Humane Society embarking on needed expansion

Published 6:00 am Tuesday, December 31, 2024

by Jack Dobbs

“We can hardly keep our heads above water.”

This is how Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society head Lorri Hare described her organization’s current situation, as an increasing overpopulation of animals stemming from Bowling Green’s ever growing population has necessitated an expansion of the Humane Society’s spay and neuter services.

To aid with this expansion, the City of Bowling Green has executed a quitclaim deed to transfer ownership of a little over three acres of land from the city and Warren County located near the Humane Society’s current facility at 1925 River St.

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Humane Society has had a spay and neuter clinic since 2002, with the current facility built in 2013.

“(With) the demand we have we just have outgrown it,” Hare told the Daily News. “We have people calling to get their animals in for spay, neuter, and many times throughout the year we’re eight to 12 weeks booked out.”

Bowling Green city commissioners approved the quitclaim unanimously. Speaking to commissioners before the vote, Hare said her organization is currently seeing around 11,000 animal intakes per year, a drastic increase from the 2,800 annual intakes it reported when she began 25 years ago.

Warren County Fiscal Court magistrates on Dec. 19 voted to deed the land to the Humane Society as well. Warren County Judge-Executive Doug Gorman said then both the city and the county “had no plans” to use the 3.42-acre property.

Hare told commissioners that constructing a larger facility “is not the answer,” since it would fill up with intakes too quickly. She said this year, they have reached “code red” status six times. Hare said when a code red is announced and adoptions or spay and neuter don’t pick up and intake does not slow down some “difficult decisions,” including euthanasia, would have to be made.

An expanded spay and neuter facility is something Hare said has been a “dream” for the Humane Society for some time now. She said currently the average time to neuter a small pet like a cat is about one to two weeks. For larger animals it can be three weeks to a month, and from May to October waiting times could be as much as eight to 10 weeks.

“We know the only way we’re going to see this problem start to decrease is to start doing more spay/neuter,” Hare told the Daily News. “We can’t adopt our way or rescue our way out of it. We’ve got to get that population under control.”

Hare said now that the land is secured, the Humane Society is planning to begin some “really aggressive grant writing” next year for the expansion. This process, she said, would realistically take around three years.

“We know that it’s going to be a lot of fundraising, a lot of work, a lot of research,” she said. “this will be the last addition we ever do, so we want it to be great, we want it to be state of the art, we want it to be efficient for the next 20 years.”

The expansion would be solely focused on spay and neuter services, rather than a full service location for animals.

“We are really fortunate to have a lot of wonderful veterinarians in our community,” Hare said. “It is not our mission to do wellness exams or anything like that. We strictly want to be a low cost spay, neuter, vaccination clinic.”

For Hare, this project represents one of the last goals she has before retiring from her 25-year career in animal welfare.

“We have a very good team, and this is kind of the last really big goal that I want to make sure happens before I hang up my coat,” she said.

About Jack Dobbs

Jack covers city government for the Daily News. Originally from Simpson County, he attended Western Kentucky University and graduated in 2022 with a degree in journalism.

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