COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
Pawmetto Lifeline had the grand opening of
its spay and neuter clinic at its new facility just a little more than 6
months ago, and officials say they're on track to meet surgery goals they set
before the clinic ever opened.
The facility is the first National Spay/Neuter Response Team certified clinic in the Midlands, and officials say they believe its existence
will ultimately reduce and potentially eliminate pet overpopulation in the
Midlands.
Clinic Director Tracy
Johnson says since the new clinic opened, veterinarians have performed 3,677
surgeries. They are currently using one veterinarian team for operations,
and they believe they are on track to meet their one year goal of 8,400-9,000
surgeries.
Eventually, Johnson say they hope to increase the volume of surgeries
to 30,000 a year to be able to prevent the high number of homeless pets that
are euthanized.
"Spay and neuter is absolutely the long term answer to
reducing the number of animals that end up in municipal shelters," said
Johnson. "The only way to reduce the volume is to reduce the number of
animals that are born. Being able to provide the community with a full load of
surgeries and being able to produce anywhere between 20,000 and 30,000
surgeries a year is really going to make that impact."
Johnson says to get to that high number of surgeries they
will eventually add one, possibly two, more veterinarian teams. She says they
plan to add another veterinarian team once they have the volume of pet
surgeries to support it.
According to officials at Pawmetto Lifeline, approximately
17,000 pets are euthanized in shelters across Lexington and Richland County
each year because of pet overpopulation.
Johnson says every person who
owns an animal should have it spayed or neutered. She says many people may
think that they're not contributing to overpopulation if their pets are kept in
a controlled home environment, but that's not necessarily the case.
"It takes
less than 5 minutes for that animal to get out of your yard and create a litter
either way whether it's a male or female," said Johnson. "Every single person,
if they're not spaying or neutering their pet, risks contributing to the
thousands of animals that are being euthanized every year."
Pawmetto Lifeline's Spay and Neuter Clinic is open to the
public. To learn more or to make an appointment, call (803) 465-9100 or visit http://pawmettolifeline.org/.
The new clinic is part of Pawmetto Lifeline's new $6.5
million facility off of Bower Parkway. Officials say since the
facility's grand opening in March, the no-kill shelter has served more than
18,000 animals through its adoption and rescue, mobile vaccine pet food bank
and pet surgery services.
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