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Phil Morgan, Escondido Humane Society president since 1998, resigned on
March 31, effective June 30. His acting successor is director of operations
Linda Martin, a 30-year veteran of animal and human health care work,
hired on March 16. Nationally known for his efforts to extend humane services
to the southern California community in Spanish as well as English, Morgan
won further acclaim for rebuilding the Escondido Humane Society after
a January 2001 fire that killed 115 of the 200 animals in the building.
In January 2005 Morgan unveiled plans to expand the present $4.2 million
shelter, opened in July 2003, into a $15 million complex including “a
career institute for animal professionals, a 24-hour cable-access pet
channel, a horse show arena and a pet columbarium, which is a vault for
storing cremated remains,” recalled San Diego Union-Tribune staff
writer Craig Gustafson.
John Nix, 66, Houston Bureau of Animal Regulation & Care chief since
1996, retired in mid-March 2005, two weeks after Houston Department of
Health & Human Services director Stephen Williams appointed departmental
head of quality assurance Deoniece Arnold to oversee the Houston shelter.
Sean Hawkins, founder of the Houston-based Spay-Neuter Assistance Program,
told Houston Chronicle reporter Bill Murphy that Nix was unfairly blamed
for the results of budget cuts. Houston had 36 animal control officers
in 1997, but now has just 22.
Former San Antonio Animal Care Services director William Lammers, DVM,
63, resigned effective on April 30, 2005, after 19 years with the department.
Lammers was succeeded as director by Sam Sanchez in December 2004, after
the San Antonio Express-News extensively exposed the shelter death toll
of about 46,000 per year, which at 33 dogs and cats killed per 1,000 human
residents is nearly twice the national average. San Antonio kills 20,000
more dogs and cats per year than New York City, even though NYC has seven
times more people.
Scots-born veterinarian Pauline Taylor resigned as president of the Hong
Kong SPCA in early March 2005 after six months on sick leave during a
bitter dispute with board chair Lisa Tsui Wing-miu and other board members.
In her first year as president after four years as chief of shelter medicine,
“Taylor, 44, presided over a dramatic turnaround that saw a $3 million
deficit turned into a $3 million surplus,” wrote Simon Parry of the
South China Morning Post. “She claims the society decided to oust
her after the turnaround raised ‘uncomfortable questions about past
practices.’ The SPCA struck a deal with Taylor days before the scheduled
start of an industrial tribunal hearing at which she planned to claim
she had been illegally forced out. Sources said that under the settlement,
the SPCA will pay the bulk of Taylor’s legal fees. One source said
the fees run ‘well into six figures.’ The charity has also run
up a considerable bill of its own.”
