
Return to Owner 10 13 13 12 1%

  TOTAL KILLED 1141 1214 1133 1163
  PERCENTAGE KILLED 55% 59% 55% 57%

JHS = Jacksonville Humane Society
FCNMHP = First Coast No More Homeless Pets

[fsu813]

just adopted a dog from there yesterday.

[Dog Walker]

You always get karma points for having a dog, but you get DOUBLE karma points for adopting a shelter dog.  Good for you!

[fsu813]

they had lots of adorbale cats with "my time is up! please save me!" signs on thier cages.

=(

[mtraininjax]

For the 2nd time in as many years, a whistle blower has sent an anonymous letter to the Ethics Committee complaining that ACPS is destroying pets at a higher rate than the 10% rate used to fund them as a no-kill shelter.

The director of the Jacksonville Office of Ethics received an anonymous whistle-blower letter Thursday with allegations against two leaders of the city's Animal Care and Protective Services.
The letter asked Carla Miller to "please open an ethics investigation, interview the shelter employees, interview former employees and do a detailed audit of all the animals euthanized over the past year."

Nikki Harris and Jen Walter, division chief and shelter manager for Animal Care, were the subjects of the email. They are accused of falsifying numbers to maintain no-kill status at the shelter.

A shelter receives no-kill status by killing 10 percent or less of animals they take in.

Harris and Walter declined to comment on the letter.

James Croft, a city spokesman, referred all questions to Thomas Cline Jr., the city's inspector general.

"I can't confirm or deny the existence of an investigation," Cline said.

The author signed the letter as an anonymous whistle-blower and said "you'll be shocked at what you find."

"We look into every complaint," Cline said.

He said you have to be connected to the city in some way to be classified as a whistle-blower so that heightens the level of this complaint.

"We get a lot of complaints and phone calls that come in anonymously," Cline said.

Among the three main allegations in the letter is that Harris and Walter have been misclassifying animals in order to euthanize them.

The letter said the shelter has been euthanizing animals that would have recovered from medical problems because treating the issues "takes more resources, so it's easier for them to just euthanize them and lie about it."

They also are said to have turned away animals claiming the shelter is full because "by refusing to accept strays that are brought in, those animals aren't counted against the shelter's numbers."

Jennifer Deane is the president of Pit Sisters — a Jacksonville-based company that specializes in treating dogs and nursing them back to health — and she said she's worked with Harris and Walter on numerous occasions and it's hard for her to believe the claims in the letter.

"Why would they do that when they call us to take care of the dogs all the time," Deane said.

She said it would be much easier to euthanize the undernourished dogs rather than go through the trouble of contacting Pit Sisters.

Dogs are often housed at Pit Sisters when the shelter is full until a mega adoption event takes place and the shelter fills up pretty regularly, Deane said.

She said she's been to the shelter and seen it full to capacity many times.

A whistle-blower also contacted the city in July 2014 about issues with policy and that two senior staff members regularly engaged in "inappropriate" touching among other things.

An investigation into those allegations concluded in August 2014 and were "determined to be unfounded," according to a statement from the Mayor's Office.