The situation currently prevailing at the Polk County Animal Shelter in Lakeland, Florida, a tax-funded institution meant to protect and help animals, is heart-wrenching. Current management oversight by the Sheriff has left animal advocates, including myself, deeply concerned and worried for the welfare of these helpless beings.
Firstly, the shelter is under the leadership of the Sheriff, who maintains tight control over access to the facility and information released from it. Employees are being suppressed from disclosing the actual conditions at the shelter. Transparency, a crucial facet of any tax-funded establishment, is missing. We need animal advocates to be in charge of the shelter, not the Sheriff who has other things he is responsible for and needs to focus on. Let’s let the animal professionals be in charge of the animal shelter.
Secondly, it is a heart-wrenching reality that the conditions at the shelter are far from humane. Precious animals are kept in 100 F metal cages without air conditioning, with kittens crying out pitifully while covered in their own feces without access to water. As of the writing of this petition, they no longer allow access to the “back holding room” where conditions are the worst.
Third, the kill (euthanasia) rate of the shelter is alarmingly high, maintaining its disheartening rank as number one in Florida for the past three years and tragically fourth in the entire USA…