MSPCA to close THREE locations!!!
This is SO sad, as they help so many, many animals! :( All due to the economy and the decline in the stock market.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...stPop_Emailed5
574 =Number of animals surrendered to MSPCA facilities statewide in the first 11 months of 2007.
11,000 Estimated # of animals cared for in 2008 by the three shelters scheduled to close in Sept.
BROCKTON - It was almost business as usual yesterday at the city's largest animal shelter, as the staff went about its daily routine of feeding and caring for the 134 animals housed here while prospective pet owners stuck fingers through cages and made baby talk to dogs, cats, and rabbits.
Come September, this shelter and two others run by the nonprofit Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will close their doors, the latest victims of a declining stock market that drained the association's endowment of $11 million, about a quarter of its value.
"Not even animal shelters are immune to what's going on with the economy," said MSPCA spokesman Brian Adams, standing in front of a wall of cages containing cats. The shelter takes in dogs, cats, birds, ferrets, and other animals.
The shelters are scheduled to close as more pets are being abandoned or surrendered by owners no longer able to care for them due to foreclosures or other financial problems. In the first 11 months of 2008, 836 animals were surrendered to MSPCA facilities statewide, compared with 574 during the same period last year.
The organization will close its Springfield facility by the end of next month and another on Martha's Vineyard by May 1, leading to the elimination of 27 more jobs, including 11 in Brockton. All three shelters cared for about 11,000 animals in 2008, Adams said.
The depletion of the endowment will also result in the loss of 19 administrative jobs in Boston, as well as several programs, including one that cares for the pets of people incapacitated by HIV or AIDS.
The Brockton facility, known as the Metro South Adoption Center, first opened in 1944 and moved to its current location on West Elm Street in 1994. Manager Kim Heise said she and her staff learned of the closing Thursday.
"It was a shock to all of us," she said. "We knew that there were troubles, that things were difficult, but it's really hard to wrap your head around this."
Heise, who has worked at the shelter for 15 years, said the staff's first concern was the animals.
The shelter will continue to take in animals, and any pets remaining by September will be transferred to four remaining MSPCA shelters in the state.
The city of Brockton operates an Animal Control Shelter, and Heise said it will become an alternative for residents who can no longer care for their pets.
The MSPCA shelter in Brockton has the capacity to care for up to 4,200 pets a year, but the city-owned shelter cannot accommodate even half that number, Heise said.
"They know it's going to be tough when we're not here anymore," she said.
Carrie McInerney of East Walpole took home a rabbit yesterday. She said that she had heard about the closing Thursday, but that her children had been begging her to get them a pet for some time, and that's why she went to the shelter.
Clutching a black and white rabbit to her chest with one hand and patting it with her other hand, she said, "It's really sad that this place has to close, because in these economic times, there's a greater need for places like these."
