Dozens of allegedly neglected animals were taken from a farm in Putnam County in the largest animal seizure the county has seen in recent memory.
Jessie Shafer, development director for the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association, said more than 100 animals were rescued. She said the seizure was too large for the Putnam County Animal Shelter to handle alone. Her organization and Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue were called in to help take the animals from A&A Farms, a farm near Red House.
Many of the animals needed to be transported immediately to the local animal hospital, Shafer said.
"In a lot of the cases, there was no food, there was no water and the animals were dangerously emaciated," she said.
The Putnam County Animal Shelter had received calls and complaints on social media that the man who owns A&A Farms, Mark Andy Santee, was neglecting his animals, according to Shafer. People reported seeing Santee's horses running loose along W.Va. 34.
Running a farm is a new endeavor for Santee. He previously worked in sales and real estate. About seven months ago, he told the Gazette-Mail, God gave him a mission to save farm animals that weren't wanted.
Santee said he's going through a divorce and has struggled in the past months to feed and water all of his animals. Without volunteers and grant money to help out, he said, he spends hours each day caring for the animals. He said he'd spent about $90,000 to care for them.
"Not one animal has ever been neglected," Santee said.
No criminal charges had been filed against Santee on Tuesday, but Shafer said charges could come this morning after the shelter takes stock of all the seized animals.
On Tuesday afternoon, Shafer said, the shelter got a warrant to search the property and seize neglected animals. Representatives of the Putnam County Animal Shelter, which continued removing animals late into Tuesday evening, could not be reached for comment.
Shafer said that with so many animals, it was hard to keep track of how many of each kind were rescued. At her last count, she said, the count included more than 40 chickens, six horses, more than 20 rabbits, three turkeys, two pheasants, a peacock and a pregnant coonhound that was giving birth as the rescuers arrived at the farm.
Not all of the animals could be rounded up Tuesday, and shelter representatives planned to go back for the rest today.
They also found the bodies of two rabbits that appeared to have been burned in a bonfire pit, Shafer said.
"All of the animals are going to be transported to a safe location until the court proceedings are over," she said. "It was a large farm - it was even large for us."
On Santee's public Facebook profile, he lists himself as president of A&A Farms, which he describes as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that rescues farm animals. No group with that name - nor any organization affiliated with Santee - appears on the secretary of state's online directory of charitable groups.
Santee said he was recently going to file to become a recognized charitable organization, but a pig ate his paperwork.
He launched a GoFundMe campaign earlier this year to raise $10,000 to support the farm. He has since raised more than $1,200.
"Hopefully every time we bring awareness to the fact that we're prosecuting these cases and we're assisting other agencies - I want that to be a warning to people who are committing crimes against animals," Shafer said.
"Our region, not just our county, is not going to stand for this."
Reach Jake Jarvis
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