Pound Animal Sale for UCSD Research a Growing Issue

A growing number of public officials in North County are voicing opposition to a policy of the county’s Department of Animal Control that allows the sale of stray dogs and cats to UC San Diego for medical research.

The city councils of Encinitas, Solana Beach and Carlsbad have rewritten their county contracts to oppose the practice--and have gone so far as to entertain the notion of operating their own animal shelters, or contracting with other agencies that don’t sell animals for medical research.

The cities of Poway, San Marcos and Vista have adopted contractual language with the county to make sure they’re put on notice if their strays might end up at UCSD, but those cities stopped short of threatening specific action if animals from their communities are sold to UCSD.

Monday night, the Del Mar City Council will take up the issue.

All this suits Bob Melvin just fine.

Melvin, who lives in Solana Beach, heads the animal rights group called STOP, for Stop Taking Our Pets, which is opposed to so-called “pound seizures,” or the practice by the county of selling strays to UCSD for medical research.

UCSD officials note that the number of dogs and cats they buy from the county pounds is relatively small, but meets a critical need in their work. In the 1988-89 fiscal year, 526 dogs and seven cats were purchased by UCSD--1.4% of the 39,347 animals taken in by the county during that period.

Melvin has been attending one North County city council meeting after another in recent weeks, drumming up opposition to the county policy, and he’s finding an increasing level of support for his agenda.

In a sense, Melvin’s campaign is moot. While animals from two other county-run animal shelters--one in Mission Valley, the other in Bonita--may be purchased by UCSD for medical research, none are now taken from the Carlsbad animal shelter, which handles the strays and abandoned animals from most of North County. (The cities of Oceanside and Escondido have separate contracts with their community-based Humane Society shelters for animal control, and those organizations do not sell animals to UCSD.)

The county’s contract with UCSD allows the university to buy animals from the Carlsbad shelter as well, as long as the university gives 60 days’ notice of its intent to tap the North County stray animal pool.

It’s that possibility that sparked Melvin’s campaign.

“There’s no place in laboratories for our pets,” he says. “We have an animal shelter system supported by the taxpayers that is supposed to humanely take care of animals that are lost, stolen or stray. The system has a three-fold mission: to reunite pets and their owners, or if it can’t, to adopt them out to suitable families, and failing those two objectives, to humanely euthanize them.

“These shelters, though, were never conceived as warehouses for research laboratories.”

This is the time of year when 10 of the county’s 18 cities renew their annual contracts with the county--and it gives the opportunity for Melvin to argue for stronger language in those contracts to protect the animals in those cities.

The county’s biggest animal control customer is the city of San Diego, which has taken no action to object to UCSD’s use of pound animals for research.

But elsewhere, the number of cities objecting to the county practice is growing.

In Encinitas, Solana Beach and Carlsbad, there’s already talk among city officials of dropping their contracts with the county to protest the policy of allowing sheltered animals to be used for research.

“We already have a contract that tells the county, in so many words, ‘You will not take our animals for medical research.’ And now we’re preparing a resolution, just to emphasize our point, telling the county to stay the hell out of our city if they want to turn our animals over for research,” said Carlsbad City Councilwoman Ann Kulchin.

“We’re giving them fair warning,” she said. “We don’t want them to think we’re not taking this seriously.”

The Encinitas City Council’s contract with the county animal control department, approved last Wednesday night, puts three restrictions on the county that are intended to make sure no stray cats or dogs from its city are sold to UCSD.

The contract states no animals seized in Encinitas can be sold to the university, requires that the city be given 60 days’ notice if any animals from the regional shelter in Carlsbad are to be sold to UCSD, and allows the city to terminate its contract with the county with only 30 days’ notice.

Since no animals from North County are now taken for medical research, county officials had no problem signing the contract.

Encinitas officials already have contacted the North County Humane Society in Oceanside to see if it can handle business from Encinitas. Ed Araiza, manager of the Humane Society, said his board of directors will consider the request.

Said Encinitas Mayor Pam Slater, “We’re not contesting the issue of animal research. But we think it’s entirely inappropriate for a citizen’s pet to be impounded and to maybe be turned over to UCSD without that citizen’s permission just because maybe that person is on vacation, or is ill, or was taken to a rest home, and couldn’t retrieve his or her animal. That person should feel secure that his animal will never end up as a research animal.”

Monday night, the Solana Beach City Council--which already has approved its contract with the county that also calls for the 60 days’ notice of possible pound seizures--will consider sending a letter to the county formally objecting to the policy.

“If our pets are picked up, we want to know where they are, and not where they might be--at UCSD,” said Mayor Marion Dodson.

She said she is interested in forming “a coalition with other cities who support our position, because there is strength in unity.” Such a coalition might consider forming a regional animal shelter operated by the member cities, she said.

Some cities outside of North County also oppose the county practice, even though their stray dogs and cats may end up in the pound-seizure pool in Mission Valley or Bonita. Santee, for instance, asked the county to specifically promise that none of its animals would end up at UCSD. But the county said it couldn’t do that, and that if Santee were going to specifically craft a contract prohibiting its animals from ending up in the medical research pool, the county simply would not serve Santee.

Santee officials looked elsewhere for animal protection, but couldn’t find another agency willing to take on the job, said city public information officer Bill Adams. Neighboring El Cajon, which operates its own animal control department, said it couldn’t take on any more work.

Santee officials, resigned to working with the county, nonetheless sent a letter earlier this month to the County Board of Supervisors, protesting the sale of animals to UCSD.

From July 1, 1989, through the first of this year, the county has sold 174 dogs from its Mission Valley and Bonita pounds to UCSD, at $55 each. The university can also buy cats, at $25 each.

In comparison, the department handled 22,579 animals during that same time period--of which about 16,000 were euthanized because they were neither reclaimed by their owners nor adopted by others. The balance were either reclaimed by their owners or adopted out to new owners.

In fiscal year 1988-89, UCSD paid the county about $35,000 for 533 animals that were purchased for medical research.

Critics argue that the county is risking losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in money paid for animal control by the various cities that contract for it, simply to preserve the slight UCSD income.

Encinitas alone, for instance, pays the county about $70,000 for animal control. But Sally Hazzard, the animal control officer for the county, notes that if a city were to terminate its contract, the county would save that much money by reducing its operating costs, which it bills the various cities on a an actual cost-incurred basis, determined by the number of calls or animals handled in a particular city.

When a stray or abandoned animal is picked up by the county, the shelter holds onto it for at least three working days, in case the owner calls for it. After that, pound officials determine whether the animal is “adoptable,” given its characteristics and depending on how many similar animals are in the adoption cages.

If the animal is deemed unadoptable and doomed to be destroyed, officials check to see whether that particular type of animal--say, a particular size and sex--is desired by UCSD. If so, the animal is then put in a five-day holding cage, where it is given a second chance to be claimed by the owner or adopted. If it isn’t, the animal is offered to UCSD for purchase.

The contract between the county and UCSD has been in existence since the early 1960s, said Hazzard. County officials most recently re-evaluated the policy in November, 1987, when a citizen advisory panel said there was no reason for the county to reconsider the pact with UCSD. The issue never got to the Board of Supervisors.

Stuart Zola-Morgan, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSD who chairs the university’s animal subjects committee, said that importance of university access to pound animals cannot be overstated.

The pound seizures, he said, provide a “crucial role” for medical research because, at a time of reduced funding for university research, they are less expensive than animals that are specially bred for research purposes.

Moreover, he argues, why breed additional animals for research if suitable animals are available locally and are doomed anyway because of pet owners’ carelessness in controlling their pets?

“You’d be killing two animals instead of just one,” he says. “Close to 15 million animals are put to death every year in pounds around the country. Only 2% to 3% are used in research. Why aren’t the animal protectionists out there with education programs about proper care of pets, and with spaying programs?”

The animals taken from the pound are anesthetized before they are subjected either to surgical procedures or drugs, Zola-Morgan said. After the procedure, most of the animals are killed with an overdose of the same anesthesia--”the same way they would be killed at the pound,” he said.

Some animals are allowed to recover, to measure the effectiveness of certain treatments and procedures, he said.

“This is a very defensible and noble cause,” he said. “The animals suffer no pain and provide us with information that will increase the welfare of humans and animals alike.”

Melvin, of STOP, said he isn’t necessarily opposed to the use of animals in medical research--but that he is intent on stopping medical research on stray animals that are picked up by county animal control officers.

County Supervisor John MacDonald, whose district includes the North County cities that are debating the issue, said he favors the policy, partly because “the options those animals face are very limited, anyway.”

Still, given the controversy, MacDonald said he is considering suggesting a ballot measure in November--either binding or advisory--that would measure public support or opposition to the practice.

“It’s a very volatile issue, but I’m not sure that there is strong public opposition to the policy,” he said. “It’s something we need to get a handle on.”