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COUNTY ZOO?

Peacocks, Rabbits, Cows Are Crowding Animal Control Facilities

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Animal Control Director Darryl Scott holds one of four rabbits that animal control is currently housing. They were seized from a recent marijuana growhouse bust.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: November 2, 2007

SEBRING –– Visit Highlands County Animal Services today and you'll find two peacocks in a dog pen.

You can also see two large hogs in a horse trailer.

Plus four rabbits, huddled together in the corner of a wire dog crate.

And then Darryl Scott, Animal Control director, can walk you past the dog and cat pens to see the two yearling cows he's holding in a small, wood fenced pen.

"Just last week, we had chickens and ducks, too," Scott said. "We were able to get them out, by adoption."

It's not exactly Noah's ark, but Scott may have to get creative in holding a variety of stray, abandoned or confiscated animals that, he jokes, at times "starts looking like a petting zoo."

For the new 2007-08 fiscal year, Highlands County commissioners allocated $150,000 for capital improvements, targeted mainly toward improving the facilities for dogs and cats, a step toward Scott's goal of boosting adoptions.

Scott also is putting together plans for better holding facilities for the livestock and other animals that also come into the county's custody.

Thanks to the Sebring Regional Airport Authority, which gives the county a no-cost lease of nine acres at 7300 Haywood Taylor Blvd. for Animal Control, he'll have the room to do that.

Animal Control now uses only about three of those acres, since the other six are dense pine forest. A new pending lease, expected to be finalized Nov. 15, would give those six acres back while the county gains the use of 7 1/2 acres of pasture along the north side of Animal Control.

Scott plans to build multi-purpose livestock pens in the pasture to hold the horses and hogs, cows and goats, ducks and other animals that Animal Control officers pick up or have to confiscate.

"That's the nature of the beast, we don't know what's going to happen around the curve," Scott said. "We may not have another hog for six months but we could get a bunch at any time."

Right now, Scott hopes to locate the owners of the peacocks, found in the Silver Fox area off State Road 66, and the two yearling cows, picked up wandering in the middle of Payne Road.

He's also hoping to release the rabbits and the hogs, confiscated during recent sheriff's office raids at two marijuana grow houses. If they aren't picked up in a reasonable time by their owners or family members, he can have them confiscated by the county and given to a charity or 4-H club.

Ultimately, better holding facilities for livestock could save the county thousands of dollars per year, Scott said.

"What doesn't get in the news is what happens after the sheriff's offices shuts down a (marijuana) grow house," he said. Of the 52 grow houses raided in the past year, between 15 to 20 had livestock that Animal Control had to take care of.

At one closed grow house, the county had to care for about 40 animals, including horses, goats, cows, hogs and chickens, said Ralph Smith, Animal Control's road supervisor. For about two months, the county had to haul feed out to them and bring in a generator to pump well water for them, Smith said.

In only one case could the county recover some of the costs, by selling 8 cows at auction which Animal Control had taken care of at a closed grow house site. While the county recouped $2,000, the cost for the care was more than $4,000, Scott said.

In most such cases, Scott said, "we did our humanitarian good deed and didn't let the animals starve. But then they're picked up (by an owner or family member), they're just gone, and we're out in the cold (as far as recovering costs)."

With facilities to hold more livestock at Animal Control, Scott said, the county can charge daily impound and boarding fees, recovering the money spent. If not claimed, the livestock could then be legally confiscated and sold.

"It's mind boggling to me that there are so many people involved in this," he said, referring the to grow-house busts, now at 52 and counting. "That's drugs, though," said Scott, a former Highlands County deputy sheriff.

Tending to livestock from the busted grow houses hasn't been a budget breaker, he said.

"But it's a real burden to us," Scott said. "It's taken money away from other projects. That really cuts into your manpower and your budget. "

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