Campbelltown – is this Australia’s worst council pound?

The City of Campbelltown has a population of 150,000 and a council run animal shelter which takes in about 3,600 pets a year. They were the focus of some understandably negative publicity, when council revealed in it’s 2009/10 annual report that it killed 2,269 of the 2,728 unclaimed pets at its pound. But it took a leaked email from a neighbouring council the City of Sydney, criticising the council’s appalling performance to get the attention of Campbelltown Councillors;

Councillor Paul Lake raised the issue last week and was angry an employee of Sydney City Council would “stick their nose in Campbelltown’s business”.

The council general manager Paul Tosi said he would pursue the matter further.

“We have a very good animal care facility and I’ve never heard it’s bad,” Mr Tosi said.

“I intend to take it up with the general manager of Sydney City Council.”

A citizens action group (Pound CC – on Facebook) was formed and quickly grew from a few dozen concern community members, to a group of several hundred pet lovers lobbying for change at the pound. Of the changes they suggested might help pets leave the pound alive;

– releasing pets to rescue groups, rather than killing them
– advertising pets online and in newspapers, rather than killing them
– using volunteers to help exercise and keep pets healthy, rather than killing them
and
– desexing pets before adoption, rather than releasing entire pets back into the community.

Campbelltown Council’s Animal Care Facility is normally open only half a day one weekend day (Saturday), which contributes to their abysmal live release rate since weekends are their greatest chance for increased traffic and adoptions. They’re currently charging $160 for a cat, who is adopted undesexed with a desexing voucher. When you can get a cat for free out of every newspaper, this is not even close to competitive. Dogs cost $270 dollars and they’re sold entire.

It’s also worth noting that the council has a 14 day holding time for microchipped pets and a 7 day holding time for unidentified animals (some of the longest in the country), so in many instances there is a full two weeks to secure other options for a pet, other than death. These pets are dying simply because Campbelltown pound chooses death over the alternatives.

No remorse

There would be the expectation that once the community, the media and other councils had taken the lead in speaking out about the enormous failings of this pound’s management, the Council would be scrambling to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, no;

(Campbelltown Mayor Anoulack Chanthivong) said there were issues to be addressed at the facility but he defended its reputation against recent criticism.

“All councillors have received correspondence from people raising concerns about the facility,” he said.

“We are addressing each of those issues and I understand our practices are above and beyond the minimum requirement.”

Translation; the ‘issue’ of dead pets is simply not our priority, and since we’re doing the bare minimum required, if you could all just push off our lives would be much easier.

He then busted out this gem;

“As a pet owner, any number of euthanised animals disturbs me and I’ll look for ways to reduce that, but everyone in the community has a role to play in this issue.”

‘Everyone in the community has a role to play in this issue’; except that you don’t release pets to the rescue groups begging to be allowed to take them. You don’t encourage people to visit and adopt your pets, and you are charging way more than you can reasonably expect to get for them. You’re releasing undesexed animals out into the community, sending a completely contradictory message about responsible pet ownership. Then, you kill the majority of pets entering your care, then complain that the community don’t ‘value’ their animals. Everyone in the community has a role to play, except YOU are the major obstacle to them being able to play it.

By December Campbelltown Council were really beginning to feel the heat. Their 2010/11 statistics were out and showed that a whole year of complacency by management had ensured the slaughter continued.

The pound killed a staggering 2,366 of their 2,593 unclaimed pets – meaning just 227 unclaimed pets left the facility alive, or less than 1 in 10.

Did this finally bring about the emergency changes needed to make the pound a safe place for animals? Nope. Council voted to introduce “a six-month trial period in which all male dogs sold from the pound are desexed”. Wow.

Even more disturbing Mayor Chanthivong was quoted as saying;

“As a council and an organisation we take animal welfare very seriously”

Holy hell, I’d hate to see what it look like if you didn’t take it seriously!

Delay – the deadliest form of denial

Fast forward to today and the ‘trial of male only desexing’ is yet to begin.

Council is looking at working with local rescue groups.

And a completely unnecessary tragedy continues.


…..
Please – help the pets of Campbelltown