SPCA to close shelter in Evans
Galleria will get adoption center
The Erie County SPCA is closing its Evans animal shelter but is not abandoning its mission in the Southtowns, Executive Director Barbara Carr said.
It’s just shifting its operations northward.
The SPCA plans to close its shelter on Pontiac Road by July 1 because the nonprofit organization is losing money there.
“The board has looked at this for about four years,” Carr said. “It’s difficult. We were losing so much money there, and not doing the adoptions we knew we could be doing in a better location.”
The agency will open an adoption center June 1 in Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga, she said. The agency had an adoption center there for about four months last year. In the first 40 days, 383 cats and kittens were adopted from the site on the second level near Macy’s.
That compares with 559 cats, 322 dogs and 52 other animals that were adopted from the Evans shelter in the 2008 fiscal year, the SPCA said.
Carr said the SPCA’s mall location will cost less to operate than the Southtowns location. Total revenues and support for the Pontiac Road shelter in 2007 and 2008 averaged $152,300 annually, while expenses averaged $291,268, she said.
“We won’t lose money. It’s a whole lot easier,” she said. “We’ve really not gotten a good representation of support from people who live in the Southtowns.”
The Walden Galleria location would have cats available for adoption all the time, and dogs would be available on a regular basis when the SPCA’s Whisker Wag’n, a mobile adoption unit, visits.
Residents will not be able to surrender animals at the mall, but they can take them to the SPCA main location, 205 Ensminger Road, Town of Tonawanda.
Some Southtowns residents may not want to drive to Tonawanda to adopt an animal, but Carr said people already make the drive from East Aurora, Holland and Wales.
“I don’t think the people in Angola are cruel,” she said. “There’s absolutely no evidence that the people in East Aurora, Wales and Holland would dump their animals. Why would it happen in Southtowns?”
The news of the shutdown has left Evans scrambling to make arrangements for stray dogs it picks up. The town has had a contract with the SPCA for years.
“We’re talking with local kennels and local veterinarians here,” Police Chief Ernest P. Masullo said. “Worst-case scenario, if we can’t find the owner, we would transport the dog to the SPCA in the Town of Tonawanda.”
He said the town picks up 30 to 50 stray dogs a year.
Carr said adopting animals more quickly means they will have fewer stress-related illnesses, and there will be space for more animals in the Town of Tonawanda as they move to new homes.
There are four full-time and two part-time employees in the Evans shelter. Carr said she had asked three of the full-time employees to move to the Town of Tonawanda facility. She said she did not know whether the other three employees have been offered jobs there.
The Evans shelter, which the SPCA has owned since 1984, will be put up for sale.
Ten Lives Club is looking into filling the void when the shelter closes.
“This is a new opportunity that would benefit us and [fill] a need in the Southtowns,” said Marie Edwards, founder of Ten Lives Club, a cat rescue and adoption nonprofit organization. “I’d love to see someone take it over.”
Edwards said she has space to add dogs to the four-acre facility in Concord. But she would have to add kennels and hire a canine expert, she said, adding that she has contacted some towns in southern Erie County.
“I’m willing to move it over to where we are,” she said. “I need the public’s help.”
The shelter would remain a no-kill shelter, as it has been since its inception in 2001, she said.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments