Sacramento County Animals in Trouble

Dear Sacramento County Friends and Neighbors,

Our County is in a terrible financial crisis and our leaders face tough choices...

Despite a $22 million public investment in a new state-of-the-art animal shelter, the County’s animals are now at great risk. Two years of County budget cuts have meant a 40-percent reduction in animal care staff and limited public hours for reuniting lost pets with their families and adopting out homeless animals.

These cuts have cost animals their lives. Already, three out of five animals entering the County shelter don’t leave alive. In a single day last week, 60 animals were put to sleep at the shelter.

And it could get worse. Just last month we got word that Sacramento County supervisors are contemplating yet another significant reduction to the animal shelter. Here’s what reductions would mean:

· Animals in distress or suffering from cruelty, neglect, or injury may not get timely or adequate protection from the only agency in the County that conducts humane investigations. Animals will likely suffer longer because there will be too few officers to keep up with incoming calls.

· Dogs and cats who arrive at the shelter – most often through no fault of their own – may have only 72 hours before they are put to sleep.

· The public will be at increased risk from dangers caused by slower response times to calls about animals in the road, dog bites, and dead animal removal.

· Many shelter animals may not receive the basic veterinary care that could make the difference between life and death. A simple, treatable skin condition could be a death sentence.

· The County’s staffing ratio would fall far below recommended minimum animal care standards, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks, unsanitary living conditions, and poor animal welfare.

· Current investments in efforts to prevent the births of unwanted animals will also be reduced.

Our County’s animals will suffer more and die in higher numbers if further cuts are made to the animal shelter.

If you want to stop this from happening, if you have ever adopted an animal, if you believe that we owe homeless pets a bare minimum of welfare and opportunity… then it is not too late for you to act!

Here are three simple ways to help:

(1) Attend the budget hearing and pre-hearing rally on Monday, June 14. The rally starts at 1:00 p.m. on the south steps of 700 H Street in downtown Sacramento. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/NoCutsRally for details. A large crowd is needed to demonstrate our community’s commitment to animal care.

(2) Prior to June 14, write a firm but polite letter (or email) and send it to the County contacts listed below. Below are some suggested talking points. Please include your own perspective and your address.

(3) Share this email with your friends and neighbors in Sacramento County. It’s simple –just hit “forward” and add a personal plea. Do it now while you’re thinking about it.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING YOUR VOICE HEARD

TALKING POINTS

§ Any further cuts will be detrimental to the community and the animals. The agency is so hampered already that any cuts to this agency means essential services will not be able to be provided.

§ Sacramento County’s animal shelter plays an important role in ensuring public safety, public health, and animal welfare.

§ The shelter, volunteers and the community are working toward making the shelter more self-sustaining in the future, but General Fund support is critical this year.

§ The shelter has taken more than 40 percent in cuts already, resulting in more than 20 fewer staff positions, offering far less community services, and suffering poorer outcomes as a consequence.

§ The County’s commitment to animal welfare was signaled by the opening of the new, wonderful animal welfare center, and it would be a shame if its operations were not fully supported.

§ Each year about 14,000 animals rely on the shelter to save them from abandonment and suffering.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY CONTACTS

Fax Number: 916-874-7593
Mailing Address: 700 H Street, Suite 2450, Sacramento, CA 95814

Name	Email	Telephone
District 1 Supervisor Roger Dickinson	dickinsonr@saccounty.net	916-874-5485
District 2 Supervisor Jimmie Yee	jyee@saccounty.net	916-874-5481
District 3 Supervisor Susan Peters	susanpeters@saccounty.net	916-874-5471
District 4 Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan	macglashanr@saccounty.net	916-874-5491
District 5 Supervisor Don Nottoli	nottolid@saccounty.net	916-874-5465
County Executive Steve Szalay	szalays@saccounty.net	916-874-5833
Municipal Services Agency Director Paul Hahn	hahnp@saccounty.net	916-874-2268
Interim Shelter Director Carl Simpson	simpsonc@saccounty.net	916-875-5051

24-May-10

Oregon Owners forced to Sell Sanctuary

Oregon / owners forced to sell wolf sanctuary

March
31, 2010
By John Darling
for the Mail Tribune

WILLIAMS —
In the middle of declining tours and donations and an expensive battle
with cancer, the owners of Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary have fallen
$30,000 behind on house payments and they face a July 9 auction of their
home.

The sanctuary's trailer is now occupied by a volunteer
caretaker couple. Whoever buys the sanctuary property must agree to care
for its 20 wolves, rescued from illegal fur farms, illegal Internet
sales and from people who kept them illegally as pets.

"They have
a lot of medical problems," he says. "They were abused. They have to be
fed, cared for and their pens cleaned on a 24-hour basis."


http:......../......../........www.........mailtribune.........com/........apps/........pbcs.........dll/........article?........AID=......../........20100331/........NEWS/........3310314/....-1/COMM08





WILLIAMS
— In the middle of declining tours and donations and an expensive
battle with cancer, the owners of Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary have
fallen $30,000 behind on house payments and they face a July 9 auction
of their home.

Charlie and Sherrie LaBat say they have been using
all of their small Social Security and pension income to support the
wolves and maintain the 14-acre sanctuary property across the road from
their home.
Related Photo Galleries

* Howling Acres

"The
wolves come first," says Charlie LaBat. "The main thing is to keep them
going. They have nowhere else to go."

The LaBats are selling the
sanctuary at 555 Davidson Road and a three-bedroom mobile home on site
for $400,000, reduced from $575,000, according to their Web site, www...howlingacres...org,
but they say they will drop that figure further for interested buyers.

Facing
health problems, the couple say they want to retire on the coast.

"It's
stressful when the house is in foreclosure," says Sherrie LaBat, 50.
"We have no place to live. We have no money, just the Social Security
and pension and it's not much."

She has osteoporosis and just
finished chemotherapy for leukemia, leaving them owing $69,000 in
medical bills. Their health insurance policy runs just two more months,
he says.

A home health nurse, Sherrie has not been able to work
during her illness. In addition, donations to the sanctuary in the sour
economy have declined from a high of $45,000 a year to $400 for the
first quarter of this year, Charlie says.

"Donations were down
last year and tours have dropped quite a bit," he says. "Everything
seemed to drop on us."

The couple is upside-down on their home,
which sits on 13 acres. They bought it for $495,000. It's been
reassessed at $198,000, with a $280,000 mortgage, Charlie says. They
started getting behind on payments last May and the mortgage company, he
says, has declined to renegotiate terms during the recession.

The
LaBats say they do not plan to declare bankruptcy.

The
sanctuary's trailer is now occupied by a volunteer caretaker couple.
Whoever buys the sanctuary property must agree to care for its 20
wolves, rescued from illegal fur farms, illegal Internet sales and from
people who kept them illegally as pets.

"They have a lot of
medical problems," he says. "They were abused. They have to be fed,
cared for and their pens cleaned on a 24-hour basis."

The Web
site says the LaBats will carry $160,000 of the sanctuary sale price at 4
percent interest.

All permits with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture are current, he says, and the 10-foot fence around each wolf
compound, as required by the agency, is in good repair.

The
LaBats are reachable at 541-846-8962.

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