Charges have been filed against a Putnam County farmer accused of animal abuse.
Mark Andy Santee, the owner of A&A Farms in Red House, was charged Tuesday with 19 counts of animal neglect, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office. Santee has not been arrested yet.
Earlier this month, 115 animals were seized from A&A Farms.
Jon Davis, Putnam's chief humane officer, said the seizure was the largest the shelter has faced.
While many of the animals have since been adopted after Santee released them to the shelter, some still remain. Twelve of the animals will stay there until a court hearing on the case.
For Davis and humane officer Shaun Martin, some of the animals they are now placed in charge of they've never worked with before -- from a bright peacock to showy turkeys.
"We were definitely forced into the farming industry, whether we wanted to or not," Davis said.
The Putnam County Animal Shelter, which was opened in 2013, was designed for large-scale seizures like the one at A&A Farms. It took two days for the shelter, the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association and Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue to gather all of the animals on the farm.
All of the animals, except two horses, were housed at the shelter. It was at capacity for almost two days after the seizure, filled with horses, ducks, chickens, pigs, guinea pigs,turkeys, a peacock, rabbits, pheasants, a goat, and dogs.
Since then dozens of animals have been adopted by farm rescue groups. Davis said it's not as simple as adopting them out to an average farmer.
"You want somebody that knows how to handle the general situation. You just don't want to adopt to the general public," Davis said.
Santee, the owner of the farm, insisted in multiple interviews with the Gazette-Mail that the animals were not neglected.
Several dead animals were found on the property, according to humane officials from the Putnam Animal Shelter and the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association.
Reach Ali Schmitz at ali.schmitz@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4843, or follow @SchmitzMedia on Twitter.