SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is seeing a rise in reported animal bites, and an even bigger jump in severe bite cases.
ACS Director Jon Gary told KSAT an 11% uptick in reported cases so far this year could, in part, be due to increased awareness, leading to more reports.
However, he did not know what might be driving a more than 50% increase in the number of severe bite cases ACS is working on.
The rise in bite reports went against the larger trends Gary presented to the city’s Public Safety Committee as part of an update on the department’s strategic plan.
The department is adding more capacity for spay and neuter operations, has maintained roughly an 87% live release rate despite more animals coming through ACS, and is now responding to more than 80% of its critical calls for service.
“The needle’s definitely moving in the right direction in all the metrics that we’re looking at,” Gary told the committee.
The department’s strategic plan addresses the department’s response to bite cases and dangerous dog reports but not the number of bites themselves.
In terms of its ability to respond, the department has already increased its dangerous dog and bite investigations teams. The number of aggressive and dangerous dog affidavits has gone up, Gary said, and ACS is seeing a compliance rate among dangerous dog owners of more than 80%.
The department has also increased the number of criminal citations it issues by 221% and civil citations by 46%. The city council also increased the fine amounts for repeat violations of the city’s animal codes.
The number of reported bites was not part of Gary’s presentation. But when asked by KSAT, he said that number was up about 11% compared to the same time last year.
“I think that number definitely rose as much as it has because more people are reporting, but we’re probably seeing more (bites) as well,” he said.
As for the number of “severe” cases the department has worked, Gary said ACS is at 268 so far this year compared to “about 174″ the same time last year — a 54% increase.
Asked about that steeper rise, Gary said any answer he had would be “purely anecdotal.”
“We don’t know why that is, other than we’ve probably have seen an increase probably in the number of free-roaming dogs and that’s going to lead to that,” Gary said.
In a city of 1.5 million people, Gary said there are a lot of dogs and “some of that is out of our control.”
But as for what ACS is doing to combat bites, Gary pointed to education and marketing efforts about not letting dogs roam, as well as the city’s spay and neuter programs.
Asked about how long it would take before the number of bites start coming down, Gary said it would probably take “a good year of strong ... of what we’ve been doing.”
“I think we’re going to need to have a good year or two of data before we be able to really see that impact, you know,” Gary said. “Change takes time, it really does.”
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