President Lynn King Welcomed a great crowd to the Palmera Inn as well as Zoom and called the meeting to order.
The prayer was offered by Kevin Courtney, after which he led the pledge to the flag.
 
Announcements:
The latter part of April will have opportunities for service: oyster shell bagging, a beach sweep, and another High School Clean up to be planned.  Watch for details
 
There are six high school students that are working on the application for our scholarship.  Deadline is the end of May.
 
Suzi Oliver, Sergeant at Arms, collected Happy $$
 
Speaker:
Suzi introduced Tallulah Trice, Director of Beaufort County Animal Services and Control.  
She talked about the importance of their program that helps animals when their owners are incapacitated.  The program registers animals, and they are working to get stickers for windows. Fix it or ticket is another program that works to help fix animal violations before giving a ticket and taking legal action.  BFTDOG.com.  The Beaufort County Animal Services and Hilton Head Humane work together to provide services.  They have spayed/neutered over 5,000 animals in 2020.  Over population is a problem.  Because the shelter has so many pit bulls it is mandatory to spay and neuter them.  The county also has a mandatory licensing which many do not know.  It is a one time chare of $5.  The spay/neuter program has been very successful and has seen 54% less in take.  There is an Administrative Citation which is an alternative enforcement tool that may be used instead of a criminal citation, saving taxpayer dollars.  Another focus area of the BCAS is disease protection.  Beaufort county horse tests positive for mosquito born illness that can be deadly to humans - one of the reasons the county sprays for mosquitos.  Rabies is another disease that is monitored, racoons being the main cause, but foxes have also tested positive.  They control wild life rabies using raboral V-RG which is dropped in areas that show high incidents of rabies.   The organization does not just do puppies and kittens, but gets involved with animal problems involving: chickens which have been released (tractor supply sells them cheap to make money on the accessories); reptiles; mice; rabbits; goats; horses; birds of prey dying because of poisoning - using cats to control them.  She and one other person are on call when a pet owner dies, is in an accident, involved in drug bust, etc. to rescue the animal.