Triangle Pet Control Service dropped out of the running for a city contract to euthanize wildlife before City Council could act on the matter.

Even so, after spending about 2 1/2 hours yesterday discussing what to do with wildlife, council members decided they didn't want to contract with Triangle Pet.

City animal control officers had been taking captured wild animals to Triangle Pet in McKees Rocks since June 1, after the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania informed the city that it would no longer dispose of wildlife for the city.

Under state law, animals that could carry rabies, such as raccoons, skunks and groundhogs, cannot be caught in one place and released in another. Instead, they must be euthanized by local authorities.

The Animal Rescue League used to do that, but Daniel Musher, the league's director of development, said the board of directors decided that euthanizing wildlife in one location while providing wild animal rehabilitation in Harmar is inconsistent.

Instead, Mr. Musher said, the league was offering to train the city's 12 animal control officers in the humane killing of wildlife. Until the officers are trained, he said, the league will continue to perform that service for the city.

Gerald Akrie, an animal control officer, said those officers have already taken classes in proper euthanasia techniques and he would be happy to continue their training so the city could do that work in-house.

He said that way the city would have people at the ready at all hours.

At Triangle Pet, he said, if no one was around, officers had to punch in a code to enter the building and then leave the caged animals inside.

He said that was an issue June 2, when officers had to leave a raccoon with a mangled leg for an unknown period of time until someone arrived to euthanize it. In another case, he said, a groundhog suffocated with its head stuck in a soup can before anyone arrived to euthanize it humanely.

Triangle Pet withdrew its proposal in a handwritten fax sent to council President Doug Shields.

"We now choose not to do business with the city, based upon recent events and no contract," Bernie Dudash, president of the company, wrote in the fax.