ANIMAL CONTROL
There is NO municipal animal control in the US Virgin Islands!
>The St. Croix Animal Welfare Center signs a grant with the USVI Department of Agriculture every year that tasks us with being an “open admission” animal shelter.
>It also tasks us to perform “animal control to the best of our ability.”
>Unfortunately, the amount we receive from the government only funds the first 209 animals PER YEAR we intake. On average we take in 2500 per YEAR. This does not leave much left (if any) funding for active animal control.
>We do go out on compassion calls for sick and injured animals. We have limited staff for this, and are able to go out 1-2 days per week.
>If you have concerns about a particular animal, please call us and let us know: LOCATION, INJURY/CONCERN, DESCRIPTION, HOW LONG YOU HAVE OBSERVED IT IN THAT LOCATION.
>We will do our best to respond to all calls, however, due to the severe overpopulation on the island, and our limited staffing, we have to triage our response based on severity of the situation, and may not be able to get to it immediately.
Why can’t you just go out and collect all the stray animals?
Please remember we are still in temporary facilities since Hurricane Maria. Currently, we have 13 kennels available for strays, and 6 kennels available for adoptable medium to large dogs. If we were to go out and collect every single stray, every day, we would have no place to humanely house those animals. Active animal control would be a death sentence. That is not our mission as an organization. Therefore, we only pick up animals on compassion calls that are sick or injured, and try to time this so that we have space or a foster to take those animals in, house them humanely, treat them and send them to a forever home.
Will you be able to do active animal control when you move to Castle Coakley?
Our kennel space will increase by about 50% in Castle Coakley. This increase in space will absolutely increase our lifesaving ability. However, even if we had unlimited space, we would still be able to fill every kennel within a week. The overpopulation issue is incredibly severe. We also have to ask the question: what do we do with all these animals? Ideally we’d like to find homes for everyone. Yet we are limited geographically and there are simply not enough island homes for all the strays. It’s a constant conundrum. We must address the root cause of overpopulation.
So what is the answer?
We need to get the overpoulation issue under control. The best way to do this is to spay and neuter as many animals as possible on the island. How are we supporting this effort?
- An aggressive spay and neuter program. We employ 2 full-time veterinarians in order to spay and neuter as many pets as possible. We are seeking for funding in order to add a third veterinarian that will help with these efforts.
- Humane education to educate on general animal welfare and why spaying and neutering is important.
- Hosting yearly (or more) large spay-neuter events by partners such as Visiting Veterinarians International.
What can I do to help?
Volunteer. Foster. Adopt. Shop at our Flea Market. Use our community clinic. Advocate to the Virgin Islands government to fund animal welfare in the USVI. Come to our events. Donate. We would also like to take this space to remind people to always be cognizant of Virgin Islands culture when advocating. Our philosophy is one of advocacy and education WITHOUT judgement or shaming. We believe that positive language and attitudes will prevail in the long run for advancing animal welfare in the US Virgin Islands.