Or, “Not in Our Backyard”

As I explore the intertubez, I sometimes stumble upon things that make me go, “Hmmm.”

On 11/28/2008, this comment appeared on the Pittsburgh City Paper website (as a comment attached to the most recent Tiger Ranch article):

Well, waddya know? It’s been reported that collection canisters are now appearing in Clarion County stores - “Please support the re-opening of the Clarion County Humane Society under new ownership”. Funny thing is the Contact person happens to be the asst. Shelter Manager that is “caring” for the Tiger Ranch hostages. Sounds like Clarion may just get their HIGH-kill shelter back.

It remains a big “maybe” though - folks in Clarion remember well what a kill factory it was and they actually have an upstart animal welfare program that maintains a no-kill philosophy. Perhaps the asshats in Philly will give generously enough to support a Clarion facility - they still seem to like Howie, or at least his fundraising success. Pity the animals…

Here’s a picture of one of the donation boxes in a local business in Clarion:

Anything that mentions “Clarion” makes my ears perk up, as that’s where the cats from the Tiger Ranch raid have been held since they were taken hostage back in March of this year. Since that time, I’ve become acquainted with some two-legged critters in the area, so it’s been on my radar.

So what the hell is going on in Clarion County, anyway?

Some History

First, PSPCA closes the Clarion branch of their organization in January 2008, leaving the county high and dry without any resources for animals in need.

Here’s an article from the Clarion News published July 13, 2007:

PSPCA Looks to Close Clarion County Animal Shelter

By: The Clarion News - Opinion & Editorial

The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which owns and operates the Clarion County Humane Society operation, confirmed last week it will close the Paint Township adoption center.

In a report published in the June 26 edition of the Clarion News, PSPCA chief operating officer Elaine Skypala confirmed the shelter will close in about six months and the PSPCA will instead refocus its priorities on cruelty investigations in this area rather than adoption shelters.

It’s a damning decision for stray and abandoned animals in Clarion County .

When the shelter closes, there will be no nearby location to take stray and abandoned animals. There are shelters in Venango and Butler counties, but given the increase in “drop-offs” which occurred in the Marianne area when the CCHS stopped accepting animals after hours, it is not unreasonable to believe some people will be more likely to turn their backs on strays and abandoned animals.

Also gone will be the option of local adoption of stray and abandoned animals.

Skypala said the shelter is using a lot more money than it is taking in from fees and donations. The money from branch shelters has never been enough to operate those shelters and the state organization has long subsidized the branches.

“This is really just not the best way to spend our money in this area,” Skypala said.

As we see it, abandoning the shelter is not in the best interest of the animals the PSPCA was organized to help.

The Clarion County Humane Society had been a local, independent organization, but ran into financial difficulties about 20 years ago and invited the PSPCA to take over the shelter.

The PSPCA owns the shelter facilities and land, and Skypala said her organization is open to all suggestions and possibilities for what to do with the facility. “We’re willing to work with anybody,” she said.

Clarion County residents interested in expressing their concerns about the shelter closing can contact the Pennsylvania SPCA at 350 E. Erie Avenue , Philadelphia , Pa., 19134, or by email at info@pspca.org

If the PSPCA follows through with its plan to abandon the abandoned animals of Clarion County, we hope there is a group of people willing to step up and operate an adoption center.

And we hope Clarion County residents who can help with donations donate accordingly.

That’s the way we see it. We welcome your viewpoint.

Here’s an announcement of the shelter’s closing published on Pittsburgh Channel 11 WPXI’s website on January 29, 2008:

Clarion County Humane Society To Close

Animals Not Adopted Will Be Transported To Philadelphia Shelter

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - updated: 5:39 pm EST January 29, 2008
CLARION COUNTY, Pa. — The Clarion County Humane Society is closing its doors for good on Thursday.

Last June, Howard Nelson, CEO of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which owns the facility, announced plans to close the shelter.

The animals that are not adopted by Thursday will be transported to a Philadelphia shelter.

A group of local residents have organized a group called Pet Adoption and Welfare Society, or PAWS, to fill the void left by the closing of the shelter.

For information on how you can adopt the remaining animals, please contact the Clarion County Humane Society.

Here’s another announcement of the shelter’s closing published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on January 31, 2008.

Clarion County animal shelter to close today

The Clarion County Humane Society is closing its doors today, and the 70 animals currently housed there will be taken to other shelters operated by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

It costs approximately $168,000 a year to operate the shelter in Shippenville, and fund-raising efforts there had never come close to meeting that cost, said Lisa Rodgers, director of outreach for the PSPCA. Plans to close the facility were announced in June.

A spokesman at the Clarion shelter said the facility has dogs, cats and a few doves. Many will probably be transferred to the Centre Hall Adoption Center because that is the closest facility, Ms. Rodgers said.

More Recent History

In March, PSPCA conducted the raid at Tiger ranch and took over 300 cats to (conveniently) empty shelter in Clarion, where the 200 or so that survived have remained ever since.

More recently (August 8, 2008), this article appeared in the Wellsboro Gazette, discussing the trials and tribulations that two independent rescues faced when attempting to secure a deal with PSPCA to lease former PSPCA shelter facilities in Wellsboro and Clarion

Two animal rescue organizations – Clarion PAWS and Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries, Inc. of Tioga County - have attempted to either lease or buy one of the PSPCA facilities.

Clarion PAWS first attempted to lease the already-closed Clarion County PSPCA facility in Paint Township and then tried to buy it. Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries, Inc. of Tioga County attempted to lease the still open Wellsboro Adoption Center on Route 6 in Charleston Township, Tioga County.

[snip]

Ochs said, “Clarion PAWS intends to adopt the no-kill advocacy shelter operation model, authored and taught by Nathan Winograd. Mr. Nelson indicated that the PSPCA could not be associated with potential animal hoarders.”

[more at link]

Further discussion and details regarding the situation in Clarion appeared on the “Clarion Talks” forum in September of this year (somewhat lengthy, but worth the read). You can find the forum here, here are some of the relevant comments:

PAWS now has a shelter location , volunteer mtg tonight

Judith
Sept 11, 2008

PAWS sent out an announcement last week that they have a shelter location now, they are asking people interested in volunteering to come to the clarion library basement meeting room at 6:30pm today - thursday, sep 11

www.ClarionHomeParty.com
Sept 12, 2008

Just wondering, since there is no mention of it on the PAWS website, where is the shelter?

Judith
Sept 12, 2008

i went to the meeting and it turns out the board is closing on the purchase of some ten acres of land in the next couple of weeks - they said where it is but i didn’t recognize the location and so i can’t remember now where exactly but somewhere in clarion county

after the closing they will be working with an engineer to design the site inculding buildings, then they will have to raise the money and build the shelter - so it won’t be opening next week or anything like that

Promotor Fidei
Sept 12, 2008

I guess I’m still a little confused by the whole PAWS thing.

How did it end up being cheaper to buy 10 acres and construct buildings from scratch than to just fix up the old shelter building? Wasn’t the PSPCA going to let PAWS use the building for free or next to nothing?

Also, what have people been doing with their “going to the shelter animals” for all these months because PAWS didn’t want to use the old building? Wouldn’t any space have been better for the animals than no space?

To the casual observer this is how it looked:

* People were pissy because the SPCA was pulling out of Clarion
* These people said, “Fine, I’ll start my own club and you’re not invited”
* The SPCA said, “Really it’s not personal, it’s just business. Here, if you are going to have a shelter you might as well use our building”
* PAWS replied, “Nope, we don’t need you or your crappy building. We’ll get our own.
* Next thing we hear from PAWS is, “So, does anybody want to give us a building we can use as a shelter?”

For once I’m not trying to start an arguement I imagine there are good answers, I just wonder what they are.

Judith
Sept 13, 2008

i will ask jan ochs, board member of clarion paws, to comment on the points you made, i think you are correct in your assesment of public confusion about what’s going on, she talked about some of this at the mtg thu nite

it seems to me she said they had planned to use the former shelter building and the arrangements fell thru about a week before they were going to move in, there’s more to it than that but i don’t remember the rest - i’ll ask her about it again

i know that strays picked up by animal control officers have been taken to the a.n.n.a shelter in erie since the clarion shelter closed, i got the impression that was the decision of the animal control authoriities - i think that means paspca

regarding surrenders, a friend of mine who had a cat they needed to surrender took it to the venango county humane society because that is the next closest shelter to clarion, but the cat was refused due to lack of space there, turns out the vchs is a private non-profit and therefore not obligated to take surrenders, they told them to find a relative or friend to take the cat or put an ad in the paper since none of the shelters around here have room for more animals right now

jan ochs said they have been able to find homes for many of the homeless animals advertised on the clarion paws forum, but she said at the meeting we will always have more homeless animals than homes for them even with a new clarion shelter unless we do trap/neuter/return to avoid more litters of feral kittens, that cats account for 80% of shelter euthanized animals and that feral kittens account for 75% of adoptable cats euthanized for lack of space, so that is why clarion paws has been doing the t/n/r all this past year

on a personal note, someone anonymously dropped off another half-grown kitten at our place just today, i guess they see we have a bunch of cats here and figure we will take care of him — i will feed him and i will get him shots and neutered, what else can i do? but it is hard on my budget - i only have a small monthly retirement benefit - and so i will probably end up putting the touch on my relatives again, they all keep telling me i have too many cats, but what can i do? we don’t really have a good place for them - i can’t take any more indoors so they have to stay out, but we have a traffic problem in front of our place and they end up getting killed on the road, one got run over about ten days ago on which i had spent $400 in vet bills due to urinary infection last june (don’t get me started on the outrageousness of vet charges)

but thanks for your response, i’ll work on getting some better information on this!

Judith
Sept 14, 2008

i found out this morning that jan ochs is away for a few days to oversee a spay/neuter clinic, but here is some info on this subject from her -judith

[Below] is an interview that I [jan] did in June 2008 with a reporter from the Wellsboro Gazette–Dianne Eaton. Interesting enough, the PA SPCA offered a non-profit rescue group from the Wellsboro area almost the exact same deal on the shelter in the Wellsboro area that they (PASPCA) intended to close. The Second Chance group experienced the same relationship with the PASPCA as Clarion PAWS and eventually walked away from the deal in June of this year. Anyone who wants to read the article in the Wellsboro Gazette last month can probably find it on line or contact Diane Eaton for a copy. It’s a real eye opener–the same run around that we received AND Mr. Nelson also indicated to Second Chance that the PSPCA would need to oversee operation policy–Second Chance is a no-kill and they also thought that they would be forced by the PSPCA to kill animals on a level that was not acceptable to their organization.
Heres the interview
***************************************************************************************
Did the PSPCA offer to lease the Clarion Humane Society to Clarion PAWS?

Yes. The lease offer was for $1 per year. That included the main shelter building and the house behind the facility. A generous offer BUT…

The buildings were to be leased “as is”. Any necessary repairs and remediations were the responsibility of Clarion PAWS. The PSPCA had no intention of spending any additional money on the facility. There was just a little over 1 1/2 acres of ground.

The main shelter building was 23 years old and had a significant moisture and odor problem. Rough estimate from a local contractor to remove the interior wall panels and address the moisture causing problems was at least $40,000.

All cages, supplies and equipment that was movable would be removed by the PSPCA and utilized at one of their other facilities. That left only the kennel runs cemented into the floor and cages anchored to the block walls. Approximately $40,000 worth of stainless steel bank cages were being removed and would need replaced. Clarion PAWS suggested that we could pay more per year for the lease, if the cages & some of the other equipment could be left, but Mr. Nelson indicated that they needed those items elsewhere within their own organization.

The house could not be made handicap accessible and we were not permitted to use the house for anything but volunteer training. We had hoped to utilize a portion of the house as a cage free evironment for adoptable cats, thus making some addtional room in the main shelter building for dogs.

Clarion PAWS intends to adopt the No-Kill Advocacy shelter operation model, authored and taught by Nathan Winograd. Mr. Nelson indicated at our Dec. 7, 2007 meeting that the PSPCA could not be associated with potential animal hoarders.

After discussion with our attorney and board members, we determined it was not in Clarion PAWS best interest to pursue the lease offer from the PSPCA.

While we are shelterless we are working on programs that do not require a physical shelter. We have started an organized Trap Neuter and Return program where feral & stray cats that are being cared for by colony care givers are trapped, spayed/neutered, given a rabies vaccine, checked & treated for earmites and then returned to their colony care giver. I read somewhere that 80% of the animals killed in US shelters are cats, of that 80%-75% are kittens from feral & hard stray cats. Clarion PAWS has offered winter shelter and trapping classes to colony care givers. Since April we have trapped 35 cats and had them sterilized, rabies vaccinated, treated for minor wounds & infections, given flea protection and checked for earmites and subsequently treated for ear mites if present. We have over 70 cats that need TNR and our list grows daily. Since none of our local vets are interested in doing large scale spay/neuters of feral & hard stray cats, we transport these animals once per month to Homeless Cat Management Teams clinic in Pittsburgh. We are currently negotiating with two other large organizations for surgical slots for our TNR program so that we are able to do up to 80 cat surgeries per month.

We’ve also begun a pet food bank program and we are working through Angel Food Ministries and other people food banks in our tri-county area. Donated cat food, cat litter and dog food is distributed to participants of the people food banks who have pets.

We are beginning discussions with several larger animal humane organizations about expansion of their low income/fixed income spay/neuter programs into Western Pennsylvania. I am not at liberty to mention the names of these organizations at this time.

You can take a look at our website to see what we have been doing http://www.clarionpaws.org and more details about our TNR program. Our newsletters are also available there.

Are you planning to open your own facility? Yes, we are. As a matter of fact we hope to be closing on approximately 10 acres of wooded ground within the next couple of weeks.

> What is the PSPCA doing with the former Clarion facility? The facility is currently housing the cats confiscated during the Tiger Ranch raid.

Are they leasing it to another organization or trying to sell it or doing nothing? I have no knowledge. Late this past winter, Clarion PAWS instructed their attorney to ask the PSPCA if they would consider selling the Clarion facility to us. My understanding was that they were interested and had the property appraised. My understanding was that the appraisal came in somewhere around $150,000. Shortly afterwards, the Tiger Ranch cats were moved into the facility. They are still there. We are no longer interested in the property.

CreatureProgram
Sept 18, 2008

I’m not saying I know the whole story with PAWS, but I do know that we, The Creature Program, would have loved the chance to get that building.

It would be nice to have a full facility so we could stop doing rescues and adoptions out of our homes. I know that my house is starting to look more and more like a zoo as each month goes by.

Judith
Sept 18, 2008

if you would love to get the chance to have that building why don’t you ask for it? as far as i know the building is still available to be leased from the pspca for $1/year

but apparently you would need to raise $80,000 to fix it up to the pspca standards and you would need to let the pspca set your policies for surrender/adoption, animal care and euthanisia during the entire time you lease the building

do you really want to let someone else set your policies? can you afford to raise $80,000 and have all that work done before you get to use the space? and still not own the building? it’s not such a great deal as it sounds at first

i hope you can find a full facility for your animals, i hope paws and the creature program can cooperate on some mutually beneficial programs in the future, i will keep that in mind as i work with paws, best wishes to your program

Judith
Oct 2, 2008

FYI if you are still interested in the shelter building here is some more info from Jan - “Anyone considering housing other animals in the PA SPCA building should carefully examine the potential medical issues of utilizing a building that had significant exposure to rather serious diseases. Rumor (with some substance) indicates that MRSA was present in the Tiger Ranch Cats. A retired regional Pennsylvania veterinarian has said that disinfecting the building will be extremely difficult. It may be that the animals the Creature Program are rescuing are not susceptible to the same illnesses, but this needs to be thoroughly researched. Also, the Lin Marie trial isn’t until mid January 2009 so odds are that the building will still be occupied at least into late winter with the Tiger Ranch cats.

Since I wrote the draft of this article, a few more comments have been added to that thread, including these excerpts from the discussion:

Teddy
Nov 30, 2008

I saw a collection cannister at a local store that asked for donations to help re-open the Clarion County Humane Society under new ownership? Has the facility been bought or is it leased (still under PSPCA auspices)? What will happen to all the Tiger Ranch cats if the trial isn’t until mid to late January? Does anyone know if the re-opened shelter would follow a no-kill philosophy? I haven’t seen anything on either the PSPCA or the Clarion PAWS sites regarding this development.

And:

Judith
Dec 1, 2008

the PAWS people have not been in contact with the old humane facility since last year, don’t know what’s going on there

i also heard a rumor of a collection box but the person didn’t know what store it was at, did you see the box yourself?

i heard a similar rumor that someone got a telephone solicitation for donations to a group that was going to re-open the old humane facility and they thought the donations were for clarion PAWS

but PAWS doesn’t do telephone solicitation for funds - sometimes i call people on the volunteer list who have given their phone numbers to volunteer for a particular event but otherwise PAWS doesn’t solicit by phone at all

There’s more, you can go to the link and read it for yourself if you’re interested.

What Now?

What follows contains speculation and conjecture, based upon discussions amongst ourselves. Take it or leave it as you see fit.

So what’s going on in Clarion?

Is PSPCA behind this drive to reopen the Clarion shelter, under their own direction again? If not PSPCA, then who? No one we have “on the ground” in Clarion knows anything about it. They’ve certainly made impossible for any real no-kill organization to make use of the facility.

If the Clarion shelter is not planned to be an actual de facto PSPCA facility (as the donation canisters’ signs say “under new ownership”), we already know from two other organization’s attempts to lease facilities from PSPCA that the only deal PSPCA will make with a rescue group is if the group operates under PSPCA’s oversight. So even if it doesn’t “look” like a PSPCA facility from any outward association, it certainly will be grounded in PSPCA’s failed philosophy of killing.

So in 2007, PSPCA decides to abandon Clarion, leaving the county high and dry for animals in need. And in its place, a grassroots rescue group of concerned local residents (Clarion PAWS), has sprung up to form the foundation of a true no-kill movement in Clarion County.

From the PAWS website:

We are a new group of concerned citizens who formed because we are tired of seeing pets thrown away, abandoned, neglected, abused and ultimately euthanized. More than just a shelter, Clarion PAWS (Pet Adoption and Welfare Society) is working to implement programs such as trap-neuter-return (TNR), spay-neuter for cats and dogs, foster families for displaced puppies and kittens while they wait for a new home, and educational programs for school children and interested adults.

In less than two years, they’ve attained 501c3 not-for-profit designation, conducted TNR clinics and public education programs, organized and participated in a number of spay/neuter events, implemented feral cat management programs at locations across the greater Clarion area, and started a pet food bank program.

And in that short time, this committed group of volunteers has already managed to find themselves in a position to be able to seriously move forward with respect to acquiring land and building a permanent shelter.

They’re getting support from veterinarians in the area, linking up with Petfinder, are holding fundraising events, publishing great newsletters, and actually have what appears to be a fairly functional, intelligent, and highly motivated Board of Directors.

Something tells me the being a member of the board of Clarion PAWS doesn’t carry the garden-party-Main-Line-blue-blood cachet and status that the same position does for PSPCA’s board members. Nope. PAWS board members actually have much more critical matters on their minds. PAWS is literally fighting for the lives of the animals of Clarion County.

Amazing what a group of committed, like-minded individuals can achieve when they all work together, is it not?

As more and more organizations like Clarion PAWS take steps toward making Pennsylvania a real no-kill state, it makes PSPCA looks worse and worse, as they cling to generations of their tradition of killing animals when they become inconvenient. Problem is, the rescue world is passing them by, and they can’t continue to make excuses why killing is necessary or “OK”. They have repeatedly rejected partnership and cooperation with other animal rescue/welfare organizations who embrace all facets of No-Kill, calling them “hoarders” with no justifiable reason for applying that term, and placing every obstruction they can in their way. (Reference Nathan Winograd and Second Chance/PAWS articles).

PSPCA’s game plan continues to seem to be aimed toward elimination and annihilation of any organization that exposes PSPCA for the fraudacity that it is. (By the by - one person who was present at the Tiger Ranch raid reportedly heard one of PSPCA’s employees saying that he wanted to “Shut down every no-kill group in the state.”)

So is PSPCA actually trying to re-open in Clarion, under the guise of being “under new ownership”? Or is this really a brand new group (that no one in the Clarion rescue community seems to know anything about)?

When they closed the facility less than two years ago, they claimed it wasn’t financially viable. And it probably wasn’t, if comparing “money spent in Clarion County” to “money raised in Clarion County”. But the resource was needed in Clarion County, and the funds were available within the larger PSPCA umbrella.

Oh, but that’s right, Nelson’s a finance guy - hired to make the balance sheet look better - not for his actual hands-on animal welfare experience. His resume shows far more years as a VP at Fannie Mae (16 years) than as Director of Washington Humane (2 years). (Anybody know why he left Washington Humane after two short years, anyway?) So the Clarion facility was shuttered because it made the bottom line on the PSPCA corporate financial statements look better. And by extension, making Nelson look better in his first year on the gig.

If their reasoning to close the Clarion branch two years ago was that it was “not financially viable,” that isn’t likely to ever change. (Clarion County is a somewhat sparsely populated, rural area.)

Why would it make sense to them (because if not a de facto PSPCA facility, it’s certainly an organization that PSPCA fully supports and anticipates receiving full cooperation from) to reopen in Clarion now - less than two years after they decided to close in Clarion?

Need a new facility to store and kill animals confiscated in those ramped up cruelty investigations, perhaps? I’m guessing they learned a lot from the Tiger Ranch raid. Some 200 of those cats are (allegedly) still being housed in PSPCA’s former Clarion facility. Nelson never counted on Lin Marie having a spine of steel and refusing to back down, refusing to make a deal, and refusing to surrender those animals prior to the case going to trial.

As a result, PSPCA has been “stuck” boarding those cats since March 13, 2008. If they would have envisioned this as the outcome, how much do you want to bet there wouldn’t still be 200 cats alive (if there even are, we don’t know, ‘cause they aren’t saying, and they sure as hell won’t let anyone in to see them).

And once again, while the people posture, fight, and play politics… the animals suffer.

Is Animal Planet getting this on film? Would make for great TV. Really. They can call it: “The Politics and Failure of Animal Welfare and Rescue in Pennsylvania: A Case Study.”

We’ll keep our ears perked up for more information, and pass it along as it comes our way. And if anyone out there reading this has more information to pass our way, you can reach us on the “Contact” page of this site.