Gulf Shores, Foley and Orange Beach officials are working together to convince Baldwin County to build a new regional animal shelter in South Baldwin County, hoping to avoid the fate of an earlier push for a shared satellite jail that fell apart before it could get off the ground.
Gulf Shores City Administrator Steve Griffin said the three South Baldwin cities have been meeting to figure out how they can help the county get a new shelter built, whether that means donating land, providing financial support or some combination of both.
“The same issues are coming up with animal shelters down here,” Griffin said. “We’re looking to work together to see if we can get Baldwin County to locate a regional shelter and find out what participation, help, etc., we need from our three cities.”
The county-run shelter in Summerdale, which took over county animal control operations, is regularly full and struggling to keep up with demand, according to Griffin. He said South Baldwin County’s continued population growth has only added to the strain on the facility.
“The animal shelter the county operates now is often at capacity and needs more room for animals,” Griffin said. “As we’re growing down here we’re seeing more local regional needs in South Baldwin County. That’s what’s been talked about.”
City and county representatives have already begun researching how other communities handle similar challenges. Griffin said officials recently toured a shelter operated in Escambia County to see how that facility is designed and run.
Representatives from Gulf Shores, Foley and Orange Beach are scheduled to meet Jan. 16 at the Graham Creek Center to continue discussions on how the cities can support the county in locating a new shelter in the region.
“We’re all wanting to find out what we can do to assist Baldwin County to locate one here,” Griffin said. “Whether that’s land or financial help. It’s a work in progress and something may happen Jan. 16.”
Tobi Waters, president of the Gulf Shores Animal Care and Control Program, said the cities would ideally like to see a new shelter built near the Auburn University satellite campus planned on Gulf Shores-owned land at the northwest corner of the Foley Beach Express and Gateway Boulevard, formerly known as County Road 8.
“It is our shared goal to have a state-of-the-art animal campus centrally located in close proximity to the new Auburn Veterinary Referral Center,” Waters said. She described a vision that would include an open-admit and managed-admit animal shelter, a centralized stray-hold facility serving all three municipalities, overflow stray-hold and sheltering space for the broader South Baldwin County area, a preconstructed pet evacuation center for use during hurricanes and other emergencies, and an animal clinic and surgery suite.
Waters said such a campus would also support ongoing trap-neuter-return efforts for community cats in the area, along with other companion-animal support services.
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach both began trap-neuter-return programs in September 2017, after their city councils provided seed money to get the volunteer-run efforts started. The programs rely primarily on donations to continue operating.
In Orange Beach, more than 120 cats have gone through the trap-neuter-return program since it began. The Gulf Shores program, formed in August 2018, started trapping cats in October and has so far had 32 cats and two dogs neutered, with 13 cats placed in adoptive homes, according to Waters.
Waters credited Orange Beach Animal Control Officer Tom Conerly and Orange Beach Animal Care and Control Program volunteer Stephanie Christie with helping the newer Gulf Shores program get up and running.
City and county officials say the Jan. 16 meeting at the Graham Creek Center will be a key step in determining what a regional shelter partnership could look like and how quickly it might move forward.