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4 <br />Managing Pet Overpopulation: <br />A Strategic Plan for Orange County, North Carolina <br />Executive Summary <br />This is a five-year strategic plan developed by Animal Services staff and the Animal <br />Services Advisory Board (ASAB), on the basis of professional knowledge and best <br />practices, to address pet overpopulation and euthanasia in Orange County. The plan <br />builds upon strong animal services and a progressive tradition of animal welfare and <br />seeks to reduce the number of animals that end up needing to be sheltered at <br />considerable costs to the County and its residents. <br />As population continues to grow in the County, planning of this kind becomes even <br />more critical, as it is expected that there will be an increasing number of surplus pets- <br />that is, cats, dogs and other animals needing to be sheltered. In the absence of a <br />vigorous effort to be proactive toward this dynamic of population growth, there will be <br />growing costs associated with caring for and sheltering animal companions. Indeed, it is <br />a widely held belief among animal welfare professionals that the actual costs of reactive <br />approaches to pet overpopulation problems exceed the costs of more positive and <br />proactive intervention. <br />All of this is worth bearing in mind given the recent completion of the County's new <br />state-of-the-art Animal Services Center. While expansion is certainly a possibility, it is <br />an expensive one from the standpoint of capital outlay as well as operating costs. It is <br />believed that by implementing this plan Animal Services can better manage the <br />assessed risk for pet overpopulation in Orange County and the increases this risk poses <br />for sheltering costs. Only in this way will it be possible to assure that the Animal <br />Services Center provides sufficient sheltering capacity in the absence of an increased <br />euthanasia rate. <br />This plan has been developed to be cost neutral and self-sustaining. More specifically, <br />it is based on an existing fee differential for licensing sterilized and unsterilized cats and <br />dogs, and the creation of cost-effective public/private partnerships. There is no <br />recommendation in this five-year plan to increase the licensing differential fee, but in the <br />long run, adequate funding for the plan does involve achieving greater compliance with <br />the County's licensing requirements. <br />Staff and the ASAB have developed this strategic plan to help the County manage its <br />commitment to animal welfare in a manner that is both good fiscal policy and good <br />public policy. By taking a proactive approach and promoting "targeted spay/neuter" in <br />the coming years, there is every reason to believe that the number of animals needing <br />to be sheltered will be lessened, and that costs will thereby be managed to a much <br />larger degree than would be possible in the absence of such a plan. <br />2 <br />