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Community Corner

Does Greenville County Really Care about the Animals?

I don't live in Greenville County anymore - we moved away about eight years ago.  But I started my animal rescue while living there, and I still have a lot of friends who are involved in rescue there.  One of my good friends used to work at the Greenville County Animal Shelter.  I know some of the other people there electronically (via Facebook and email) if not in real life.  But I really have to wonder what is really going on over there now.

From my lofty position in Oconee County, I keep seeing things happening in Greenville County with regards to animals in their care which disturbs me.  A few months ago, on a Spartanburg Facebook rescue board, one of the rescuers there revealed that feral cats trapped in Spartanburg County are being taken to Greenville county where they're being put in a scratched up plastic box (so scratched up that in some cases you can't even see the cat inside, much less take a picture), they are not being presented to the community, not marketed in any way, volunteers who do this aren't being made aware of these cats, and after five days they are being killed.  In other words, once they are trapped, they are essentially dead.

Why kill these cats?  Why not trap/neuter/release them instead, with notched ears, either back where they were originally trapped or into established colonies monitored by volunteers who make sure the cats have what they need to survive?  Or if not, then why not at least take their picture when they come in and present them to the community, in hopes that someone might see one and want a barn cat, an outdoor yard cat, or might even want to attempt a feral rehab?  What is the harm?  But when cornered, a representative from Greenville County told a questioner from Spartanburg County (which pays Greenville County a set amount per cat to "care" for them) that "they don't have the manpower".  There are volunteers who go into the Greenville shelter every day to do this very thing.  It was only by accident they were made aware of these cats in the first place.  To say "we don't have the manpower" is a cop-out.  What they're really saying, in my opinion, is they don't care.

A few weeks later, in May, I received an email from a transport coordinator named Erin Silks, who lives in Fairfax, Virginia.  She regularly sets up transports of dogs from Greenville County to rescues up north, where there are fewer dogs available for adoption due to much smarter laws with regards to pets.  Erin was asking for drivers to drive a number of legs of a route which was going from Greenville to Baltimore, Maryland for the following weekend.  It just so happened that I was planning on making a trip to the DC area in a virtually empty car on the Thursday prior to that weekend.  I've done a lot of transport in the past, so I emailed Erin and volunteered to take some of the dogs with me on my trip, even letting her know I would be willing to extend my trip by two hours to go on to Baltimore to drop off the dogs.  I heard nothing in return.  Thinking that maybe she hadn't gotten my email, I contacted her a second time and let her know I would be willing to take some dogs with me.  Nothing.

When I returned home late on Friday night, I was too tired to check my email, but on Saturday, Erin posted on Facebook BEGGING for people to cover two legs of the trip, even as these dogs are already in transit.  I could not believe the irresponsibility of allowing this transport to start, knowing that she did not have all of the legs covered and that some or all of the dogs on the transport could have ended up stranded, or that a transporter could have been left literally holding the dogs indefinitely until transport could be arranged.  So that next Monday, I contacted Greenville County Animal Care Services to express my concern about this and let them know that I had offered to take dogs with me, an offer that had been ignored.  I heard nothing back in return.  Nothing.

This brings me to this past week.  On Tuesday, I called the Low-Cost Spay Neuter Clinic at Greenville County Animal Care Services because we had been given a generous donation to get some of our cats spayed and neutered, and Greenville has excellent prices for doing so.  I got their voice mail, so I left a message explaining what I needed and asked for a return call.  The call came the next day at 5:50 p.m., from a number I did not recognize so I did not answer the phone.  As soon as I heard the voice mail, I called back IMMEDIATELY, at 5:53  p.m., and got the voice mail again.  I gave them my info once again and asked for another call back.  I did not get one, so on Thursday afternoon, I called yet again and asked yet again for a call back (since as far as I can tell no one EVER answers that phone) and as of Friday morning at 10:22 a.m. I have yet to receive a callback. 

Not that it matters at this point.   Knowing what I know and reviewing all of this information, there is absolutely NO WAY I would trust our rescue animals to GCACS.  The total irresponsibility these incidences have brought to light show me that taking my animals there would put them at enormous risk, and I cannot in good conscience do that.

Greenville County residents, YOU are paying for all of this.  It is YOUR tax dollars that support this animal shelter.  If I were still living in Greenville County, I can promise you that I would be attending the next County Council meeting to demand answers from at the very least MY representative, and via speaking before council during public speaking time, the entire body.  There's a lot wrong there.  A lot.  Their excuse, every time they are confronted, is they don't have the manpower.  Since I don't live in Greenville County anymore, I don't know if it is still true, but when I lived there, Greenville County was sitting on a boatload of money.  They had a budget surplus.  If that is true, why are public services like the animal shelter going wanting?  Why is it that they do not have the manpower to even just answer the phones?  These are not questions I can go before the Council and ask, because they won't listen to me - I'm not a constituent.  I can tell you that these sorts of things don't go in in Oconee County.  I can tell you that dealing with the shelter in Oconee County is a much more pleasant experience than it is in Greenville County, but we're not as big of a county either.  It is up to you that live in Greenville County to demand answers, from the shelter, from the Council, from each other.  Spartanburg county citizens also have the right to demand answers because they're paying Greenville county to take care of their animals as well.  I think you in Greenville and Spartanburg county should stand up and demand those answers, and demand better treatment of our animals.  Our Bible tells us that we are charged by God as caretakers of this earth and all that are on it.  It's time that we took that a little more seriously.

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