CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Staff at the Gulf Coast Humane Society have expressed concern for a lack of veterinarians here in the Coastal Bend.
Alisa Mills, the executive director of the shelter said that one of the reasons that there is a lack of veterinarians is because shelter work is a very narrow field of study, which is why they are hard to find.
“There’s a lot of older vets that are retiring right now, a lot of corporations are absorbing smaller practices so they need corporate veterinarians, so they’re kind of taking the bigger part of the pool. And there’s not as many graduating right now,” Mills said.
The lack of veterinarians has had a negative impact on many local shelters, especially the Gulf Coast Humane Society.
One major issue is overcrowding of animals because they have to stay in the shelters for longer periods of time.
“It’s affecting length of stay because it takes a little bit longer to get things spayed or neutered before they go home," Mills said. "We do require everything spayed or neutered before they leave here. Corpus Christi just added that as a requirement too.”
In addition, veterinary care for animals in animal shelters is an extremely niche job.
“A lot of people, it’s a passion for them, not necessarily monetary, I mean yes they’re going to make good money as a vet but a lot of them are in it for the animals," Mills said. "A lot of them specialize in an animal that maybe they've grown up with. You see a lot of horse vets that had horses when they were younger, or cattle, things like that.”
The staff at local animal shelters believe that more full time veterinarians would solve many of the issues they are facing.
“I think that would help the movement of the animals because we do transport out too. To get those animals ready to transport out if we had a full time vet, or if other shelters had full time vets, I think animals could move from new places and get ready to go into adoptive homes," Mills said.
To learn more about adopting or volunteering at the Gulf Coast Humane Society, click here.
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