JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The city council on Tuesday evening heard arguments on a proposal that would cut the number of days the city's animal shelter would hold animals before putting them down.

Overcrowding at Jacksonville's Animal Care and Control prompted the proposal, which could reduce the hold time for animals from seven to five days.

"Right now, the animals are suffering at animal care and control. The longer they're held there, the more they suffer," said Sandy Golding, of the animal advisory committee.

With a 70 percent euthanasia rate in the city's shelter, some people attended the public hearing to plead for an alternative solution to overcrowding problem.

"This is not euthanasia; it's killing. It's killing healthy animals just like the ones you and I have at home," said one attendee.

City's animal control officials said in 2001 they had about 12,000 animals and that last year those numbers more than doubled.

In a bill introduced to the council to curb the overcrowding issue, the animal shelter originally asked the city to reduce the hold time to three days.

However, a proposed amendment would change it to five business days, not including the day of capture and release. That means the animal could be held for up to nine days before it's euthanized or put up for adoption.

"Our goal is not euthanization. Any adoptable pet, as you know, we put up for adoption and hold for up to 90 days," said the director of the Environmental Compliance Department, Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi.

He said the problem is that as long as an animal is being held they cannot adopt the pet out to new foster homes or rescue agencies.

Most of the dozen or so people who attended the hearing to voice their opinions all agreed that the originally proposed three-day holding period was not enough time for owners to claim their pets.

"Unfortunately, a lot of lost pets do not end up in Jacksonville's Animal Care and Control immediately," Golding said.

Some suggested that the solution to the overcrowding problem would be to put more funding into spay or neuter programs.

A final vote on the proposal is expected to come down sometime next month.