By Sarah Rae

Humane Society needs a new home

Jun 28, 2016 | 7:56 PM

A local animal shelter is looking for a new home for its critters.

The Battlefords Humane Society building is badly in need of updating, according to veterinarian Shawn Haas.

Haas said the current shelter building is about 25 years old and has some major structural issues with it.

“It wasn’t built as an animal care facility and the activities that have gone on in it have actually disrupted and destroyed a significant amount of the building,” he said. “There’s rot and mould issues that essentially can’t be dealt with other than moving on to a new structure.”

Shelter coordinator Michelle Spark pointed out some major leaks around the shelter, rotten walls that are coming apart and a wall that is no longer fully attached to the ground. Apart from the visible damage, she said there’s also mould inside the walls. Spark said there are ventilators throughout the building, but ventilation and humidity are still major problems.

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Haas said the biggest improvements with the new building will have to do with disease control. When animals first come to the shelter, staff have no idea whether they have any diseases, so they are strategically moved through the facility while being treated. In the current building, there’s only one stream to move the animals through while being treated, so if there’s an infection, the movement of animals shuts down while it’s handled. In the new facility, there would be two or three streams, so if one room was contaminated, the operation could continue.

The humane society sees about 650 to 700 animals each year, according to Haas, whether they are strays or no longer wanted by their owners.

“If we did not exist the only avenue we would have to deal with those animals would be to put them down, so it’s a much more humane process from our perspective to be able to take healthy animals and provide them with a new home,” he said.

Haas said the plans for the new building are about 90 per cent complete and the organization is looking at sites. He said construction could begin within a year.

He said there are various groups and individuals who have donated money for the new building already, but once the plans are finished there will be more intense fundraising efforts.

The Rotary Club of the Battlefords pledged some of its fundraising money to the new building at an event Monday evening. Spark and Haas were presented with a giant cheque for $50,000, half of which they’ll get this year and half over the next two years.

Rotary president Bryan Nylander said the club has five major fundraisers every year which raise about $50,000 and they like to invest that back into the community.

“The goals that the humane society has fit very well with ours,” he said. “They are for the community, they do it without much funding, they need the support of the community and I think all of us who are in our club have a distinct interest in ensuring that their efforts are well supported,” he said.

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae. Concerns regarding this story can be addressed to News Director Geoff Smith at 306-446-6397.