It was a larger than expected crowd at the Iberia Parish Library Sunday afternoon, when the Humane Society of Louisiana held a meeting asking for local residents interested in Iberia Parish’s stray animal problem to attend. 

Humane Society of Louisiana Director Jeff Dorson made the trip to New Iberia for the open meeting, and said he was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. For the past several months, Dorson has been making trips to various Louisiana parishes that have a problem with stray animals and animal shelters in order to assist in coming up with 10-year-plans that will be able to mitigate the problems. 

“Most animal groups don’t do future planning,” he said. “It’s all crisis management. We came up with a 10-year plan to try and get ahead of the curb.”

For Iberia Parish, Dorson proposed the Iberia Parish Pet Protection Program, and held the meeting to get feedback from local residents about the major problems concerning animals in the parish. 

The inadequate space at the parish’s animal shelter was a large part of the discussion, as well as the large number of stray dogs that roam the streets of New Iberia. 

Dorson said that once an agreed upon plan takes shape, he hoped a group could be formed that begins to push for the agenda with local and state legislators. 

The Humane Society of Louisiana made a similar announcement in March, and Dorson said he has already seen positive results from similar parishes who are now pushing like never before to build their own animal shelters and form rescue groups. 

Some of the ideas thrown around included building an animal shelter in New Iberia. Regina Quinn, who operates Blue Angels Advocacy Group and helps with animal rescues in Iberia Parish, said the animal problem in Iberia Parish is at a pivotal point. 

“It seems like there’s no easy solution at this point, but we can’t ignore what’s happening,” Quinn said. “We’re at a pivotal point, and I think this is a really good start.”