This is Part 2 of our correspondence regarding GRAS. It continues on from our previous update “Wagga Council and GRAS – A Timeline Part 1”. 2015 to April 2016 - We continue to email Council and Councillors about issues at GRAS. These issues include: 1. Animal welfare issues that have been occurring since we started as volunteers in 2010. These are just some of the many incidents we observed and raised with Council: - 11.7.11 – Dogs with wet beds, 3 kittens in aviary no food/water… starving, 3 other cats no water. - 17.10.12 - At 2.45pm dying unconscious dog in cage, the vet had not been called. - 12.12.12 - None of the cats had water. Mother cat and kittens – no food. - 7.1.13 - Rottweiler no water (middle of summer)... I filled the bucket and it drank 1/3 bucket of water. Mother cat and 2 kittens, 3 kittens and 2 adult cats all had no water. - 29.1.13 – Mother cat/kittens had no water, food or litter. Torti kitten no water, food or litter. Pointer cross dog dying in cage. - 6.5.13 - None of the cats had water or food, 2 dogs no water... I gave water. - 12.4.14 - Rabbit still in cage, eyes totally closed due to infection, ear looks infected, has been showing signs of sickness since it came in on the 8th, member of the public said it should have been put down immediately. 5 kittens approx. 6-8 weeks old no water/no food. White mother cat and 4 kittens no food, hungry especially mother. Some dog blankets were wet, faeces had been hosed under beds. I had bought two plastics buckets for the dogs as two water troughs were so rusty in the dog cages that the water was brown – I brought them in a few weeks ago as the small dogs in those cages were vomiting. - 16.4.14 – Found out that a beautiful well-socialised dog was put to sleep because she was deaf, not given a chance to go to rescue. 2. Pound website not being kept up to date - often animals would not be put up on the website for many days, e.g.: - 19.1.12 – no cats uploaded onto website. - 3.4.12 – no cats on website for the last 10 days. - 10.5.14 – 8 cats, 17 dogs (maybe 3 dogs not suitable for adoption) at the pound, but only 2 photos on the website, many of these animals will be due to be put to sleep, it was quiet this day so photos could have easily been uploaded. - 19.9.15 - no cats on website. 3. Deposit pens - concerns about how dirty they are at times and when they are checked, as there seems to be no procedure being followed. This resulted in animals being left in the deposit pens for longer than necessary, sometimes in very cold weather, with no bedding and sometimes with leaking water troughs. 4. Council's Feral Cat Procedure after seeing cats treated inappropriately e.g. 18.8.15 - Simone emailed Council with the following: "I am inquiring about the Council policy regarding feral cats... I was at GRAS on 3rd August 2015. There was a feral cat in a crush cage and it had been there since 28th July 2015. The cat was surrounded by dried faeces in its cage, and had some biscuits tossed on and near the faeces. Is it Council policy to keep feral cats in crush cages for 6 days straight, living in their own faeces?" We received Council’s Feral Cat Procedure - there is no mention in the procedure regarding water, food, litter, cleanliness and adequate space for the cat, in accordance with The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The procedure allows the cat to be kept in the crush cage until the next euthanasia day. So if a feral cat comes in on Thursday afternoon, the next euthanasia day is Tuesday morning - that is 4-5 days in a crush cage. We think this procedure shows the inadequacies of some of the policies at GRAS. We observed a kitten (classified feral) left in a crush cage under the clothesline for over 24 hours without food or water. How long would the kitten have been left in the crush cage if Myriam hadn't asked if she could put the kitten in a normal cat cage (as it did not appear feral)? Once in a normal cage, this kitten was promptly adopted. A Maine Coon cat was classified as feral because the member of the public who brought him to the pound said he was feral. He was in a crush cage in the cattery and could barely turn around in it. Myriam was concerned, as he did not appear feral, and asked permission to release him from the crush cage and put him in a normal cage. When the ranger chose to scan the cat, he was microchipped and desexed and was returned to his owner. 5. Accuracy in recording - e.g. at the end of May 2015 the cat impound numbers jumped from 269 to 449, a jump of 180 numbers. We emailed Council about this jump. It took several emails before receiving a reply that was understandable. One of Council's replies stated that the numbering system was not separate for dogs and cats – this is incorrect. The numbering system is separate, as Council has to send separate figures for both cats and dogs to the OLG. 6. Concerns about dog kennels (both the old kennels and the new kennels) – e.g. ongoing issues with wet floors, lack of bedding, broken beds and cleanliness of the cages. 7. Inquiries to Council about the completion of Council's internal review of GRAS. 8. Inquiries to Council about whether the RSPCA report is completed. October and December 2015 - We sent in witness statements to the RSPCA in regards to Saviour being put alive in the freezer, and also the images of the cat in the freezer. 15.12.15 - Email sent to RSPCA asking if their investigation into the Saviour incident was complete, as when we inquired Council stated they had not received a written report from the RSPCA. We received no reply from RSPCA. Under GIPA we discovered RSPCA has not given any written report to Council. (This was confirmed in a meeting we had with Council on 2nd February 2017). January 2016 – in early January Council placed its statistics on its website. We emailed Council twice in January on the 10th and the 14th, stating that there are discrepancies in their figures. The euthanasia percentage was not correct and the incoming and outgoing figures for the cats and dogs did not match. Council had every opportunity to adjust their figures but chose to leave them on their website for over two months until we went to media on April 3rd 2016. After media raised the issue that 81 animals were unaccounted for, the figures were adjusted in less than a week. We still do not understand how they were adjusted, especially as they spanned a three-year period, and we still do not know which statistics were sent to the Office of Local Government (the statistics with the discrepancies or the adjusted statistics - Council did not respond to this question). 5.2.16 – Email sent to RSPCA in regards to the wet floors in the new dog kennels. 22.2.16 – Phoned Council in regards to the wet cement in the new dog kennels and the dogs being left to sleep on the wet cement with no beds, as the temperature had dropped down to 8 degrees some days. Informed by Council that the infloor heating was not switched on in summer (we later discovered via GIPA that is was actually “not fully commissioned”). Phoned RSPCA regarding concerns about the new dog kennels and how the dogs are left on the wet cement with no bedding and the infloor heating is not switched on, which does not meet with the NSW Animal Welfare Code of Practice, and requested if they could investigate this. 11.3.16 – Visited GRAS and was upset to see so many animal welfare issues at GRAS - 3 kittens with no water, no cats on the website even though there were 7 kittens that came in on the 7th, dog cages were wet and there were two thin, malnourished puppies without water or food who would be sleeping on wet cement. Emailed Council regarding these issues of animal welfare and never received a reply. In this period (from May 2015 – March 2016) we sent over 40 letters/emails to Council. It is because we get so little response/action from Council that we decide to go to media. 3.4.16 – Article “Wagga Wagga City Council animal shelter under fire over pet welfare” published in The Sydney Morning Herald online. We will publish more updates regarding our correspondence in the coming weeks.