The Prince George Humane Society is looking for land to build a new facility.
PG Humane Society Executive Director Angela McLaren and Westwinds Mobile Veterinary SErvices’ Joanna Koehler presented to Prince George City Council, outlining what they’re looking for.
“We’ve been working on a strategic plan for roughly about five years, currently, we’re in a facility that we’ve outgrown probably three or four weeks ago,” McLaren said.
“We’ve been working as part of that strategy to have a full service shelter, but also to create a veterinary clinic for low income members.”
“We are now focused on trying to build a facility that can service more of the animals and house more veterinarians,” Koehler added.
“We are building the staff, we just lack the infrastructure, and I think that is concern for Prince George in itself, we lack an emergency centre.”
Koehler noted they’re accepting veterinary students for practicums, and they’ve contacted CNC to launch a technician program in Prince George.
McLaren said they’re requesting around two-to-three acres of land to be donated or leased to the Humane Society.
“The reason we’re putting out that request in order for us to get to the process where we’re going to crowdfund and reach out for donations and build sponsorship and donations,” she said
“We would need a piece of land in order to justify that we actually have a long-term solution to go where we need to go.”
Council was supportive of the request.
“It’s really shocking, 1,800 vets and maybe two out of 100 of them are in Northern BC, that’s thousands of animals that each vet is responsible for,” said Councillor Garth Frizzell.
“What we hear anecdotally is that there’s more of them that are retiring every year that are getting added.”
Frizzell also motioned to have a referral for the PG Humane Society connect with the city’s Planning and Development Department to receive information about what inventory of suitable land is available.
That was passed unanimously.