DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County’s CEO is getting support from an unlikely place to do away with the county’s shelter’s no-kill policy.

PETA, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, say they are all for it.

When the shelter was built in July 2017, DeKalb County leaders touted it as state of the art, with plenty of room for animals.

Six years later, it’s over-run with conditions so bad the state agriculture department is now looking into it.

Peta said it’s time that the no-kill shelter starts euthanizing some animals to make room for others.

“100%. These no-kill policies are causing overcrowding, they are preventing shelters from making responsible decisions, and animals are suffering,” Daphna Nachminovitch with PETA said.

At the facility in Chamblee, CEO Michael Thurmond and members of LifeLine Animal Project are contracted to run DeKalb’s shelters.

“I’m not searching for a culprit, I’m searching for a solution,” Thurmond says. “All ideas are on the table. I’m fact-finding.”

“You’ve got mostly pit bull-type dogs who have been discarded by someone and they are very hard to place,” Nachminovitch said.

LifeLine Animal Project said PETA is usually always against no-kill shelters, unlike a lot of other animal rights groups, including Best Friends Animal Society.

Thurmond is meeting with lifeLine representatives on Wednesday in hopes of agreeing to a solution to a problem he said is caused primarily by inflation.

Already, the county is putting up $10 million to help financially struggling families keep their pets and to temporarily expand the shelter with annexes.

Thurmond says that he’s now considering adding more money, to increase free spay and neutering services.

“It could increase, particularly if we can prevent animals from being born, become homeless and ending up in the shelter,” Thurmond said.

LifeLine Animal Project manages the Fulton and DeKalb County animal services shelters, two of the largest county shelters in metro Atlanta.