Improving Conditions for the Animals of King County


Members of the King County Council joined County Executive Ron Sims to work out a plan to address the most egregious problems effecting animal care at the King County Animal Care and Control (KCACC) animal shelters.  This action comes in the wake of a scathing report presented to Council by Nathan Winograd, a No Kill advocate  and shelter consultant hired by Council to evaluate KCACC and their ability to carry out animals services.    

The press conference (read more here) earlier this week unveiled a two-part plan to immediately fix shelter inadequacies in staffing and infrastructure and to establish a intra-county committee charged with developing a short and long-term plan that will ultimately determine the future of KCACC and its role in delivering animal services in King County.  Pasado’s Safe Haven applauds these positive developments.  We look forward to seeing improvements in the quality of life for the many abandoned and homeless animals who end up at the KCACC shelter. 

Animal cruelty investigations, a priority for Pasado’s Safe Haven, will be one area of focus for the intra-county committee.  Their recommendations will determine if KCACC continues to field these calls from the public and conduct investigations or if this role will be reassigned to another agency.  Although Pasado’s has had limited success working with KCACC on cruelty investigations in the past, we have witnessed one too many  cases compromised due to a lack of proper training and inadequate procedures. 
 

Pasado's was called to respond to a crime scene where 14 dead animals were dumped in a ravine

The most recent of these incidents happened just days ago when Pasado’s was called to a crime scene where over a dozen dead animals were found in a ravine.  Despite the presence of compelling evidence as to the owner of the animals and Pasado’s offer to perform necropsies on the animals to determine cause of death, KCACC’s actions on the scene and in the media have all but assured that justice will never be served.  Once again, animals have died in vain.

We are all too familiar with this scenario and feel the time has now come to advocate for the immediate  reassignment of all animal cruelty cases to the King County Sheriff’s department or local police department as appropriate.  Violence toward animals should be treated as a serious crime that merits the benefit of an investigation by fully-commissioned officers trained to properly assess crime scenes and who have access to the infrastructure needed to maintain the integrity of critical evidence.  The Citizen’s Advisory Council came to this same conclusion months ago when they submitted their recommendations to the King County Council. 

We will continue to provide you with updates on this issue following the Town Hall meeting which took place on April 14th.