LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Alice Springs Animal Shelter has a proud history as a low-kill refuge for lost and abandoned pets in our animal-loving town.
That is now all but gone.
Not long ago, the Town Council took over the running of the shelter with much self-congratulatory fanfare. The understaffed shelter was on its knees after an influx of pets and parsimonious support from the Council despite many pleas for assistance over the past few years.
The shelter urgently needs a long-term plan for its future and funding for facilities and staff.  Instead, the Council has assigned the Rangers to run the shelter. Yesterday afternoon there was an injured dog in the Mall being looked after by kind-hearted locals. Â
They wanted to transport it to a vet but it couldn’t walk and Rangers were needed to drive up the Mall. Over two hours, calls to the seven Rangers including to their mobile went unanswered and finally, the dog had to be carried to a vehicle.
Instead of funding the shelter to recruit more staff and expand its facilities, the Council prefers to splash our rates on a range of expensive but dubious infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile, the shelter is run in an ad hoc, shambolic manner. Currently, it is closed and not taking animals.
There is no point calling the Rangers if you see a lost pet, they have nowhere to take it.
Many pets have been dumped onto local vets whose services are now hampered by the influx.
There is a rehoming event that may save some animals but the likely outcome of this long-term neglect and failure to urgently respond to the crisis is mass euthanasia.Â
Ralph Folds, Alice Springs
IMAGE YouTube.
UPDATE 19/8/24 at 10.30am
The News asked the Town Council on August 4 to respond to this Letter to the Editor from Ralph Folds but the Council did not reply. However, when asked, it stated today that it has stepped in to operate the facility and it is still fully functioning.
“There have been no changes with the Rangers ensuring it’s business as usual for the public.”
UPDATE 19/8/24 at 11.15am
That is in conflict with a comment we received from Mr Folds this morning. When asked he said his belief that Shelter is closed was prompted by this Facebook notice (pictured), possibly posted by the Shelter organisation which is in receivership. Mr Folds says he was trying to get clarification from the liquidator but the quoted telephone number wasn’t working.
A few minutes ago Mr Folds called at the Shelter, found it closed and locked and a sign saying temporarily closed, until further notice, contact Council 89 500500.
Alice Springs is losing much of what we prided ourselves on.
It’s no longer a tourist magnet, nor is it safe.
The Animal Shelter embodied values of kindness and caring for animals that must be maintained.
What is happening now is not who we are.
The Council spends about $20m a year on salaries, a very high spend for a town of 33,000 people and probably declining.
Surely they can find the capacity to employ dedicated, animal-focused staff for the Shelter and boost its capacity.
But if they won’t compromise their current expenditure, I would be happy to pay higher rates or a special levy to restore the shelter and its values.
This Darwin Girl is devastated to learn the shelter has come to this. I want to cuddle my gorgeous doggie and cry into her fur.
She’s an Alice Special, and found her way to me three years ago. The shelter staff who handled the adoption and preparation for transit were caring, efficient and pragmatically kind to me. They simply wanted a good home for their animals.
In the mayhem of dog adoptions nationwide in the depths of the pandemic every other shelter seemed to be practically auctioning dogs off to the highest bidder.
Not Alice Springs Shelter. The dogs were the important thing. A good home the important thing. Simple.
I picked my girl up from the airport, and over time she revealed what her four month stay in the Alice Shelter had been like.
In her doggie way, she showed me she had been treated with love and kindness, taught a modicum of manners without spoiling her bouncy trusting loving nature. They’d walked her often, treating her well when on her lead, fed and looked after her well. And unmistakably, she showed how loved she had felt. How deep the loss of this loving home created by the shelter’s staff.
Thank you to those staff at the shelter. You looked after one of the brightest lights in my life during those four months before she came to me, exactly as a shelter should. You guys deserve better. So do the animals of the centre.
@ Imogheena Farandel: Your story will resonate with many Territorians who have adopted pets from the shelter in the past.
But the shelter remains closed and the Council is attempting to partly privatise it by handing over care and responsibility to a local veterinary clinic.
The clinic is not a charity and doesn’t have volunteers so the cost of adopting a dog was recently advertised at $500, a large increase in the fees previously charged by the shelter.
This will encourage the sale of cheap, unneutered pets and, in turn, lead to more issues with stray and unwanted animals in our town.
The council is required to provide an animal shelter and must act quickly to develop a long-term plan supported by adequate funding.
@ Susan Sadler, I would also accept higher rates or a levy to fund the resurrection of the shelter.
That is an absolute disgrace. In Melbourne you can get a cat or dog, neutered, microchipped and vaccinated. The cost? $200. Animals are our responsibility and joy. They deserve to be looked after. They give so much. Alice Springs can hardly afford more bad press with the situation they’ve created with the young people, particularly First Nations people.
Your reputations, personally, will be made a disgrace. As they should be. Information travels fast. You will regret your behaviour towards these innocent animals.
Councils! They have been in the papers recently for their money seeking tactics to try and be re-elected. You may be the next council to hit the papers.
@ Imogheena Farandel. Thank you for your eloquent and moving post.
I’m reading that the shelter is not just temporarily closed but permanently.
A local vet clinic is the new for-profit “shelter” except that they are full, so they can’t take more pets and the cost of a pet from them has skyrocketed.
Councillors who do support the shelter need to speak out because the Council is way out of line with community expectations and will feel the wrath of many of us at the next council elections.
Meanwhile, there is an NT election on the way, and I will vote for any party that commits to funding the shelter.
The Council need to re-open ASAS (Alice Springs Animal Shelter). Dogs and cats ate being destroyed at a fast rate.
This inhumane attitude towards these lost souls only lowers the already bad reputation of this once thriving town!
The Council has not supported the reopening of the Shelter and now runs a pound, as required under the Local Govt Act.
But you wonder if they have thought through the economic and community consequences of their decision?
The Shelter was a charity that received a great deal of community and business support. For example, the Woolworth’s donation bin was often filled with pet food for the Shelter. Woolworths and business supporters are unlikely to donate to a Council pound and ratepayers will make up the shortfall.
Many volunteers supported the Shelter, keeping costs down and saving ratepayer funds.
The Council is now trying to run the Pound on the cheap.
At a recent adoption event, they rehomed many animals without them being neutered or vaccinated. That will result in many unwanted puppies and kittens in the community. It will cause more animal suffering and increase the disease risk for all unvaccinated pets.
The Shelter valued community and animal welfare and would never have done that.
The Council needs to carefully reconsider their decision to not fund the Shelter.
It is very irresponsible for the Council to rehome animals from the Shelter without requiring them to be desexed.
This short-term fix will create long-term problems and our rates will fund the consequences.
Fund the Shelter, Mayor Paterson.
@ Imogeena: I support your comments about the closing of the shelter and the inevitable consequences
which will ensue. Un-neutered animals will produce litters of unwanted animals and the work that the shelter has done over years will be undone. I hope this council does not expect to be re-elected. The repercussions of the irresponsible actions of Paterson’s council will be obvious all too soon.
Bye Bye Alice Springs, you could be a lovely town, but instead, everything is closing down.
People are too scared to stop there because of the youth crime issue, and Alice’s lack of ability to deal with it.
We got our dog from the ASAS and he was a beautiful little boy, but he passed away with a brain disease at the age of 3½ years.
We would love to adopt another dog from ASAS but, sadly it’s now gone.
No reason to stop in The Alice anymore, so today, we will just drive right by.
Is Mayor Paterson going it alone (again) on the Shelter by permanently closing it without exploring the options to keep it open?
The Shelter has enjoyed a very high level of local business and community support for many years.
As far as I am aware, there was no analysis of its funding needs and canvassing of community commitments against those needs.
Was the RSPCA approached or the NT Government, in election mode and keen to win support?
Councillor Marli Banks tells me she will raise the issue at the next meeting but shouldn’t the momentous decision to close the Shelter permanently have already been discussed at length before a decision was made?
It appears that our elected representatives apart from the Mayor are in the dark.
The permanent closure of the Shelter looks like another knee-jerk decision taken by the Mayor.
[ED – This comment from Mr Folds is contrary to a statement from the Town Council obtained by the Alice Springs News today – see update. We will keep updating this report.]
@ Ralph Folds: To visit the shelter now you have to make an appointment with the Council and the times you can do that are very restricted.
Unlike the shelter of old, you can’t just turn up there with a stray animal or to get a new pet. Nor can you go there to walk a dog or take kids along to look at the animals.
If at all possible, the shelter needs to be returned to its operation as a community charity.
It has strong support from businesses and the community, and can still attract volunteers.
The council and perhaps the RSPCA should also help to fund it.
If political parties were not approached to help in the run-up to the election, that is a lost opportunity.
The bottom line is that the current shelter is more like a council pound and the animals and pet owners in the Alice deserve much better.
This is far more than a local issue. It affects the southern parts of the Territory at least, and has flow on effects detrimental to us all.
It was quite clear when I adopted my dog that ASAS carried out similar duties as the Darwin shelters. Its not just town homeless animals they help. They help animals from outlying and remote communities as well.
I swear the most common type of dog in either Darwin or Palmerston is a Darwin Special, that legendary breed of animal encompassing any and all genetics a remote community can throw at them.
My own gorgeous Alice Special is from a remote desert community.
There was no shelter, let alone vet to see to her health, so, heavily pregnant, she was brought into ASAS.
It wasn’t the people of her community that put a picture of her darling face on the national adoption websites, or assess me to make sure I was a suitable owner, or put her on the plane north to me.
It was ASAS.
ASAS has likewise been serving as an important stepping stone for the famous desert dogs of Yuendumu, helping them out enroute to their homes far beyond Territory borders.
Yuendumu is one of the Territory’s biggest communities and yet it needs ASAS as much as the residents of Alice do. It can’t realistically stand alone in its management of animal welfare, let alone any smaller communities manage.
Additionally, the overpopulation and diseases in dog and cats on Community is not just about animal welfare compassion. It’s human health issue too. The loss of ASAS leaves this area less resourced.
Presumably NT government will pick up the tab, and put additional resources in instead? Is the NT government really okay to take on things the town council is supposed to do but blatantly isn’t?
The Health Minister has nothing to say on this? The local government minister has nothing to say? The Chief Minister?
Or perhaps AMRRIC* is supposed to pick up the tab? I’ve heard nothing but good of AMMRIC, and the amazing job it does on such a tight shoestring. The town council feels no twinge of conscience in dumping their responsibility onto AMRRIC?
Or do they expect private individuals to fill in their gaps?
The entire Territory will be under pressure to pick up the tab, and the council’s responsibility!
Or is the council going to hide behind the federal government, hoping the prime minister will fly in, announce to the nation’s media that the matter is resolved then fly out again?
Pull your socks up Alice Springs Town Council. You as a council exist for the betterment of the people, not your own pockets. And that includes managing these animals properly. It means pulling your fair share of the weight, just like the rest of us have to.
[* AMRRIC – Animal Management in Rural and Remote Indigenous Communities – is a national not-for-profit organisation that works with remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to improve the health of their companion animals. It says in doing so, we are helping to create healthier, safer and happier communities.]