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ASPCA helps Hillsborough reduce animal euthanasia rate

By MICHAEL A. MOHAMMED
Published February 27, 2007

BRANDON - As part of a three-year campaign to reduce euthanasia rates, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is sinking $600,000 into four Hillsborough animal organizations over the next three years. Aside from Animal Services, the Animal Coalition of Tampa, Humane Society of Tampa Bay and No More Homeless Pets of Hillsborough are participating.

The initiative, dubbed "Mission: Orange" after the color of the ASPCA logo, will try to overhaul animal services in Hillsborough County; Austin, Texas; Philadelphia; and Gulfport, Miss.

Mission: Orange will try to make these four areas more like San Francisco, said ASPCA president Ed Sayres.

There, an intensive program of spaying, neutering and publicizing animal adoption allowed the city to stop euthanizing healthy animals in 1994, said Sayres, who led the San Francisco SPCA from 1998 to 2003.

Hillsborough Animal Services euthanizes nearly 30,000 animals a year, giving it the highest per-capita rate of any Florida county.

That number, coupled with the existence of local animal rights organizations, makes Tampa a prime target, Sayres says.

"It's about need, and the ability to solve that need," he said.

It's too early to tell how the money will be spent, but Sayres stresses the importance of sterilizing animals. Hillsborough spays and neuters about five cats and dogs per 1,000 people per year.

To reduce its euthanasia rate, Hillsborough may have to triple the rate at which it sterilizes animals, Sayres says.

One possibility may be a spay-and-neuter truck to offer low-cost or free operations in pet owners' neighborhoods, or even to offer money to owners to get them to bring in their pets.

Mission: Orange will also try to promote adoptions as a more humane and practical way to get a pet. In Hillsborough County, only about 15 percent of new pets come from shelters, Sayres says.

Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at 813 226-3404 or mmohammed@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 27, 2007, 00:10:27]