Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 20:11:45 -0400
From: Joan Cunningham
Subject: Animal Abandonment is a Cruelty and a Crime
Chatham county is fortunate to have a progressive Board of County Commissioners who have for over ten years provided funds to the Chatham County Health Department to provide spay/neuter services for the pets of Chatham county residents. The Health Department program uses means testing to determine eligibility and asks only a $20 co-pay. We are also lucky to have Chatham Animal Rescue and Education (CARE) who offers several programs with similar co-pays for both low income and other residents of Chatham county to spay or neuter their pets or strays that they take in. In fact, CARE just ended its annual, three-month “Beat the Heat” program which offers FREE spays for the female dogs and cats of Chatham residents. Chatham also has an open admission animal shelter that will take stray and unwanted animals, no questions asked.
In spite of all these opportunities to do the right thing it is astounding that someone in the community felt it necessary and appropriate to take a female cat with 6 new born kittens (eyes still closed) and put them in a cat carrier and drop them in the parking lot of a local church in this 90 degree heat! ‘Thank goodness someone in the neighborhood saw the crate, checked it out and found them. They are fine.
This was horrendous and not only is this cruel, inhumane and stupid, it is a crime. NCGS 14-361.1. Provides: Any person being the owner or possessor, or having charge of an animal, who willfully and without justifiable excuse abandons the animal is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. There is NO possible justifiable excuse for this behavior.