Ninety percent of animals euthanized

By: Thema Ponton/WBTW TV-13 | SCNow
Published: November 28, 2007

CONWAY -- Nine out of ten animals over the past two years at the Horry County Humane Society had to be euthanized.

That’s according to a report in the Carolina Forest Chronicle.

News 13’s Thema Ponton spoke with the Executive Director of the Horry County Humane Society, Cindy Ott, about why so many animals have to be put down.

Ott said the main reason is not enough room, too many animals and too few people wanting to adopt.

She said almost 8,400 animals come to the shelter every year.

Some of them are strays, but many of them are from people who are moving, cannot care for the animals, or have too many pets.

The shelter only has room for about 200 animals and it is impossible to find homes for all of them.

Ott said they do have to euthanize animals and it's not always animals that are sick or have a bad temperament.

“Because of space restraints we have to pick healthy, adoptable animals that have to be euthanized because we've simply run out of room.” Ott said.

Ott said many of the animals that are in the shelter might not be there if people had their pets spayed and neutered.

She said if more people adopted shelter pets, they might be able to get the overcrowding problem under control and reach their goal of being a "no-kill” shelter, meaning they would not have to euthanize for space.

“Of course there are going to be those animals that come in with temperament issues, um health issues, um we have a lot of animals that come in that have been hit by a car and um in those times of course euthanasia is the humane solution.” Ott said.

Ott said they are looking into opening an adoption site on the south end of the beach and buying a mobile adoption van to take animals to various locations around Horry County.

The editor of the Carolina Forest Chronicle, Michael Smith, said the newspaper didn't do the report to find fault.

They hope to inform the public and encourage people to adopt pets and to have their pets spayed and neutered.

Smith said the paper was created because people in the growing Carolina forest area were looking for their own newspaper.

“We went into the communities, we had a person go into each subdivision, whether it was Avalon or Belle Grove or Walker's Woods and ask them and everyone came back saying we would love to have our own newspaper.”

The "Chronicle" is the newest member of our News13 network of media partners.

You can read the "Pets in Peril" special report in the next edition of the Carolina Forest Chronicle, which comes out Thursday.

The Carolina Forest Chronicle has been in circulation since November first.

The paper costs 50 cents, but if you live in the 29579 area code, you get it for free.

You can log on to www.horrycountyhumanesociety.com to find out more about pet adoption and having your cats and dogs spayed and neutered.

Ninety percent of animals euthanized

Share This:

More from this channel:

Reader Comments

Deal of the Day

Weather

Latest News Video

Things to Do

Links We Like