With as many as 80 animals remaining in the care of the Humane Society of Escambia County’s two shelters, questions concerning the future of the unadopted pets are being asked after the announcement of the closing of the shelters was made earlier this month.

Renee Jones, director of HSEC, said staff members are actively pursuing every avenue possible in placing the animals in adoptable situations.

“We are still adopting pets to individuals who are looking to adopt,” Jones said. “But, with the short time we have left with our kennels, there is a good chance that many of those pets won’t be adopted.”

Jones said other shelters and organizations have been contact and some of the pets are already finding a new place to be housed.

“We have already made arrangements with a couple of neighboring shelters to take some of the pets we still have,” Jones said. “We have some cats and kittens going to North Baldwin and have made arrangements for some of our dogs and puppies going to Port St. Richie, Fla.”

Jones said very few of the animals currently being housed at the Brewton and Atmore shelters of HSEC are in danger of not being adopted.

“There are only a couple of things that would keep an animal from being adoptable,” Jones said. “Behavior issues or bad health would limit the probability of adoption. Right now, we only have one animal that has some health issues. All of the other pets we have are completely adoptable. They are in good shape.”

Although transporting pets to other shelters may be the only alternative for HSEC to consider, Jones said they have their own standards when it comes to sharing pets.

“We won’t send any of these animals to a shelter unless we know it is a ‘no-kill’ shelter,” Jones said. “When we send a healthy pet to another shelter we want to know that it will find a good home and be adopted and not be killed. Why would we do that? We’re not going to go through the effort of rescuing an animal and get it into adoptable status just to send it somewhere else to be killed.”

Officials in Brewton, Atmore and Escambia County have indicated the desire to meet as a group to see what, if anything, can be done to continue to have quality animal control and sheltering available for those areas currently being served by HSEC.