The crematorium at Bay County Animal Control is down; forcing workers to dispose of euthanized animals at Steelfield Landfill.
It's legal and customary in other counties, but the news isn't sitting well with some animal lovers.
The crematorium has been down about a week and, in that time, over 100 animal bodies have been transported to Steelfield and buried in plastic biohazard bags.
Bay County calls it an unfortunate situation.
"We are working to get that fixed as quickly as possible," said Valerie Sale, Bay County PIO.
Sale stressed they are doing all they can to get the crematorium up and running and to keep more bodies from being transported to Steelfield Landfill.
She also said this puts emphasis on the sheer overpopulation of animals in Bay County.
"We get between eight and nine thousand animals per year at the Bay county animal control facility. Last Tuesday alone we got more than fifty animals into the shelter so there is a huge volume of unwanted animals in Bay County and something has to be done with them. We can't keep them all," said Sale.
Animal Control volunteer, Sue Russell knows this all too well. She's not thrilled about the current method of animal disposal while the crematorium is down.
"If it was your pet, wouldn't you want it buried in your backyard or be respectful instead of taking it to the dump and leaving it where the garbage is," asked Russell.
But, like Ms. Sale, Russell knows that animal over population is a very real problem for the shelter.
"We don't have the room and they keep coming in," Russell said.
Both she and the county agreed that there is a working solution to this problem.
"Spay, neuter clinic needs to be up and running, like yesterday" said Russell.
"This highlights the importance of spaying and neutering your pets. We don't want to euthanize animals at the animal control facility. We don't like that we have to do it but we get so many thousands of unwanted animals every year that it's a necessity," added Sale.
This month, the Bay County Board of Commissioners approved a low cost spay neuter clinic for Bay County. They are currently working to secure and ready the facility with organizers.
Meanwhile, the county expects for the crematorium to be up and working again within the week.
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