The longtime nationwide debate over abortion has made its way to the Park County Animal Shelter in Cody, Wyoming, where the facility’s director has resigned over a policy to perform spay abortions on pregnant cats.
Cody resident Jona Harris told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that she quit because of the shelter’s lack of public transparency about its policies on spaying pregnant cats. Harris claims that the shelter has developed a new blanket policy under operations director Ryan Johnson to spay all pregnant cats and dogs it receives without informing the public.
“That was the one that just pushed me over to resign,” she said. “Our community does not know that we are going to do spay abortions.”
Harris, who had worked at the shelter since late 2023, does believe there are times when spaying a pregnant animal is the correct decision to be made, but believes a case-by-case policy should be in place.
She said the shelter and its board are not being transparent about its spay policies to the public, which she believes have greatly expanded under Johnson.
When she expressed her opposition, Harris said it became apparent she would not get her way.
“I did not feel comfortable not being transparent with our community and our donors because thus far, no executive director has conducted spay aborts under their leadership,” she said.
Joelyn Kelly, president of the animal shelter board, said the shelter has always had a standing policy to spay cats that are early on in their pregnancies for various reasons, but does not have a blanket policy to perform spay abortions as Harris alleges, which she calls a “mischaracterization.”
“It is not a blanket policy. We do use discretion and consultation with our veterinarians before we decide on any procedure for any animal in the shelter’s care,” Kelly said.
Dogs, Too?
She also denies that any spay abortions are also happening on dogs, as Harris claims.
Not only did Harris say she wasn’t aware of this policy during her time at the shelter, but she also believes it’s possible that other members of the board aren’t either. After making multiple requests to bring the topic up to the board to create a formal policy on spay abortions, she said Kelly told her the issue was under Johnson’s discretion.
Board Vice President Kay Drury backed up Kelly, telling Cowboy State Daily the only spay abortions taken place at the facility in the past have been for medical emergencies.
Similarly, according to the shelter’s bylaws, “If a pregnant feral cat is surrendered to the shelter, we will allow her to deliver her kittens and find homes for those kittens. When it is medically appropriate, the feral mother cat will be spayed and released in an appropriate location.”
Kelly however said the spay abortion policy is also being applied to situations where the shelter’s animal population is too large, which she said occurs in “ebbs and flows” and mentioned how they were completely full a few days ago.
She also vehemently denies there is a blanket policy to perform abortions on all pregnant animals at the shelter as Harris claims. She sees this act as an unfortunate reality of managing a feral cat population.
“It’s a reality of managing a feral cat population, especially one to the degree we have here in Cody,” Kelly said.
If a cat is visibly pregnant, Kelly said their staff will try to work with available foster families and other nonprofits to find it a home and also analyze the health of the cat before spaying it. Ultimately though, she said live cats are given a priority over unborn kittens.
Having to turn animals away is generally seen as a worst-case scenario at animal shelters that hinders their overall mission.
Recent Situation
Kelly said she isn’t aware of a time when someone donated a non-feral pregnant cat to the shelter, but Harris shared text messages with Cowboy State Daily from this exact scenario taking place recently, involving a woman who brought in pregnant cats to the shelter she couldn’t take care of.
The texts came from a conversation she had with Johnson recently about two pregnant cats Harris found foster homes for without telling him.
Johnson expressed frustration to Harris in the text that a priority wasn’t being given to the animals that the shelter already has and that the Cody Veterinary Hospital could have got an expedited surgery for the pregnant cat. He also reprimanded Harris for fostering the other pregnant cat herself without telling him beforehand.
Harris said she did this because she knew what the outcome of the kittens would be if she didn’t foster one of the mother cats.
“He would have spay-aborted those kittens knowing they were days away from delivering,” she said. “Those kittens would have been killed.”
Abortions And Animals
Neither Harris nor Kelly believes the issue of performing abortions on animals transcends to the efficacy of performing human abortions.
“It’s different when you are a cat owner and try to perceive this topic and when you work full time in an animal care facility,” Kelly said. “I do think we see more personal cat owners get upset at the idea of a spay-abort, but anybody who’s worked any amount of time in a shelter environment understands why it is an accepted practice.”
They both also say that spaying pregnant animals often occurs at shelters around the country when those facilities become too overpopulated to take on any more animals, which is sometimes met with public controversy. What they disagree on is whether the Park County Animal Shelter gets busy enough to warrant this act.
“With our rural shelter, we do have resources, and we are not overpopulated,” Harris said.
Harris said the two executive directors prior to her have no recollection of spay abortions occurring at the facility.
Sabine Born became the first executive director at the animal shelter in 2018, holding the job for less than two years. Born told Cowboy State Daily she also wasn’t aware of any animals receiving spay abortions while she was the director.
But making matters tricky, Born said, is the fact that it’s often hard to tell if a cat is pregnant before they get spayed.
“It technically happens a lot without being a purposeful thing,” she said.
Other Issues
Harris considered the executive director position a dream job. During her tenure, she and the community helped raise more than $800,000 in financial contributions for the shelter — the most in its history aside from a capital campaign for the facility itself in 2021.
Cody resident Pat Brookman frequently adopts animals from the shelter and commended Harris’ work during her time as director, which she said involved an extensive social media campaign.
“She absolutely busted her butt to earn that money,” Brookman said.
The shelter ran into major financial problems last summer that led to Harris having to fire five employees to stay afloat. Since that time, their financial picture has greatly improved, she said, now boasting around $200,000 in reserves after previously having only $98 in July, allowing them to hire Johnson early this year.
Harris also says that the board went behind her back to restructure her and Johnson’s positions so that they were of equal standing without giving her any notice, when in the past Johnson would have reported to her.
“It removed any accountability for that person that’s in that position,” Harris said. “It just wasn’t done properly, and it was done without me being involved.”
Although local police recommended the filing of animal abuse charges in 2018, the Laramie County district attorney decided against filing charges against Johnson and two other Cheyenne Animal Shelter employees at the time for pepper spraying a dog a day after it bit an employee. The attorney determined that since Johnson was told to pepper spray the dog by his boss, no charges could be filed.
Harris doesn’t agree with this determination and believes the situation speaks volumes.
“He’s not in law enforcement or the military, so just because your boss from the animal shelter tells you to pepper spray a dog, he still has his own right to make a decision not to,” Harris said. “I just think it speaks volumes for his decision making.”
The shelter board plans to meet Monday night and put a formal statement about Harris’ resignation. It will also have a normal board meeting on Thursday evening. Drury said they plan to start looking for a new director soon, but Johnson is running the facility for the time being.
“The shelter is in good hands, the board of directors are active, and nothing has been affected as far as the condition of the animals,” she said.
Born said the executive director position at the shelter is a difficult one that involves navigating professionalism and empathy for humans and animals, and that she also ran into problems with the board that caused her to resign. Harris was the fourth executive director to serve in the position since 2018.
“It’s a very hard place to work at,” she said. “You’re serving the public, the board and the animals, and with one of these you’re always going to have an issue so you’re juggling those things.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
