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Date: 11/7/2023
HOLYOKE — The Development and Governmental Relations Committee invited representatives from Thomas J O’Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center to discuss their work serving the city’s animal population, the struggles they face and what the city can do to help.
Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos filed the order and explained after adopting a kitten from the shelter he was informed of some of the struggles being faced by them. Because of this and because they are a line item in the city’s budget, he wanted to open a discussion with the city.
Representing the shelter was Executive Director Lori Swanson, who said she wanted to share the state of animal welfare, which she feels is currently in crisis. She referenced two articles from national publications from this summer describing the state of shelters being overrun and having issues finding homes for the animals they serve.
“We’re seeing that at TJO and it’s not just Holyoke. We’re proud to serve Holyoke, Chicopee and Springfield, with a mission of providing comprehensive animal control services and programs to our communities to not only protect animals in public health and the environment, but to responsibly place those animals into our community,” Swanson said. “We do that through a variety of services. The one that is most evident to our public and public safety, including the city of Holyoke, is animal control.”
Swanson said TJO’s priority is public safety and health, and they have a 24/7 response system for overnight priority calls and are available to anyone in the community in general daily from 7 a.m. to 10 pm.
Swanson said they are proud to ensure the well-being and safety of animals and community members. She said animal control officers on average respond to 5,000-6,000 calls a year in the community. Many of these calls include follow up investigations for abuse, neglect and bite reports.
According to Swanson, a focus and goal of the shelter is to help people into ordinance compliance and are happy to assist as a resource to the community for information and help responding to things relating to pets and animals in the city.
“It’s really about doing a lot of education and helping people with resources,” Swanson said. “We take in anywhere from 2,500 to 2,800 animals a year. One of the trends we are seeing lately is the number of stray dogs has increased 41% over the last three years, and with that the troubling trend is the number of people that are claiming those dogs has gone down from 73% to 63% in three years. That’s leaving us with questions as to why people can’t reclaim their pets, what can we do to help them and what can we do to help families in crisis.”
Swanson reiterated animal welfare was in crisis and their shelter has been close to full often in recent years. She said networking has already begun between the shelter and local and state partners to work on gaining more resources and grants to help animals in the community.
“We’re seeing more and more health issues, more and more behavioral issues, so the more resources that we can get to develop our staff to work with animals, the better off animals are going to be and the more animals we can save in our community,” Swanson said.
Swanson said while this is the current state of the shelter’s ongoing work, she has continued working to combat what they can and said they have been working on increasing their staffing levels and outreach programs.
She added the crisis in animal shelter is a direct response from a crisis on veterinary medicine.
“It’s left animals that are not able to access care and that’s a real problem that we face. We see people who can’t provide veterinary care, can’t access behavioral support and its something that’s a systematic problem and an outcome of the pandemic,” Swanson said. “We’re working to try and meet these needs and are eager to work with the city of Holyoke to do that.”
Councilor David Bartley said many of the calls he gets from constituents is regarding animal control and asked Swanson if she had any statistics breaking down the number of calls from each ward. Swanson said she hasn’t been able to pull the numbers by community, but she would get that information to Bartley.
Swanson said the main message they want to get out to the public is that any time anyone sees something they are concerned about regarding animals, they call TJO.
“It helps us build cases and document concerns for animals because often you get a call, and somebody reports something, and we go and whatever they’ve reported we aren’t finding what they are seeing. So, we have to work together to continue to report and have people report every time they see so we have that documentation,” Swanson said.