Residents voiced concerns at a town hall led by Jacksonville City Council Member Raul Arias.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Residents packed a community town hall Saturday at Jacksonville’s Animal Care and Protective Services (ACPS), sharing concerns about shelter operations, staffing shortages, animal cruelty enforcement and the city’s new stray hold policy.
The meeting, hosted by Jacksonville City Council Member Raul Arias, gave residents an opportunity to ask questions directly to city leaders and ACPS officials.
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One of the biggest topics discussed was a new city policy set to take effect next month, reducing the stray hold period from six days to five days before animals can be made available for adoption.
Arias said the change is intended to help animals find homes more quickly, while also creating space for more animals to enter the shelter.
“The longer animals are in the shelters, that means that there’s less animals that we could actually bring in, so by shortening the stray hold to five days, it allows families to be able to adopt these animals a lot quicker,” Arias said.
Not everyone agrees with the change.
Taylor Corriveau, who said she has been rescuing dogs and cats in Jacksonville for the past 10 years, expressed concerns about the shortened hold period.
“I think five days is not even enough time to even understand the dog at all, you know, they’re still shut down,” Corriveau said. “They have no idea what’s going on, the stress, the people, the changes everything that goes into it.”
While Corriveau praised ACPS for helping animals find homes, she also said she believes more home checks should be conducted before animals are adopted.
“Check seeing where these animals are going, you know, it’s no question that people adopt dogs and then dump them,” Corriveau said. “That’s not all of them. I’m not saying that, but you know, really seeing where our animals are going and sharing that they’re getting the proper care.”
ACPS Chief Michael Bricker responded to those concerns, saying home checks can create additional barriers to adoption and require staffing resources the shelter currently lacks.
“What that does is it causes a barrier to adoption; it increases the amount of time the dogs are here because we have to go do that home check,” Bricker said. “That’s something that most shelters have stopped years ago.”
Arias said another major takeaway from the meeting was the need for stronger enforcement of animal cruelty laws and increased staffing at ACPS.
“There were some actual concerns regarding animal cruelty, not specifically to the orders that we had,” Arias said. “This is an ever-evolving, or that we gotta keep on adding to it, but one of the things was holding those perpetrators accountable.”
Arias said the feedback shared during Saturday’s meeting will help guide future conversations about animal welfare in Jacksonville.
Arias said he plans to host another community town hall this fall.