Animal activists skeptical of shelter

Stray animals in Costa Mesa will be taken to the Orange County Humane Society shelter if the City Council votes to approve the recommendations in a staff report released Friday, but council opinions may be swayed by more than a dozen complaints the city has recently received about the Huntington Beach facility.

Many of the complaints claim that the facility is too small to house the roughly 1,800 animals Costa Mesa animal control picks up each year, and that the animals are kept in poor conditions. However, officials at the humane society say the building was completely redone a few months ago with more and higher quality cages and kennels.

Before the renovations, Costa Mesa took its animals to the Huntington Beach shelter, but reports of squalid conditions and overcrowding led the city to move its contract to the Irvine Animal Care Center in 2007.

Irvine, however, said recently that it doesn’t have enough space to house Costa Mesa’s animals along with its own, so the city is forced to move again.

Costa Mesa Assistant City Manager Tom Hatch and Animal Control Supervisor Bryan Glass, who teamed up on the staff report, both say the Huntington Beach facility seems much improved.

Even more improvements might be on the way too, Hatch said.

“What we’ve been doing the last several months is reaching out to all those folks [who have given input], listened carefully and incorporated most of their ideas into our proposal. Many of them are becoming a lot more optimistic about this change,” Hatch said.

A few people said that the humane society shelter didn’t have enough cat cages and therefore would be forced to euthanize a lot more animals.

Unless Samir Botros, owner of the Huntington Beach shelter, at least doubles cat cages and dog kennels, it will be physically impossible for his facility to house the roughly 1,800 animals impounded annually from Costa Mesa, Lynn Copeland, a Huntington Beach animal rights activist, wrote to the council.

Right now, the shelter only takes animals from Westminster.

In response to the concern, Hatch has talked with the shelter about adding cat cages.

Head Veterinary Technician Tony Jaimes has said that since Costa Mesa cut off its agreement with the humane society the facility has already increased its number of cages and kennels and will continue to do so. Now the facility has 80 dog kennels and about 40 to 50 cat cages.

Most of the cat cages were full Friday, but there were plenty of empty dog kennels, which Jaimes attributed to an increase in adoptions during the holiday season.

The plan is to raise the capacity to 100 cages and 100 kennels soon, Jaimes said.

The shelter never has — even in its crowded days — and never will euthanize animals just because it doesn’t have enough space for them, according to Jaimes.

“We’ll find them a home somehow,” he said, even if it means sending them home with volunteers for a few days and waiting for cages to open up.

One of the biggest improvements the shelter has made is adding indoor segments to kennels and cages. A couple of years ago the animals were forced to spend all of their time outside, even when it was cold or wet, which made them much more susceptible to sickness.

Now, most of the 6-by-3-foot kennels have two segments — one indoor, one outdoor. The 2-by-2-foot cat cages are completely indoors.

Despite these improvements, many people still consider the Irvine shelter far superior.

“The Irvine Animal [Care Center] is a large, well maintained facility with plenty of kennels, dog play yards and cat exercise rooms. While the [Huntington Beach] shelter has been recently renovated, it is still small and cramped in comparison,” wrote Bill and Katie Slavin.

The Irvine shelter was not an option, though, as they want to keep all of their space for Irvine animals. Of the two shelters that were feasible alternatives, the Huntington Beach shelter is far less expensive than the county shelter in Orange and much closer.

The county was asking about $230,000 a year for their services, while the deal worked out with the Orange County Humane Society would cost $65,000.

The City Council will consider staff’s proposal at its upcoming study session Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].