News

May 06, 2023

Fort Bragg animal shelter to close in July

FORT BRAGG, CA — Mendocino County Animal Services is closing the Fort Bragg

FORT BRAGG, CA — Mendocino County Animal Services is closing the Fort Bragg shelter by July 1st. The Fort Bragg Shelter reopened in 2019 and sits adjacent to the Mendocino Coast Humane Society on Summers Lane off Highway 20. The Humane Society Shelter will remain open. Richard Molinari, the Director of Animal Care Services, says the closure is part of a cost-cutting effort at the county. Due to ongoing budget concerns, the County Board of Supervisors asked each department to develop proposals to reduce costs.

Molinari says the Fort Bragg facility costs approximately $240,000 per year to operate, and since reopening in 2019, the volume has been low. Since 2019 the shelter has only taken in 290 strays and surrenders and adopted or returned 410 animals. Many of the adopted animals were transferred to Fort Bragg from the Ukiah shelter. He says the closure will save approximately $125,000 per year.

The small volume at the county could be in part due to the Humane Society. Judy Martin, Executive Director of the Mendocino Coast Humane Society Shelter, changed their practices and began excepting strays and surrenders from anywhere in the county in 2020. Previously they only took in strays from within Fort Bragg City limits. The Humane Society is a no-kill shelter. The County's is not. Last year she took in eighty-three strays and a hundred and eighty surrenders from county residents. This is in addition to the animals that they are contracted to take from residents in Fort Bragg.

While the county has provided sporadic animal services on the coast, the Humane Society has served the area since 1987. Their current facility is also built on Fort Bragg City property and was paid for with a million-dollar donation from Margorie Reitz. Martin hopes to eventually take over the county shelter building to increase the capacity of the Humane Society. She also hopes the county will contract with the Humane Society and provide funding to absorb some of her costs. She currently receives $2600 monthly from the city for services but otherwise relies on donations.

Molinari has sent a proposal to the Humane Society to pay for impound fees on a per-animal basis. Martin is hoping for more and says that her board is currently in conversations with the supervisors to work out a monthly stipend similar to the City of Fort Bragg or get license fee funds from coastal residents allocated to her organization.

The Humane Society is also picking up the slack from the shortage of veterinarian services on the coast, providing low-cost spay and neuter services, euthanasia, and vaccines. The county also has these services, but residents need to go to Ukiah to access them. A caravan owned by the county that provides mobile services could relieve the backlog, but according to Molinari, it's difficult to get the central county veterinarians who staff it to come to the coast.

One of the other issues that plagues the county is the lack of a facility to cremate dead animal remains. Molinari says the 25-year-old incinerator at the county is used sparingly due to ongoing maintenance costs that range from 5 to 11 thousand dollars. The machine is out of date, and parts are no longer available. He says the county cannot handle the capacity needed and has stopped providing this service to residents. Replacing the incinerator would cost a quarter million the county doesn't have. Residents are forced to take their deceased animals to Santa Rosa or bury them at home, although it's unclear if that is legal.

Molinari also mentioned the county recently received a $100,000 dollar grant from the California Animal Welfare Association for a new state-of-the-art mobile van, and he hopes to expand services. That said, the issue of veterinarian shortages will not go away anytime soon. According to Molinari, veterinarian schools are not graduating enough doctors to meet national demand.

The good news is the closure will not result in job losses. The two employees in Fort Bragg are transferring to other positions within the county. The bad news is the closure will increase the pressure on the Ukiah facility, which is currently at 90 percent capacity for dogs and 70 to 80 percent capacity for cats. Overcrowding in Ukiah could result in the county using euthanasia to create space.

Martin and Molinari agree that animal adoptions are down nationally, and Mendocino is no exception. Molinari says families that would typically have 3 to 4 animals have reduced to 1 or 2 due to saving money. The Ukiah shelter can handle 50 dogs and 50 cats. The shelter they are closing could handle 14 dogs and up to 16 cats. That's around a 20 percent reduction in system-wide capacity.

Even with the closure, the proposed budget for county animal services for next year is over $2 million. Approximately $528,000 is covered by licenses and adoption fees. The Mendocino Coast Humane Society budget is $950,000.

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