BY SARA LINDAU: Staff Writer

Moore County residents plan to ask the Moore County Board of Commissioners at their 2 p.m. meeting to consider enacting a rewritten animal control ordinance the county has had since July.

This will be the fourth time the group has attempted to address the commissioners.

The Animal Control Ordinance, unanimously adopted by the Moore County Board of Health at a May meeting, would replace a 1988 ordinance that health officials say is inadequate and difficult to enforce. They say it needs to be updated to more effectively enforce animal cruelty laws and provide incentives to pet owners to get their animals spayed and neutered that would cut down the cost to taxpayers for dealing with the increasing number of unwanted kittens and puppies and in turn animal abuse and neglect.

The county commissioners referred the revised ordinance to the county attorney’s office for review.

Moore County Health Director Robert Wittmann said that a member of the county legal staff told him she had just received a copy to begin analyzing it.

The Board of Health, an advisory and policy-making body appointed by the commissioners, unanimously adopted the recommended rewrite, which originated from a slightly different version in 2003. That version never made it to the commissioners.

“The county still needs to get a handle on the proliferation of homeless, unwanted dogs and cats and pups and kittens that come from the unsterilized companion animals in the county,” said Wittmann, whose department runs animal control and the animal center.

Animal advocates hope the county commissioners will study the revised ordinance and act on it as soon as possible, said Angela Zumwalt, founder of Central North Carolina Animal Welfare Coalition, a multi-county group. Concerned residents have asked the commissioners to consider discussing the ordinance in a work session.

The Moore County Coalition for Animal Welfare supports the new ordinance. A number of people, including Chaplain Larry Ellis of the Village Chapel in Pinehurst and Linda Hubbard, volunteer coordinator for the Moore County school system, have attended commissioners’ meetings to express support for the revised ordinance.

A retired K-9 officer and equine veterinarian from Whispering Pines is expected to address the commissioners Tuesday during the public-comment period.

“Moore County voters from all walks of life are trying to get the commissioners to first schedule a work session that could include not only people from our membership organizations but others who are knowledgeable about the proposed ordinance,” Zumwalt said at a recent coalition meeting.

So far, there’s been no verbal or written response from the commissioners to the request, she told the members.

The proposed ordinance includes more detailed definitions of animal cruelty to help enforce cases that are difficult to successfully prosecute under the language in the current ordinance.

Another highlight of the proposed new ordinance is to require people to register all unsterilized companion animals. People who breed American Kennel Club-registered dogs that produce four or fewer litters a year and sell fewer than 15 dogs a year would be exempt. All such dogs must be microchipped, according to the new proposed law.

It also increases penalties for repeat offenders for both animal cruelty and nuisance offenses, to help people understand the “gravity of their actions,” Zumwalt wrote in a letter to the commissioners.

In neighboring Cumberland County, she said, tethering is not permitted, and the commissioners there have also begun requiring differential licensing.

“Our recommended ordinance requests less than this: Better conditions for tethered animals and registration of only unaltered animals,” she said.

When Buncombe County started requiring registration of unaltered animals, it saw a 14 percent decrease in euthanasia and an 11 percent drop in animals entering the county shelter in the first full year, she said.