What is the current issue regarding the contract dispute?
The Fond du Lac Humane Society has provided animal control services for the City under a contract in which the terms have not substantially changed in over a decade. That contract did not accurately reflect today’s environment, volume of animals and other challenges. Additionally, it did not take into consideration increased costs associated with these services. Most importantly, it did not address safety issues pertaining to our staff and the animals.
Example: The City of Fond du Lac has a serious cat problem, and the Fond du Lac Humane Society cannot address the problems alone. An over-populated facility increases the potential for spreading diseases and increasing stress to the animals. Our facility was built to safely hold 100 cats. Over the past year, we had 150-200 cats within our facility at any given time. We have temporary structures that we use, but it is much more difficult to control the spreading of diseases with this quantity of animals. We continue to do our part to help with this problem by spaying and neutering stray animals, at our own expense, but more needs to be done to deal with the enormous volume of stray cats and kittens. We MUST address the root of the problem because our facility is physically not able to handle the sheer volume of cats coming through.