Is it time for Barrhead to have its own municipally run or funded animal shelter?
We believe the answer is yes.
Last week one of our staff members came upon a small kitten that had been abandoned along the road. Fortunately for the kitten the story has a happy ending in that one of our staff members adopted it.
However, not everyone is in the position that they can personally adopt or foster an abandoned or lost animal. What happens then?
In many communities the answer is the local chapter of the humane society or its equivalent.
Unfortunately the Barrhead area doesn’t have such an organization. Yes we do have the Barrhead Animal Rescue Society (BARS), a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all animals in the Barrhead area are treated in a humane manner, but it is not the same thing.
First of all, it is no longer based in Barrhead. Its president and founder Terry Colborne moved to Spruce Grove a few years ago, and as a result the majority of its operations are now outside the Barrhead area.
Certainly BARS still has a number of local volunteers that do their utmost to ensure unwanted animals find a forever home, but they just can’t have the same impact as if they were truly a local organization.
That being said we realize that communities have limited resources and as such we are proposing a three or four way partnership, with the town and county providing the bulk of the funding.
Any animal rescue or animal control facility, in our minds, needs some sort of physical drop off location, even if it is only temporary.
We suggest one of our local veterinary clinics might be convinced to fulfill this role, if the town did not want to open and staff a separate facility. From there, if the animal’s owners were not located in short order, animals could then be fostered to willing volunteers, hopefully BARS, who then seek a more permanent solution.
Is it a perfect solution? No, but it beats what we have now. What do you think?
