Saga Humane Society celebrates World Spay/Neuter day along with Symposium

Every February 23rd, different humane societies around the world, celebrate “World Spay/Neuter Day. On Ambergris Caye, the Saga Humane Society, besides offering free spays /neuter services to the general public, also held their first symposium with other humane societies from across the country in an effort to create a more united and strong humane organization countrywide.
Ingrid Lima from the San Pedro Humane Society explained what activities took place in celebration of the day. “Every year on this day, all the humane societies around the world come together and try to perform as many surgeries as possible on dogs and cats. At Saga Humane Society in San Pedro, we have been doing this for over seven years now and the surgeries are free of cost for the pet owners,” said Lima.
The service was mainly to target owners who cannot afford the surgery, while at the same time reduce the population of canines and cats on the island. To make the free surgeries possible, Saga teamed up with three veterinarians who kindly volunteered their services “We have the help of doctors Orlando Baptist, Samantha English, and Melody Whitten, who are doing the surgeries between the hours of 9AM to 5PM. So far, many people are taken advantage of the service and we have been busy spaying and neutering pets,” ended Lima. In order to increase the amount of pets getting neuter, the free surgeries were extended until Friday, February 26th.
On Tuesday February 23rd, Saga hosted a symposium at the Coco Beach Hotel in Northern Ambergris Caye. Organized by Dawn LoCascio from the San Pedro Humane Society, the event was aimed at creating a coalition which will connect all humane societies in Belize with each other. “We have five of the six humane societies that exist in Belize present at the symposium today. There are representatives from Corozal, Cayo, Caye Caulker, and even as far as Hopkins. This is the first time we have gotten together, and we are looking at five different directions that will take us to the one main goal. We want to be humane and have this umbrella where everyone is attached, work together and make our jobs easier in dealing with issues that may affect any one of us,” said LoCascio. Many ideas were shared at the meeting in regards to better shape the daily functions of each organization. Some of the ideas discussed included drug importation, access to one drug source distribution centre and having meetings more often in different locations.
LoCascio expects that with the unification of the humane societies countrywide, the level of the communication and cooperation will increase significantly. She hopes that with this partnership they will be able to reach more communities who can benefit from the services the humane societies have to offer.
The next meeting has been scheduled for May in a location yet to be decided.