The Orangeburg County Animal Control office defines its mission as being “to protect the health and welfare of citizens in the communities, to educate the public about animal laws and provide professional and efficient service.”

As part of this effort, the OCAC, along with the City of Orangeburg, sets up animal traps, complete with food and water, to catch stray animals based upon the complaints and requests of property owners.

But the program has not been well received by some residents who have expressed concerns the program is cruel and unnecessary.

The issue has been the subject recently of a number of Times and Democrat “Letters to the Editor.”

“We have always maintained the policy for providing traps to citizens that request them,” Orangeburg County Administrator Bill Clark said. “We do those at the request of citizens on animals trespassing on their property.”

Clark said the conditions and permission of trap placement are always discussed with property owners. The owner is also required to immediately notify Animal Control when an animal is noticed in the trap.

After the stray is picked up, Animal Control will take it back to the shelter, advertise the animal for a time through local media outlets and then put the animal in the Society of Prevention to the Cruelty of Animals adoption program.

But the SPCA, a separate non-governmental entity that looks to find abandoned dogs and cats a home, has only so much space at its location on Ruf Road to house strays.

About 5,000 strays are found by the county each year, and only about 1 percent of the animals are adopted.

If the animal is wild or uncontrollable, it will be euthanized. State law requires animals to be held for three days before being euthanized.

Orangeburg City Administrator John Yow said the city, too, sets traps on a complaint basis and at the permission of the property owner.

“The Animal Control officer is very well trained and very careful to inspect an animal and see if it can be related to an owner,” Yow said.

Animal control ordinances are in place for both the county and city, requiring that all animals are to have an identification tag bearing the owner’s name and address.

County and city Animal Control officers have the authority to take ownership of any animal “running at large” without an ID collar or rabies tag.

Orangeburg ordinances state that “all animals shall be kept and maintained in such a manner as not to disturb the peace, comfort, health, safety and general welfare of any person residing in the city.”

Recently, Orangeburg resident Tim Chappell expressed his concerns that the city and county have “declared war” on homeless cats by punishing those who feed the animals and trapping strays only to have them euthanized.

Chappell questions why Animal Control does not follow the lead taken from more “enlightened” parts of the country where animals are trapped, vaccinated, neutered and then released.

“That is animal control — not cycle after cycle of kittens being born and the county trapping them and killing them,” Chappell wrote. “I don’t know, but killing so many animals seems to diminish our humanity. There is a better way, and I think we should try and find it instead of the constant slaughter of what is essentially a domestic animal.”

County officials say having a program that would call on taxpayers to pay for all strays to be spayed or neutered would be both impractical and costly.

With the county picking up a large number of strays -- about 5,000 annually -- the $75 to $100 cost for each animal to get spayed or neutered would fall on the taxpayer.

The Animal Control office on its Web site reminds individuals and pet owners to have their animals spayed or neutered to eliminate the number of strays.

Another reader, Patricia Sizemore, wrote in support of law enforcement and Animal Control cracking down on feeding strays and the problem that feeding these animals can create.

Written from the cat’s perspective, Sizemore noted that feeding strays who are not spayed or neutered contributes to the homeless cat and dog population. In addition, Sizemore cites the disease and public health problems associated with a large population of strays.

“Orangeburg needs to pass a city ordinance banning the feeding of strays,” Sizemore writes.

“Littering is against the law; throwing food out is littering. People who want pets, please call the SPCA to adopt one. Don’t let them breed only to die all alone.”

Orangeburg County Animal Control Director Ben Boensch said the trapping program has been policy for a long time and is not unusual.

“We are doing our job and enforcing the law, and that is making people mad,” Boensch said, noting that any individual who feeds cats hanging around their property becomes responsible for the animal. “You claim ownership because you are propagating the problem.”

Boensch said many homeowners also set their own traps as well due to the increasing concern over strays and the potentially dangerous diseases they may carry such as rabies.

To those who would like to see strays vaccinated at taxpayer expense, Boensch said not only would the program be very costly but also self-defeating.

“All animals have to be vaccinated against rabies,” he said, noting that even if animals did receive shots, it would be required to recapture these same animals again to give them their required annual rabies shots.

In an effort to expand and strengthen the SPCA, both Orangeburg County and that organization entered into an agreement earlier this year allowing the SPCA to solely occupy the Ruf Road shelter previously shared with Animal Control.

The agreement will allow SPCA’s capacity to double for dogs, but cat capacity would remain the same. The transition is expected to occur by the spring of 2009.

T&D Staff Writer Gene Zaleski can be reached by e-mail at gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5551.

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