On Sunday, March 9th, Indianapolis Animal Care and Control (IACC) and the Humane Society of Indianapolis (HSI) signed a Memorandum Of Understanding that stemmed from HSI's earlier announcement that they would no longer accept stray animals, and only accept owner surrendered animals under certain conditions, and only after being counseled by HSI.

This has sparked considerable controversy in the animal welfare community of central Indiana with grave concerns about IACC being swamped with an influx of stray and owner surrendered animals, as well as people who have no interest in undergoing HSI's mandatory counseling and simply abandoning animals on the street. Concerns are also being voiced that IACC and city administration have made an ill-considered alliance with a humane organization of questionable standing within the Indianapolis animal welfare community.

The animal welfare community is largely skeptical that the new alliance between IACC and HSI is anything more than another in a series of what are viewed as desperate, self-serving measures by HSI to shore up the considerable financial shortfalls (estimated at $1M by Public Safety Director Scott Newman) being experienced, despite being granted almost unprecedented (and ever-increasing) access to the corpus of the Crume Trust by the Indiana Attorney General for purposes of securing more credit. [For more information, visit Move To Act]

Click here to download a copy of the Memorandum Of Understanding