A veterinary team from the Humane Society of the United States arrived at the Lied Animal Shelter on North Mojave Road Feb. 5 for what was scheduled to be a four-day inspection.

The team had been invited to assess shelter operations and suggest improvements.

Their assessment was startling.

Though shelter officials say they were unaware of any problems, the Humane Society inspectors found dogs and cats suffering from serious, contagious respiratory and intestinal diseases almost upon walking in the doors of the overcrowded shelter.

Those overcrowded conditions -- brought about by a reluctance to destroy animals that had not been adopted in a reasonable time -- had helped spread the canine distemper and Parvovirus, as well as the feline panleukopenia, Humane Society officials said.

More than 1,000 dogs and cats have been euthanized over the past 10 days, in what is thought to be the largest mass animal killing in Las Vegas history.

In some cases, even lost animals that remained at the shelter for only a few hours and were promptly reclaimed by their owners had infected their litter mates, leading to the necessity of destroying entire litters that had never set foot in the pound.

Operators of the Lied shelter -- which has contracts with and receives tax money from valley municipalities -- presumably have access to sound veterinary advice. How could the overcrowding that contributed to this crisis have been allowed to persist so long? How could the operators not have noticed the developing problem until too late?

Lied spokesman Mark Fierro said Tuesday that the facility is now adopting changes recommended by the Humane Society, including vaccinating animals as soon as they arrive at the shelter.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says he met with Lied officials last week and no one mentioned any problems at the pound. Now, expressing both the general public response and some common sense, the mayor comments, "It's shocking. It's not a good situation, that's for darned sure. But this is not the time for finger-pointing. This is a time to save the animals. After we have that under control, then it's time to see who was responsible."

Indeed. The problem was concentrated precisely because local municipalities contract with and subsidize this shelter, creating an effective monopoly for handling local strays. Although that may make things convenient for the owner of a lost pet, it also gives local officials not just the right but the duty to get to the bottom of what happened, and then review their existing contracts. Particular attention should be paid to the need for more regular inspections by some outside veterinary entity.

The need to euthanize unwanted strays is a nationwide problem, stemming from the reluctance of pet owners to sterilize their animals or take full responsibility for the ensuing offspring.

No local office-holder can cure that overnight.

But they can surely install safeguards to make sure current shelter operators do better -- regardless of how good their "no-kill" intentions are -- or else find someone else for the job.