Kill rate at Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley down 75%
More than 10,000 animals at the Animal Service Center of the Mesilla Valley were killed back in 2008.
But there is good news to report. That rate has now dropped by 75 percent.
The center is working to educate the public on being better pets owners, which means spaying and neutering to help reduce pet over population.
Staff members are also turning to volunteers and foster families to give more animals a second chance. Dog and cats are also being transferred to other shelters throughout the country that are not overpopulated.
For many of the cats and dogs at the Animal Service Center in Las Cruces, it is the end of the line.
But their chances of making it out of alive are far better than they were almost a decade ago.
Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock is shelter’s director.
“The first year we killed 10.300 animals. This past year we killed under 3,000. I think that speaks volumes to where we have really, really come,” Vesco-Mock said.
Her work gained her a round of applause from the center’s board of directors during her presentation of the center’s annual report.
But what she really needs is more money to save more animals.
“We spent just under $2 million and we are spending under $160 per animal,” Vesco-Mock said.
The city of El Paso recently put its money where its mouth is by upping the annual budget of its Animal Service Center to 9.5 million. That comes out to $365 per animal. Bernalillo County’s annual budget is $11 million.
“We owe it to our animals to learn how to cohabitate with them. And euthanizing is not the option. That’s not cohabitating. We need to learn to work with our little four-legged friends,” Vesco-Mock said.
She hopes to follow in El Paso’s footsteps in another way by moving Animal Control under the umbrella of Animal Services.
And there is more work to be done. Las Cruces has a higher euthanasia rate than El Paso and Albuquerque.
The No. 1 breed of dog euthanized at the shelter is a pit bull. Two out of three dogs killed are pit bulls.
