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St. Clair County Animal Control Enters michanimalnews.com Hall of Shame
Published on June 6, 2008
Written by:  Justine DePalma

St. Clair County Humane Law Enforcement Shelter in Pt. Huron Michigan enters the www.michanimalnews.com Hall of Shame.  The combined “euthanasia” rate for dogs and cats is 79%.  The shelter admitted using the excruciatingly painful heartstick to “euthanized” feral cats.  It’s also a violation of Michigan shelter regulations.  The shelter is under orders for retraining and being sued by the fired shelter veterinarian.

The St. Clair County Animal Shelter falls into the category of the old time kill them rather than try to help them shelters.  The staff generally blames the public for the sorry state of affairs.  This blame is clearly misplaced and lies at the feet of the staff.

Every single shelter in Michigan with a horrible adoption rate and high euthanasia rate has a number of things in common.  First, they do not allow volunteers.  They always claim that they cannot accommodate volunteers because of liability.  This is patently false.  Oakland County Animal Control Shelter and many government shelters use volunteers to great success.  The shelters that bar volunteers do so because volunteers will create problems, they will rock the boat.  High kill shelters are only able to stay that way by hiding what they do. 

Next, there is little outreach to the community for assistance.  St. Clair for example, fails to use petfinder.com the biggest internet adoption service in the US.  On Saturday, May 31, I looked at St. Clair’s petfinder page and there was a beagle, one animal on the page.  How many dogs and cats were killed that week?  Didn’t they deserve the chance at a new life?  Why didn’t they get it?  Frankly, people were just too lazy or didn’t care enough to take their picture, load it on a computer and do a write up.  Of course, those volunteers that the shelter doesn’t allow could have added every animal in the shelter.

Barring animal rescue groups from helping shelter animals is also common among the state’s worst shelters.  Every single animal control director running a killing machine will tell you that they cannot release to rescue because all rescue groups abuse animals.  It is true that there are a few rescue groups that do not act in the best interests of the animals, good shelters screen rescue groups just like they screen adopters. Contacting the group’s veterinarian and calling other shelters is not that difficult and it can save hundreds of lives.

Another trait of the worst shelters is extremely disturbing, shelters that use illegal and cruel techniques to kill animals or sell animals to research.  The list of horrors include the St. Clair County  heartstick, Montcalm and Gratiot County gassing with co2 in barrels, River Rouge failing to adopt an animal instead gassing every single animal with CO2.  There is no doubt that the cruelty of the killing method is a choice made by the director of the shelter.  Just how cruel and sick you must be to watch an animal die suffering a painful death from the heartstick or struggling to escape from a barrel as he is slowly suffocated.  Management and staff involved in killing with illegal and cruel methods must be removed from the shelter.  They have no business near animals, since they obviously have lost any ability to exhibit compassion.

The St Clair Animal Shelter has been a dirty little secret.  Now that the secret is exposed, the community must step up and demand to changes to help the animals.  Strive to make the shelter a community asset, it is hard work, but becoming a center of compassion for animals is a first step to becoming a community of compassion for all life.  Contact your county commissioner and let them know this is not acceptable, that excuses are no longer acceptable.  Tell them we need new management at the shelter.  Demand that volunteers be allowed to help at the shelter immediately.  Demand that animals are given a chance and placed on petfinder.com before they are killed.  Demand that rescue groups be allowed to pull animals from the shelter.  Demand that euthanasia be performed according to AVMA standards by a licensed veterinarian.  Now is the time to act on behalf of St. Clair County Animals, will you allow the status quo or will you become an advocate for life?  It is time for St. Clair County citizens to step up and there are no more excuses.

St. Clair County Animal Shelter Profile

Write to the St. Clair County Board of Commissioners
St. Clair County Board of Commissioners meet the third Wednesday of each month at 6pm.

Newspapers:
The Times Herald
The Detroit News
The Detroit Free Press
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