Moving quickly to fill the potential void created by the loss of the Island’s only animal shelter, the Dukes County Commission voted without dissent on Wednesday to take over the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown after the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Animals pulls up stakes and leaves the Island May 1.
The Island adoption center run by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) has operated with an average annual loss in excess of $100,000 for the past five years, according to an agency spokesman.
Breaking a silence of several weeks on the operational details of the Vineyard shelter scheduled for closure May 1 by the financially troubled charity, spokesman Brian Adams told the Gazette this week that more than 50 per cent of the operating budget comes over on the boat.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) yesterday denied that a lack of caution is behind a multimillion-dollar investor loss which led to the closure of the Vineyard animal shelter, announced a fortnight ago.
The Vineyard branch of the MSPCA is one of three state shelters which will close this year due to a loss of $11.5 million, or a quarter of the total endowment for 2008. Spokesman Brian Adams blamed the shortfall on the economic crisis as a whole.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) shelter was tight-lipped about details behind the decision to close the Vineyard branch of the financially troubled organization this week.
The MSPCA announced last Thursday it would close the Katharine M. Foote memorial building in Edgartown on May 1, along with two other Massachusetts branches, in the wake of a crippling 25 per cent loss in endowment money for 2008.
The Katharine M. Foote memorial animal shelter in Edgartown, which is owned by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be closed, the Gazette learned late yesterday. Saying that the organization’s finances had taken a hard hit from the recession and the falling stock market, MSPCA president Carter Luke announced that the society would close three of its shelters, including the one on the Vineyard. The Island shelter is due to close May 1, according to a report on The Boston Globe Web site last night.
