Wake County has named Matt Roylance as interim director of the Animal Care, Control and Adoption Center. He will take over after current director Dennis McMichael leaves today.
Roylance has been with the county for six years and has served as deputy director of environmental services for four.
The county says Roylance's immediate focus will be to move forward with a Trap-Neuter-Return ordinance, to recruit and hire a new director for the shelter and to develop an Animal Services Community Advisory Committee that will make recommendations to the county Board of Commissioners.
McMichael took the job Nov. 7 and resigned barely three months later to return to his native Pennsylvania.
The Wake shelter has dealt with its share of controversy over the past year, with rising kill rates associated with sick dogs and the killing of a dog in November on the same day it was featured on the WRAL noon news as the Pet of the Day. After that death, the shelter temporarily altered its policy of automatically killing dogs that show signs of respiratory disease. The dogs are now quarantined and treated, but officials haven't determined whether that solution will be permanent.
The county also is in the middle of a lawsuit with a local cat charity, Operation Catnip, over the capture and killing of stray cats that previously had been through Operation Catnip's TNR program. The charity says it had the county's blessing on a TNR project in Apex, but those in charge at that time are no longer with Animal Services. Current leaders say no formal agreement with the groupever existed.
