After 22 years of service, the Pet Assistance and Welfare Services of the CNMI is disbanding, blaming it on a general lack of interest from the public.<\/p>\n
PAWS is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the health, care, welfare, and population control of cats and dogs in the CNMI and to the education of the public on animal care and rights. It was established in March 1993.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty much lack of interest from the community in PAWS. Bobbi [Grizzard] and I have struggled for years to run it ourselves but none of us have the time to make that type of organization work. While we still very much believe in our cause, we can\u2019t keep supporting it with just the two of us,\u201d said PAWS president Sarah Fryling.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first we had lots of people who were willing to volunteer, willing to donate,\u201d said Grizzard, who is both the group\u2019s secretary and treasurer. \u201cSince then we have lost a lot of people who have moved off island, others who now have other interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fryling says she understand why people are not stepping forward. \u201cHelping out animals is a very emotionally draining thing to do especially [on] Saipan where there\u2019s so little care. I very much understand and I feel like if we have a couple more people to contribute some energy, we probably could\u2019ve kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its over two decades of existence, PAWS has supported and pushed legislation to increase animal awareness education and protection in the CNMI. They\u2019ve also spent a lot of time in organizing adoptions and working with a veterinarian to improve animal care. PAWS used to have a veterinarian check the animals first before they can be put up for adoption.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t afford it anymore. It costs too much money. It\u2019s not the vet\u2019s fault, he has managed to not charge us for money for a long time and it\u2019s not fair to him because he is in business too,\u201d Grizzard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPAWS just can\u2019t afford to subsidize the care of animals anymore,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The two are just glad there are other organizations such as the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office and the Saipan Cares for Animals that are now helping the animals on island. They said they fully support these groups and wish them well in their projects.<\/p>\n
Even though PAWS will no longer exist, Fryling says she hopes for an increase in animal welfare awareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love people to increase their awareness of animal welfare from their participation in adoption clinics and making sure that the animals are spayed and neutered. I think that is one of the most important things that Saipan needs to focus on,\u201d Fryling said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 22 years of service, the Pet Assistance and Welfare Services of the CNMI is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,37,1151,67],"class_list":["post-211430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-education-2","tag-paws","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}