Since the Humane Society of Pierce-St. Croix in River Falls, Wis., closed 13 years ago, a nonprofit has been dreaming of building a central facility to take in local animals.
Now, after more than a decade of fundraising and planning, St. Croix Animal Friends plans to break ground this fall in Roberts, Wis., on an 8,000-square-foot shelter to house up to 60 dogs and 75 cats.
"The community has waited for so long for this," said Diana Neubarth, president of the nonprofit.
Though area rescue groups have stepped in to fill the void left by the Humane Society's closing in 2006, limited capacity meant that many of the county's stray animals have been taken across the state line to shelters in Minnesota.
St. Croix Animal Friends was incorporated in 2006, and four years later purchased 6.5 acres of land in Roberts for about $500,000. The nonprofit has secured funding to break ground and lay the concrete slab for the shelter, but it will have to raise money for the remaining phases of the $1 million shelter.
"We decided early on that anything we did, we wanted to make sure it was paid for," Neubarth said. "But that means this process takes a long time."
For Kathi Pelnar, an animal control officer who contracts with 13 of the 35 municipalities in St. Croix County, another shelter can't come soon enough. In a letter to county officials, Pelnar expressed her support of the planned shelter and warned that just because the problem of stray animals might not yet be visible, that didn't mean it wasn't urgent.
"As the county's population grows, so does the population of animals. ... If they don't think there's a need for [a shelter] now, just wait," she said in an interview.
