Whidbey Island Animal Welfare Partners To Suspend Services

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 08/12/2026

On June 30, Ballydídean Farm Sanctuary and Critters Pet Rescue sent Island County officials a joint letter asking for a formal, transparent animal response plan. We have received no response.

Since then, Ballydídean Farm Sanctuary, Critters Pet Rescue, and Bring ’Em Home Whidbey have agreed that we cannot continue operating as Island County’s informal animal response system without written procedures, legal clarity, and basic safety protections.

For years, local animal welfare organizations have answered calls involving animals outside the county’s existing dog-and-cat sheltering contract with WAIF. We have responded because animals were in danger, community members needed help, and law enforcement had few other options. But goodwill is not a public system. It cannot replace legal authority, dispatch procedures, law enforcement protocols, transport authorization, sheltering documentation, owner communication rules, or clear chain of custody.

Effective 08/12/2026, our organizations will suspend informal county animal response work unless and until Island County creates formal written agreements and procedures for working with animal welfare partners. When callers contact us about matters within the Sheriff’s Office’s authority, we will direct them to the ICOM Dispatch non-emergency line. When officers or dispatch contact us for county animal response work, we will explain that we cannot participate without formal procedures and legal protections in place.

This decision was not made lightly. We care deeply about the animals and people of Island County, and it breaks our hearts to say no. But the current arrangement is unsafe and legally unclear. We are asked to respond to abandonment, neglect, abuse, loose livestock, owner crisis, and emergency sheltering situations, often with little warning, at odd hours, and sometimes without law enforcement present.

These calls can involve volatile owners, unsafe properties, transport risks, veterinary emergencies, unclear ownership, seizure issues, evidence holds, and legal uncertainty over custody and liability. Volunteers and nonprofits should not be asked to operate in that gray area.

Island County has described its ability to handle animal issues as dependent on “regional resources.” We are those resources. If the county is relying on us as part of its animal response system, then those relationships must be formal, transparent, and legally sound.

We are asking Island County to immediately work with us to create written agreements and procedures that define scope of work, response procedures, hours of operation, dispatch protocols, law enforcement presence, chain of custody, confidentiality, owner communication, liability protection, veterinary authorization, transport expectations, and documentation requirements that would apply to us and any other animal welfare partners.

We have published proposed baseline terms so the county and the public can see exactly what protections we are asking for: https://ballydidean.farm/animal-coalition-terms.

Until those basic protections are in place, our organizations cannot continue accepting the legal, operational, and safety risks of performing county animal response work through informal calls, assumptions, and emergency favors.

Island County residents deserve a real animal response system. Animals deserve one. Law enforcement deserves one. So do the community partners the county has been relying on to make the current broken system appear functional.

We remain ready to meet with Sheriff Rick Felici, County Commissioners Jill Johnson, Melanie Bacon, and Janet St. Clair, and any relevant staff to build workable agreements immediately.

Signed,

Ballydídean Farm Sanctuary
Critters Pet Rescue
Bring ’Em Home Whidbey