Lied Animal Shelter spokesman Mark Fierro and chief Animal Control officer Joe Boteilho appear Tuesday before county officials. Photo by Gary Thompson.

The Lied Animal Shelter staff caused the recent outbreak of infectious disease that led to the killing of 1,000 animals, a shelter official told Clark County Commissioners on Tuesday.

Lied officials' failure to control population numbers at the regional pound contributed to the outbreak of Parvovirus and distemper among dogs and panleukopenia in cats, Lied spokesman Mark Fierro said.

Animals that should have been considered unadoptable were not euthanized for months in hopes the shelter could place them in a home, leading to overcrowding.

"We were giving long-shot animals a chance," Fierro told commissioners. "We realized we simply cannot do that. We are not a hotel."

Lied officials came to the conclusion after the Humane Society of the United States visited the shelter earlier this month for a Lied-initiated evaluation of the North Mojave Road facility and declared an emergency because of its conditions.

Humane Society veterinarians discovered the outbreak and recommended Lied kill about 150 infected animals and kill an additional 850 exposed to the diseases.

Lied, which contracts with Clark County, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas to provide animal sheltering services, closed for a week to dispatch the animals, cleanse the shelter and adopt new procedures to prevent a future outbreak.

Fierro told commissioners Lied officials also erred by deciding five months ago to stop vaccinating impounded animals deemed unadoptable because they were too old, sick or vicious. Because the animals were headed to destruction, shelter officials considered the immunizations a waste of vaccines, he said.

The prior policy of immunizing all animals had been an effective fire wall against disease outbreaks, Fierro said.

County Animal Control chief Joe Boteilho told commissioners the public was partly to blame for the crowded conditions at Lied. If pet owners spayed and neutered their pets, the pound's numbers could be kept under control.

"This is the place where the casualties of irresponsible pet ownership are dealt with," Boteilho said.

Commissioners took no action outside of accepting the verbal report but heard from a dozen angry activists during the public comment portion of Tuesday's meeting.

They have contended that the Animal Foundation, the private nonprofit group that operates Lied, is ill-equipped to manage animal shelter services for the region.

Some of them urged commissioners to reconsider the county's relationship with the foundation.

"The bottom line is they didn't know what they were doing," Gina Greisen said. "How long, how long are the powers that be going to allow this to continue? What's happened there is unforgivable."

Bruce Woodbury, leading the meeting in the absence of three other commissioners, thanked Greisen and the others for their comments.