A local official is calling for a regional animal shelter in Monmouth County, where municipalities have few options for placing homeless animals, mainly feral cats.
Richard DeBenedetto, director of the Middletown Health Department, told area municipal officials that the lack of a regional shelter facility is a growing problem for towns.
“Monmouth County has a major issue with animal shelters — we don’t have a county shelter,” DeBenedetto said during the June 11 meeting of the Two River Council of Mayors.
“Frankly, one shelter in the county probably wouldn’t cut it, but it would help us, and it is at least a start.”
According to DeBenedetto, both Ocean and Middlesex counties operate animal shelters, and there are also private shelters available to municipalities in those counties.
Without a regional shelter in Monmouth, the options open to animal control departments are to bring animals to the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MCSPCA) in Eatontown and the Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey in Tinton Falls.
However, DeBenedetto said both facilities lack shelter space to accommodate the animals picked up by animal control departments throughout the county.
He suggested Middletown may be interested in taking the lead in constructing a regional shelter.
“Nobody wants to pull that trigger and just be by themselves,” he said. “Middletown, they’ve been very proactive in leading the force. “Right now we need support. It could be done on a cheaper basis.” DeBenedetto said the MCSPCA only has space to shelter approximately 400 cats at one time and is often filled to capacity.
He also said towns must pay the two shelters per animal, with the MCSPCA charging $275 per cat and the Humane Society charging $95 per cat.
Both West Long Branch Mayor Janet Tucci and Monmouth Beach Mayor Susan Howard said they feel the costs are too high to shelter animals at those facilities and they would be interested in partnering for a regional shelter.
Several municipalities have shared-service agreements to provide local animal control services, including Middletown, Red Bank, Long Branch, Manalapan and Marlboro.
“There is a bunch of municipal animal control programs out there, and we are all kind of sitting here saying, ‘What do we do when those shelters close up to us?’” DeBenedetto said.
“There is not much municipalities have as a choice for what they want to do with animal control.”
DeBenedetto said in the past he has approached the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders about a county shelter.
“They said it just wasn’t financially possible, they will help us out as much as possi- ble to see what kind of interest [there is],” he said. “We know the biggest factor is money, we have excess land and excess buildings in the county.
“If you want to say let’s do one shelter for the Bayshore area and maybe one down in the Howell or Wall area, I would think you would need a building that is 8,000 square feet.”
He estimated that a new building would cost about $2 million to build and $200,000 annually to operate.
He said the major problems for local animal control departments are the amount of feral cats, as well as the public safety risk regarding rabies.
One of the contributors to the problem is that people feed feral cats, which leads them to stay in the area and reproduce.
“There are more people that just want to help these animals, and the worst thing they can do is to put food out for them,” he said.
DeBenedetto said Middletown is one of the few towns that require cats to have licenses.
In Middletown, there are approximately 5,500 licensed dogs but only about 600 licensed cats, he said. However, he estimated there may be as many as 10,000 cats in Middletown.
Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long, whose borough had a feral cat problem in the past, said one healthy female cat could produce 36 offspring in a given year.
Another issue is that several Monmouth County towns, including Aberdeen, Matawan and Millstone, previously used the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter until the shelter was shut down by Middlesex County in 2014.
“That left a bunch of other towns that have been using Helmetta high and dry,” DeBenedetto said. “So they came back and are using the MCSPCA and using the Humane Society.”
One of the benefits of a regional shelter and regional animal control is the majority of the smaller municipalities in the county don’t have the need for an animal control department.
“Our town is nonstop — we have two full-time animal control officers, two parttime animal control officers and I’m looking to hire another two or three part-timers,” DeBenedetto said.