Keweenaw, Houghton, and Baraga counties are located in a mostly rural area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Together, they form a region known as Copper Country, named for the copper mines it used to have. The Copper Country Humane Society (CCHS) is a private non-profit that provides animal sheltering services for non-feral dogs and cats for the three counties and for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. The shelter describes its program as follows: “Our successful adoption program matches homeless animals with responsible people seeking pets.  The nominal adoption fee helps defray some of the costs of the initial vaccination, deworming and spaying/neutering of adopted dogs and cats.  CCHS helps over 900 animals annually and ninety percent of our dogs and cats are adopted or claimed every year.  There is NO time limit on our animals looking for homes, CCHS cares for them for as long as they need us.  CCHS cares for about 80 animals each day at our shelter.” In 2010, the shelter reported to the Michigan Department of Agriculture that it had a 93% live release rate for its intake of almost 900 animals (scroll down to Copper Country in the link). The shelter relied mostly on adoptions and returning pets to their owners, with very few transfers. In 2011, with an intake of 939 animals, the shelter reported a substantially higher live release rate — a near-perfect 99%. In 2012 the CCHS report was not included in the state reports. In 2013, the shelter had an intake of 769 cats and dogs. The live release rate was 99%. All animals who were placed by adoption were sterilized. CCHS did not euthanize any dogs, and euthanized 9 cats. CCHS won the Michigan Pet Fund alliance 2014 award in the “small shelter” category for “outstanding open admission shelter with the best save rate.” The award was based on CCHS’s performance in 2013. Copper Country, MI, was originally listed by this blog on May 5, 2013. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

A great debate has been raging for several years now about how to control the number of feral cats. On one side of the debate we have wildlife conservationists who argue that the domestic cat is an invasive species that is slaughtering native species and must be eradicated in the same way that other invasive species are eradicated – by killing them all. On the other side we have No Kill advocates who argue that trap-and-kill programs do not work and that feral cat numbers can be managed and gradually reduced by trap-neuter-return (TNR). The two sides have been battling for years, with wildlife biologists successfully opposing TNR in some places. Underlying this debate is an assumption that has, as far as I can tell from reading the non-paywalled literature, never been addressed in any systematic way. That assumption is that feral cats in the United States are like other “invasive” species such as starlings and Burmese pythons, in that their numbers are rapidly increasing. We see projections that one feral cat can have hundreds of thousands of offspring in a few years, for example. The label “invasive” itself designates a non-native species that comes into an environment and takes over, squeezing out native species by its rapid reproduction. Think kudzu. What do we know about feral cat population numbers in the United States? The most accurate answer to that question is “nothing.” Over the years various estimates of feral cat populations have been made, often in the range of 60 million. One recent study that attracted a lot of attention estimated that there were from 30 to 80 million un-owned domestic cats in the United States. This estimate was made in a 2013 article by Scott R. Loss, et al., published in the journal Nature Communications. It is often referred to as the Smithsonian study. The Smithsonian study did not report any original research on the number of un-owned cats in the United States; instead, it made estimates ostensibly based on five other studies. The authors of the paper acknowledged, however, that: “No precise estimate of the un-owned cat population exists for the United States . . . .” Because they had no good data on numbers of un-owned cats in the United States, they used data from other countries to estimate what the population might be in the United States. The wide range in this estimate, and the lack of data from the United States, resulted in numbers that I would characterize as “guessing.” But in spite of the lack of data on the feral cat population nationwide, there are useful things we can say about feral cat distribution and their numbers over time. First of all, as to distribution, domestic cats are a commensal species, and as such their numbers are heavily dependent on the human population. As a commensal species, feral cats live primarily in the cities and suburbs. This is an extremely important fact about feral cats that has been given virtually no attention in connection with control measures. There is no evidence whatsoever that feral cats exist in sufficient numbers to cause damage to populations of native species in wild areas of the territorial United States, away from human habitation. Nor is there any evidence that feral cat numbers in wild areas are increasing. The commensal nature of the cat, and its dependence on its association with human habitation, means that feral cats are not an invasive species in the classic sense of over-running natural habitat and crowding out native species. Since feral cats require resources that they find in human habitations to reach high populations, efforts to control those populations must concentrate in cities and suburbs. We do not need to be concerned about most wild areas, because they have very few feral cats. In the cities and suburbs where feral cats live, there is not a black-and-white line between feral and tame cats. Although feral and tame cats may be very different behaviorally, they are denizens of the same urban habitat and their populations intertwine. In many colonies you will find feral and tame cats living side-by-side. Therefore, what we are really interested in for purposes of designing control programs is the number of free-roaming cats (aka community cats), whether they are feral or tame. The two important facts discussed above – that cats are commensal and that the population we are interested in for control purposes is free-roaming cats, point us to an important data source that has been completely overlooked in discussions about the feral cat “problem” – historical animal control data. That data shows us that the population of free-roaming cats in the urban areas where cats actually live has been plunging since the early 1900s. All we need to do to “control” the free-roaming cat population is to figure out what we have been doing right and do more of it. Free-roaming cats were apparently not considered a problem in American cities until the latter half of the 19th century. In fact, there are references in historical documents to cat shortages. Large numbers of horses and dairy cows were stabled in cities throughout the 1800s, and you could find cats in every stable. Horses ate grain, and cats deterred rodents from getting to the expensive grain. It was not until around the end of the 19th century that the number of cats grew large enough in New York City, Boston, and other large cities that systematic efforts to control their numbers were made. In New York City, that job fell to the ASPCA. The ASPCA has made their intake and euthanasia numbers available for selected years in the period from 1894, when they were awarded the responsibility for animal control in New York City, to 1994, when they gave up that responsibility. During that 100-year period, the vast majority of animals who were taken into shelters in the city were taken in by the ASPCA. The ASPCA is to be congratulated on their willingness to make this data available, because it is the sole source of shelter intake data that we have that goes back to the early 1900s. The cat-intake numbers from the ASPCA official reports are astonishing. In 1895 the ASPCA took in 24,140 cats. That number rapidly went up as the ASPCA ramped up its animal control operation. In 1914 the intake number was 177,234, and in 1928 it was 217,774. In 1934 the cat intake number peaked at 219,506 cats. According to unofficial reports, the numbers in some years may have been even higher. One report was that the ASPCA killed 303,949 cats in 1911 (Forbush, The Domestic Cat). But the number of cats impounded by the ASPCA fell sharply from 1934 to 1946, and in 1946 the ASPCA impounded 155,312 cats. The decline continued, and in 1965 the number was 75,858. In 1994, the number was 27,366. The number of cats impounded in New York City continued to decline after the city took over animal control in 1994, and in 2014 cat intake was 18,784. Meanwhile, the human population of New York City increased from 5.6 million in 1920 to 8.5 million today. If we pick 1920 as a base year and compare it to 2014, we see a dramatic fall in cat intake numbers in New York City, both in absolute numbers and numbers relative to the human population. The number of cats impounded by animal control fell from about 200,000 per year in 1920 to 18,784 in 2014. That is a decline of 91% in absolute numbers. The decline relative to human population was from 36 per 1000 people in 1920 to about 2 per 1000 people today, a 95% drop. Now, some people (particularly wildlife biologists, I suspect) would criticize these numbers as meaningless. They would argue that the numbers are for only one city and that enforcement as to cats may have changed over the years. These are valid criticisms, but I do not think they invalidate the evidence of a plunge in free-roaming cat numbers. As to the objection that the numbers are from only one city, we have quite a lot of national data showing a fall in shelter intake across the United States. This fall in intake has been particularly well-documented for the years 1970 to 2000. It is not the quality of data we would ideally like to have for scientific study, but it is consistent across a large number of shelters. Those estimates are that shelter intake nationwide, of cats and dogs, was some 26.5 million in 1970 and about 9 million in 2000. As to the objection that animal-control enforcement may have changed over the years, changes in enforcement up to at least the year 2000 were in the direction of more enforcement against cats, not less. And in any event, we are not looking at a subtle finding here. Plunges in the number of cats impounded on the order that we have seen in the United States is hardly likely to be solely due to changes in enforcement. Additional evidence that the number of cats in cities has cratered comes from ecological studies that were done in the 1980s. Cat densities of from 725 to 1813 per square mile were found by researcher James Childs in Baltimore neighborhoods in the early 1980s. I am not aware of any more recent ecological surveys of cats in cities, but such numbers of free-roaming cats would surely be very rare in cities today. So, what happened? Why did the number of free-roaming cats in our cities fall off a cliff? One thing that did not cause the decline in numbers was shelter killing. In spite of massive killing, the numbers of cats impounded in New York City throughout the early 1900s continued to rise. The explanation for the fall in the number of cats was changes in the environment. The great decline in cat intake that we saw in New York City from roughly 1920 to 1945 correlated with the period of time after horses and dairy cows disappeared from the cities. Cats lost their jobs protecting stables, and as the stables disappeared a huge chunk of the food and shelter resources that cats had relied on disappeared with them. Also in the early 1900s, cities began to make organized efforts to improve public health. In addition to getting livestock out of town, cities made big efforts to clean up the streets and get rid of abandoned buildings. Less trash in the streets and fewer abandoned buildings equaled fewer resources for free-roaming cats. Another enormous change happened in the 1970s as safe, humane techniques for spaying and neutering were perfected and veterinarians began to recommend sterilization for owned pets as a routine part of healthcare. This trend accelerated in the 1990s as pediatric spay-neuter became accepted, and today a very high percentage of owned cats – estimates are over 90% – are sterilized. As more and more owned cats were sterilized, there was less and less seeding of the free-roaming cat population by owned pets. Another factor in the period from 1970 to 2000 was that residences began to secure their trash better. Photographs of Baltimore from the 1970s show alleys full of metal trash cans tipped over by dogs, with the lids scattered around. Today we have garbage cans with locking lids that are much harder for animals to open. What part did TNR have in all this? TNR did not become widespread until recently, and it may be too early in the process to evaluate long-term effects of TNR on the population of cats in cities and suburbs. However, TNR should further decrease the seeding of the free-roaming cat population. If we could do TNR on a substantial percentage of the population of free-roaming cats in the cities and suburbs, we should see the same type of decline that we saw in feral dog populations from 1970 to 2000. What more can we do? A 1989 paper by Calhoon and Haspell found that it was the availability of shelter that limited the number of cats in Brooklyn, and that supplemental feeding did not increase cat numbers. If we are serious about reducing the number of feral cats, we need to reduce urban blight, including getting rid of abandoned houses, garages, cars, etc. In the suburbs people must secure their outbuildings. TNR can help transition cats who are affected by these measures so that they can live out their lives in comfort. For example, when people complain about feral cats in their neighborhoods, we could trap, sterilize, and relocate the cats to a safe place, and then counsel the people to secure anything on their property that could potentially serve as shelter for cats. But really, probably the best thing we can do is just relax. The trend in the number of free-roaming cats has been sharply down, and that trend is continuing. Since cats live mostly in the cities and suburbs, and since populations in those areas have been falling precipitously, we have a system that is actually working very well. We just need to be a little patient, and keep doing what we are doing. The only thing that might slow us down is the bird conservationists. The bird conservationists see what we are doing as all wrong, and they want us to be forced to throw out everything we’ve worked hard for since 1970 and replace it with catch-and-kill programs. This reminds me of the people who advocate mandatory spay-neuter. Mandatory spay-neuter actually results in fewer animals being sterilized, because such rules drive people underground. Similarly, catch-and-kill programs will result in people hiding feral cats, and being afraid to reveal their presence to anyone. This will mean that fewer feral cats will be sterilized, thus setting back all our gains. Large numbers of feral cats live on private property, and the bird conservationists do not seem to realize that no government can give them the right to go on private property to kill feral cats. The most effective way to protect our current success from the bird people may be to continue to grow our networks of feral cat caregivers. The reason the bird people have not succeeded so far in setting the clock back is that no mayor or city councilmember in his or her right mind is going to propose a mass extermination of cats. As long as our network is strong, that will continue to be the case. Wildlife conservationists have succeeded in derailing TNR efforts in some places, and that is a shame, but TNR, since it can be done by people on their own property, can exist even where formal programs are banned.

The southeast part of the United States used to be a graveyard of No Kill hopes. Communities in the southeast have traditionally lagged behind in funding and supporting their shelters. The warm climate with lots of rain and vegetation provides an ideal habitat for feral cats. Practices such as keeping dogs confined and spaying and neutering pets have been slow to catch on. And cities in the southeast are not generally thought of as the most progressive in the country. But recently a minor miracle has occurred. Now we have Atlanta, Tampa, Gainesville, and several other southeastern cities making rapid progress to saving all of their healthy and treatable animals. The southeast appears to be going through the shelter revolution that happened in the northern part of the country 10-15 years ago. Particularly noteworthy is Jacksonville, Florida, which in the past two years has exceeded the 90% live release rate goal. ACPSD works closely with two large non-profits in the city. The Jacksonville Humane Society (JHS) takes in some strays and owner surrenders and pulls animals, including behavior and medical cases, from ACPSD. First Coast No More Homeless Pets (FCNMHP) is known for its spay-neuter and community cat programs. There are three aspects of the Jacksonville coalition’s program that stand out as especially effective. First, the coalition makes every effort to keep pets in their homes. The city shelter has a help desk. JHS reports a 60-70% success rate for its pioneering “safety net” initiatives. FCNMHP operates a low-cost veterinary clinic that does not turn any pet owner away, even if they cannot pay, and JHS has a similar program at their clinic. Low-cost and free spay-neuter services are available at multiple clinics, with FCNMHP alone having performed almost 15,000 low-cost and free surgeries in the previous year. The FCNMHP food bank gives out over 200,000 pounds of pet food each year to low-income pet owners. The second highly noteworthy aspect of the Jacksonville program is their cutting-edge approach to community cats. FCNMHP collaborates with ACPSD and Best Friends Animal Society in a program called Feral Freedom that has made Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) the default solution for feral cats in Jacksonville. And FCNMHP was one of the pioneers of the comprehensive approach to community cats that first appeared on the national stage in late 2013 and has been so successful in the Million Cat Challenge. This has been a revolution in cat management, and it’s hard to overstate the national importance of this new paradigm. The third outstanding aspect of Jacksonville’s success is their mega-adoption events, which contribute to the coalition’s high adoption numbers. These events have become a way for Jacksonville to help its neighbors, with shelters from the surrounding areas invited to participate. Each year, neighboring jurisdictions place about 2,000 animals in adoptive homes at Jacksonville’s mega-adoption events. Nassau County, which is just north of Duval County and is an FCNMHP partner, achieved a live release rate of over 90% in its most recent reporting year. You can read more about Jacksonville’s programs in the playbook they presented at the 2014 Best Friends national conference. Perhaps the underlying reason for Jacksonville’s success is the close working relationship that the three agencies have had for years now. They jointly promote events such as the mega-adoptathons that Jacksonville is famous for, and share resources. As Denise Deisler, head of JHS, says, “we are flying in formation towards the same goal.” So now for the results. The combined statistics for ACPSD and JHS for the year ending in September 2015 show a live release rate, by the standard calculation, of 96%. The modified live release rate (including all deaths at both shelters) was 94%. These percentages might be very slightly lower if intra-coalition transfers were subtracted out, as I prefer to do, but it appears to me based on the statistics and information that were sent to me that subtracting out intra-coalition transfers would make a difference of less than one percentage point in the combined ACPSD and JHS live release rate. Historically, ACPSD’s live release rate was 35% or less from the year 2000 up until Scott Trebatoski was hired as director in late 2008. The live release rate climbed to 50% in 2009, his first full year as director, then went to 74% in 2012 and 85% in 2013. Trebatoski left ACPSD in March 2014 to become director of the Hillsborough County (Tampa) shelter, and was replaced by Nikki Harris. Harris previously worked for the Nebraska Humane Society and FCNMHP before moving to ACPSD as shelter manager. Harris recently resigned from ACPSD and went to work for JHS, and the city is interviewing candidates to replace her. I want to say a word about the recent allegations involving Nikki Harris. News reports about the number of complaints against Harris and the nature of the complaints have been somewhat confused, but apparently the main complaint comes from a former employee and alleges falsification of ACPSD records. The city investigates all such “whistleblower” complaints, and it is investigating this one. Euthanasia drugs are controlled substances and they are subject to strict reporting requirements. As far as I can tell from the media reports (the full substance of the complaints has not been made public that I’m aware of) there has not been any allegation that more euthanasia drugs were used than were accounted for. Under these circumstances, and given that ACPSD performance did not improve more than one would expect under Harris’ tenure based on previous trend lines, I think Harris is entitled to the benefit of the doubt while the investigation is proceeding. Moreover, Harris is only one small part of an effort that has been going on for many years in Jacksonville and encompasses several agencies. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, the progress in Jacksonville is undeniable.

Summit County is west of Denver and is home to about 28,000 people. It is a mountainous area of Colorado and the county was named for the many peaks within it. The Summit County Animal Control and Shelter is run by the county as part of the sheriff’s office, and it takes in strays from the unincorporated area of the county.  I spoke to a shelter representative and was told that the shelter does not have formal contracts with the municipalities within the county, but accepts impounded animals from the municipalities when they are not reclaimed by their owners. The representative told me that the shelter accepts owner surrenders from anywhere, as long as they are brought in within normal business hours.  There is a $50 fee for residents of Summit County and an $80 fee for non-residents, but the shelter will waive the fee if the owner cannot pay. The shelter reported a 99% live release rate for 2010, with an intake of 458 animals (scroll down in the link). It reported a 97% live release rate in 2011, with an intake of 388. The live release rate with owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care counted in with euthanasias was 95% in 2011. Summit County is one of a group of communities in the area west of Denver that report to Maddie’s Fund and the Asilomar Accords as part of the Northwestern Colorado Coalition. Other members of the coalition are Garfield, Pitkin, and Eagle counties and the cities of Aspen, Rifle and Glenwood Springs. The coalition reported an overall 97% live release rate in 2010 and 98% in 2011 (see pages 1-2 in the links). In 2013 the shelter reported its statistics to the state of Colorado. The shelter had an intake of 562 animals, with a live release rate of 98%. If deaths in shelter care are counted with euthanasias, the live release rate was 97%. Summit County, CO, was originally listed by this blog on May 9, 2013, based on its statistics in previous years. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Arlington, Texas is a city of 365,000 people that lies between Dallas and Fort Worth. The entire metro area has about 6.5 million people. The city does animal control and has a municipal shelter called the Animal Services Center (ASC). I called the ASC to ask about their owner surrender policy and was told that they have no conditions for surrenders other than city residency. The Friends of Arlington Animal Services (FAAS) is a non-profit that is dedicated to helping raise the ASC’s live release rate. They recently reported on ASC statistics for 2014, and the shelter had an 81% live release rate with an intake of 8579 cats and dogs. This live release rate is up from 67% in 2013. One big factor in the improvement has been the city’s new TNR program. On August 20, 2013, the city council adopted a resolution that provides for organizations in the city to work with ASC on a TNR program for community cats. The TNR number in the ASC statistics was zero up to August of 2013, but from there until the end of the year 457 cats were TNR’d. In 2014, 1055 cats received TNR. In 2013 the ASC live release rate for cats was only 52%. In 2014, the live release rate for cats increased more than 20 points for the year. Arlington, TX, is counted in the Running Totals an an 80%+community.

The city of Alameda (not to be confused with Alameda County) has 74,000 residents and is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island in San Francisco Bay. Estimated median household income for Alameda is $67,000, which is somewhat above the California median household income of $57,000. In January 2012, the city of Alameda contracted with a private non-profit called the Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter (FAAS) to manage the city shelter. The city retained management of animal control. The city was able to cut its budget costs for animal sheltering by more than two-thirds in its deal with FAAS. FAAS described its owner surrender policy in a November 2013 newsletter, noting that “we are an ‘open-door’ facility . . . . This means we accept all Alameda’s abandoned pets regardless of age, temperament, health, breed or any other factor. . . . Kennel space is always at a premium (especially in the summer), but we don’t turn away Alameda animals . . . .” The shelter charges a small fee for owner surrenders. Two FAAS officials reported In a recent newspaper article that about 70% of the animals the shelter takes in can be put up for adoption as soon as the holding period is over. Another 20% of animals require medical or behavior rehabilitation before being put up for adoption. About 4% go to rescues who can provide sanctuary or other specialized care. The remaining 6% are euthanized for behavior or medical reasons. The 6% includes dogs that FAAS considers too dangerous to be rehabilitated, which are about 2% of total intake. In 2012 FAAS intake was 820 dogs and cats, which is 11 pets per 1000 population. The live release rate for 2012 was 94%. If owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias, the live release rate for 2012 was 91%. In 2013, the shelter’s intake increased to 901 dogs and cats, but the live release rate remained 94%, or 91% if owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias. In 2010, before the FAAS takeover, the city shelter had a 79% live release rate with an intake of 753 dogs and cats (scroll down in the link to City of Alameda Animal Shelter). One improvement with FAAS has been in adoptions, which rose from 313 in 2010 to 437 in 2012 and 460 in 2013. The shelter has also increased its reliance on its rescue partners, with 192 transfers in 2013 compared to 32 in 2012. In a 2013 Annual Report FAAS describes plans for a new shelter in the future and mentions its new programs, including a food pantry, an expanded rescue group network, a fund for medical care, more volunteer opportunities, and kennel enrichment. Alameda, California, was originally listed by this blog on December 15, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

This post looks at how No Kill did in the central part of the United States in 2015. We can break the area down into four regions: Upper Midwest – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota Lower Midwest – Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa Western Midwest – North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas South Central – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana The Upper Midwest, consisting of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, has been doing very well at No Kill. All three of these states are destination states for dog transports. We have numerous No Kill communities in this region, many of them with very high save rates. No Kill success seems to correlate with cold temperatures, and we certainly have that in these states. In Minnesota we have Duluth and St. Paul as stand-outs. In Wisconsin, the communities of Brown County, Brookfield, and Dane County are noteworthy. Michigan has over a dozen public shelters serving over 20 communities that have a 90% or better live release rate. Michigan is also one of the small number of states that has a requirement that shelters report their statistics to the state. The state has all the statistics posted online, going back several years. There seems to be a correlation between states collecting shelter statistics and posting them online and how well the states rank at lifesaving. It may be that when shelters know they have to report and that anyone can read their reports at the click of a mouse, they do better. Detroit remains a problem, though. The Lower Midwest states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa have historically had high kill rates, but we are seeing signs of progress. Kansas City Pet Project (KCPP) in Kansas City, Missouri, is proof that communities in this region can do a very good job of saving shelter pets. KCPP is a good example of an increasingly common trend, which is ordinary citizens forming a non-profit to bid on and take over animal control and sheltering. Terre Haute (Indiana), and Ames (Iowa), are additional bright spots in this region. No Kill efforts in Chicago have been ongoing for a long time and the city shelter has been making slow progress. Their main problem at the present time seems to be a high kill rate for pit-bull-type dogs. Ohio has an interesting scheme that could potentially be turned to good advantage for No Kill. State law provides that each county must have an appointed dog warden, who is responsible for dog licensing and control. The potential for this system is that in Ohio we know who is responsible for dog control, so efforts to make each dog warden’s operation No Kill would be easy to coordinate and standardize. The historical distinction in Ohio between dog sheltering and cat sheltering should also make it easier to set up return-to-field programs for community cats. The western area of the Midwest, consisting of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, is kind of a black hole for No Kill, in the sense that we just do not have much data on these states. I would expect the Dakotas to have relatively small stray populations due to their brutal weather. The region is sparsely populated, with all four states together having a human population of only about 6.5 million. The South Central region of the United States, consisting of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, is a very mixed bag. There is little data available on Oklahoma. In Arkansas, the progressive city of Fayetteville would seem to be a likely venue for No Kill, but the city shelter is not a model. A quick check of their Facebook page showed that they were closed on the MLK holiday, for example. Baton Rouge in Louisiana has been working on No Kill for several years, but is running at only about a 65% save rate. Texas is where the No Kill action is in the South Central region, but Texas, of all the states in the union, probably has the highest highs and the lowest lows. Austin, the progressive capital of the state, has had high save rates for five years now. Austin has a cooperative model for No Kill that is often cited as an example for other cities. Just north of Austin is Williamson County, which has also been No Kill for five years. San Antonio, about an hour’s drive southwest of Austin, has struggled up into the 80% range. Waco has made an impressive turnaround. But the dark side of things in Texas is very dark. There are consistent reports of high numbers of stray dogs in Houston and Dallas. Shelter intake numbers in Houston are mind-boggling, and the Dallas shelter is under intense pressure to make sweeps to take in (and kill) more stray dogs. As far as I can tell, no national organization has rallied to help the Dallas shelter in this crisis by transporting dogs out of the state. In most parts of the United States spay-neuter efforts that started back in the 1970s have resulted in the vast majority of owned pets being sterilized today. Houston and Dallas apparently never got that memo. They need intervention, and they need it badly. Conclusion The Upper Midwest gets a solid B. Without Detroit it would be a B+. The Lower Midwest gets a C. If there were more information about the Lower Midwest it might get a C+. There is not enough information available about the Western Midwest to even guess at a grade. The South Central region gets a D. The few bright spots in Texas, bright as they are, do not outweigh the serious problems in the rest of the region. If it were not for Austin, Williamson County, and San Antonio the South Central region would get an F.

This is the first in a series of posts on the regions of the United States and how each one is doing at No Kill as we begin 2016. These posts are impressionistic to some extent, because we do not have very much hard data on shelter statistics. And there is lots of variation within each region. Even so, there are some things we can say about the different regions of the country. Today’s post is on the Northeast. For analyzing No Kill success, we can break the Northeast down into two regions: New England – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island Mid-Atlantic – New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia New England New England overall is probably the most successful region of the country at No Kill. If the entire United States was like New England we would be very close to being a No Kill nation. New Hampshire is No Kill and has been for a while. The word is that Maine is No Kill and that seems likely to be true, although data for the state is not available. New England, as well as the northeast in general, is a destination region for transports. I don’t know how many animals are transported into the Northeast each year, but my guess would be 20,000 or more. If I were going to find a fault with New England (and, to some extent, with the entire Northeast region), it would be that many of the organizations there could do even better if they were more willing to be creative and transparent. I think this is, in large part, because of the way animal sheltering developed in the Northeast. In the years from 1866 to the end of the Progressive Era around 1920, the United States saw the first wave of formation of humane societies and SPCAs. Since the northeast part of the country was the most settled at that time, a lot of the animal-welfare organizations in that region today trace their roots back into the 1800s and early 1900s. Many of these organizations seemed to be shaped and constrained by the weight of their own history. The mere knowledge that they have been in existence for 100 years or more makes them conservative and unwilling to risk their legacies by breaking with tradition. And one tradition is not being transparent with the public. In a sense you cannot blame them, because there is much downside and not a lot of upside in posting statistics. Another reason they may not be very concerned with posting statistics is that they feel like they are doing quite well and there is no reason for the public to be concerned. There is a whiff of paternalism about some of these legacy organizations. But again, New England is doing extremely well, and if the only problem we have there is a little ossification in the legacy humane societies, we are in good shape. Why does New England do so well? The director of one humane society told me she thinks it is because people in New England have been pushing spay-neuter and owner responsibility for 40 years now, longer than other areas of the country, and they are reaping the rewards of all that work that went before. I think that analysis is probably correct, but I would add that in general people in New England tend to have more education than average and higher household income, which means they are less likely to have to give up a pet. They are also less likely to put up with cruel or incompetent shelter management. The climate and terrain may also play a part, since high shelter save rates seem to correlate with cold weather, snow, and rocky terrain. Mid-Atlantic The Mid-Atlantic region is a really mixed bag for No Kill, with many successful cities and counties and many that are not doing so well. Over all I would rate these states as better than average, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Some rural areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and some parts of New Jersey, present big problems. New York City, the District of Columbia, and Baltimore have all reported 80% or better live release rates, although Baltimore’s rate had not been sustained for a year as of the end of 2014. It is worth asking the question why these cities seem to be able to achieve 80%+ but then have trouble getting to 90% or above (although I would not be surprised if DC hit 90% in 2015). One possibility might be that in a large city you get a different population of shelter animals than you have in a small town. Another might be that in a city you will have a wide spectrum of household income and education levels, whereas many of the communities with 90%+ live release rates have a concentration of wealthy and educated residents. Another possibility is simply that with very large intake numbers it may be inefficient for one organization to have to do it all. Two large cities that are excellent examples of sustained live release rates over 90% — Jacksonville and Austin — both have large non-profit partners that pull a substantial percentage of the city shelter’s intake. And they both have organizations that do TNR/RTF for feral cats. One Mid-Atlantic state to watch in 2016 is Delaware. The state took over animal control as of the first of the year, and contracted out animal sheltering to a private organization, the Chester County SPCA. The Chester County SPCA seems to be thoroughly committed to No Kill, and I think it is very possible that the entire state of Delaware may finish 2016 with a live release rate of 90% or better. Conclusion Overall, I would give the Northeast region a B, with New England getting an A- and the Mid-Atlantic getting a C+. The region deserves a great deal of credit for the large numbers of animals it transports in.

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog’s Facebook page over the last month or two about the role of public criticism of local shelters in getting communities to No Kill. Pretty much everyone agrees that criticism has a role. The difference of opinion is on the issue of when criticism is helpful and when it is counterproductive and hurts No Kill progress. This is not a simple question because it gets into the whole issue of how to bring about change in local government. The answer to the question is going to be different depending on the circumstances. In a small town, all it may take to reform the shelter is an offer to foster kittens and hold adoption events. In New York City, however, you have a local government that has been doing animal control since 1807 and has a whole bureaucracy built up. Getting a city government like that to change can be a major undertaking and requires a lot of political skill. Another consideration with the use of criticism is that once you start making attacks on the local shelter director you have burned that bridge forever. If you make attacks in the name of “No Kill” you have just created a shelter director who hates the very sound of “No Kill.” So before launching attacks on the shelter director, local advocates should consider whether a sincere and determined effort to help the shelter improve has been made and has failed. Making an effort to help the shelter before criticizing it is a no-lose proposition. If the effort succeeds then all is well. If it fails, that failure will turbocharge a reform effort made up of volunteers who have been prevented from helping the animals. When you have 10 or 20 volunteers who have been forced to stand by while animals are needlessly killed, you have the nucleus of a group that will have both knowledge and determination. Once a decision to publicly criticize a failing and recalcitrant shelter has been made, what type of criticism is helpful? That depends on the audience. Criticism of a shelter based on its statistics and practices may be very effective when directed at a city council or county commissioners, but it must be accompanied by constructive and specific recommendations for change. A shelter director from a nearby No Kill community, or a No Kill consultant, may have more of an effect on community leaders than local advocates could have. If the audience is the general public, criticisms based on statistics and best practices may convince a few people but most people will not pay attention. And a shelter director can deflect that type of criticism by saying that the critics do not understand the unique circumstances of the shelter, that the shelter’s intake is different from other shelters, etc. Most people will buy those excuses. No Kill advocates can take a lesson here from the fight against factory farming. Several years ago the Pew Research Center put out a report that was a blistering indictment of the factory farming industry on every front – harm to the environment, harm to public health, cruelty to animals, putting small farmers out of business, and negative health effects on workers. That report was chock full of facts and statistics, but it had nowhere near the effect on the public that the clandestine videos taken by organizations like Mercy for Animals had around that same time. A video of a calf being beaten, or a baby chick being thrown alive into a grinder, has more effect with the public than all the statistics in the world. It’s the same with the local shelter. Arguing that a 50% live release rate is below the industry standard may not  get you very far with the public. A photograph of a mother dog and her litter of puppies killed by mistake while a rescuer was on the way, or a pet killed because its microchip was not scanned, will get headlines and make a deep impression on the public. You can’t get that kind of documentation, though, unless you are involved with the shelter. What I’ve said so far applies to a failing shelter that will not change voluntarily. Once a city or county government or shelter director decides to make a sincere effort to get to No Kill, then criticism becomes a whole new ballgame and different considerations apply. When a credible No Kill effort is underway, criticism becomes a balancing act. Every word of public criticism against a shelter while it is trying to get to No Kill will hurt the effort, because it will have a tendency to decrease the number of volunteers, the amount of money donated, and the goodwill of the community. The more effective and on point the criticism is, the more it will hurt the effort. So the advocate has to make a decision whether the criticism will do more harm than good, and has to think about how to phrase the criticism so that the constructive aspect is emphasized and the destructive aspect is minimized. The advocate in this circumstance must be sure that he or she knows the shelter system thoroughly and is competent to balance the harm the criticism will cause against the benefits. A good example of constructive criticism of an ongoing No Kill effort is this blog by John Sibley on the subject of New York City’s nightly kill list. Sibley has dealt with the NYC shelter system for a long time and is thoroughly familiar with it. The criticism acknowledges all the progress that has been made, and it discusses the reason why the kill list was started and the fact that it has been effective. Then it discusses the downside of the list and argues that today, the harm outweighs the good. An example of unproductive criticism of an ongoing No Kill effort would be an analysis made by someone who has never been to the shelter in question and never talked to the director, where the analysis was made based only on statistics and current practices and only skims the surface. This type of criticism can hurt the shelter but not help it. Very typical of such criticisms are statements like: “The shelter should be open longer hours,” or “they need to institute a TNR program,” or “they should be having off-site, free adoption events each weekend.” A shelter director who is making a sincere No Kill effort is likely to be thoroughly familiar with the advantages of longer hours, TNR, and off-site and reduced-cost adoption events. And if by some chance the director doesn’t know about those things, a private communication would be sufficient. But No Kill programs often have barriers that are not obvious to a bystander. An advocate who did some research might find out, for example, that a local ordinance forbids TNR and the city council doesn’t want to overturn the ordinance because they are concerned about bird kills. With that knowledge, the advocate could write something constructive that used facts to help persuade city leaders that TNR is good for cats and birds. Why do we have such a problem with unhelpful criticism by No Kill advocates, i.e. pointless criticism of shelters that are in the process of transitioning to No Kill or have achieved No Kill? A good deal of it is no doubt because killing animals, even when it is true euthanasia, is a very emotional subject and people tend to write about it reactively rather than strategically. Another reason may be the effect that some No Kill leaders have on their audiences. Most No Kill leaders today are convinced that cooperation works and that divisiveness is counterproductive. There are some leaders, however, who seem to encourage advocates to look at all but a handful of shelter directors as enemies who cannot be trusted. We should not be surprised when the followers of those leaders conclude that shelter personnel are routinely faking statistics and just waiting for chances to kill animals. If we have No Kill leaders who mock cooperation and say that fighting is the only way forward, or who say that a shelter director who is not saving 98% just doesn’t care enough, then we can expect No Kill advocates to conclude that no-holds-barred criticism is a good thing regardless of the context. The idea that No Kill advocacy always requires confrontation and that cooperation is useless traces back to the mindset of the 1990s. There was a time some 15-20 years ago when many elements of the traditional shelter industry fought against No Kill, and the fights were often bitter. I can understand how No Kill advocates who were active back then find it hard to forget. But that was then and this is now. Today it is not an exaggeration to say that No Kill practices are generally recognized as industry best practices. We still have people in the shelter industry who dislike the term “No Kill,” but that is usually because of the divisiveness associated with No Kill, not because of No Kill’s ideas about the best way to run a shelter. Criticism based on that old “white hat, black hat” divisiveness is destructive because that world no longer exists. That doesn’t mean we all have to love each other and sing Kumbaya. It does mean we need to focus on what is happening today, not what happened in 1996, or 2006. In fact, No Kill progress has been moving so fast that events of even five years ago are ancient history. People who cannot keep up with this change would do us all a favor by retiring from the movement.

The Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV) has a series of position statements that it has promulgated on various issues such as TNR, pediatric spay-neuter, pound seizure, etc. Right now, the ASV has a draft position statement called “The Use of ‘No-Kill’ Terminology” that is open for member comment until August 15th. You can read the draft here. I’m not a veterinarian or a member of the ASV, so my vote does not count, but if I had a vote on this draft position statement the vote would be “no.” The draft is three short paragraphs. The first paragraph seems pretty harmless other than requiring the reader to negotiate through two sentences of poorly written committee-speak. It isn’t quite word salad, but almost. I think the idea of the paragraph is that animal shelters should always put the needs of animals first, regardless of whether the shelters call themselves “No Kill” or not. I don’t disagree with that sentiment, although it seems so obvious that I wonder why it is necessary to spend one-third of the position statement on it. Moving on to the second paragraph, the ASV draft says that “No-Kill” terminology is unclear because it can be used to refer to any of a series of euthanasia policies along a “spectrum” that ranges from (I’m paraphrasing here for brevity and clarity) (1) not killing for time or space, (2) not killing healthy animals, (3) not killing treatable animals, and finally (4) not killing animals at all. The paragraph ends by stating: “As such, the ASV discourages the use of terminology that defines an organization based on euthanasia practices.” I agree that the term “No Kill” is ambiguous and means different things to different people, but it seems to me that the ASV is throwing the baby out with the bathwater in saying that, because the term “No Kill” is ambiguous, shelters should not define themselves based on euthanasia policy. If the problem is the ambiguity of the No Kill term, the solution is to use other terms that are clear, not to stop talking about euthanasia. In fact, that last sentence in the second paragraph could be taken to recommend against a shelter adopting any euthanasia policy at all. Surely the ASV cannot have intended to come to that conclusion. I think what the ASV is trying to say in the second paragraph is that shelters should not label themselves “No Kill,” but it’s disappointing that a paragraph that takes No Kill to task on the ground of ambiguity is itself so ambiguous. But it gets worse. The third paragraph is the doozy. The third paragraph argues that shelters, in addition to sometimes needing to euthanize animals who are untreatable or are public health threats, should have the option to kill animals for time or space (they call it exceeding capacity for care). Specifically, the draft position paper says, apparently with approval, that “euthanasia of healthy and treatable companion animals is sometimes utilized in order to maintain a shelter’s capacity for humane care.” Yikes. This is no longer dealing with just “terminology,” which is the ostensible subject of the draft. Instead, the third paragraph has veered over into substantive policy by stating that capacity issues sometimes require shelters to kill animals. Did the ASV really mean to stick this gigantic policy conclusion into the third paragraph of a position paper that is supposed to be about what words we use? There are currently shelters all over the United States – open admission municipal shelters – that deal with time and space (aka capacity for care) issues without either killing healthy and treatable animals or allowing them to suffer. There are ASV veterinarians who work in such shelters and have been a very big part of their success. Surely the ASV does not really mean to endorse what this draft paragraph says. I strongly advise the ASV Position Statement Committee and ASV board to ditch this document and start over. First, figure out what you want to say. Do you oppose No Kill terminology because it is ambiguous, or because it is divisive, or both? Or do you oppose No Kill itself as a substantive matter because you believe that shelters should have the option to kill for time or space? These are all separate topics and should not be mushed together, as they are in the logical hash that is this draft position paper. If you oppose No Kill terminology because it is ambiguous, it does not logically follow from that alone that organizations should not define themselves based on euthanasia policies. If a term is unclear, it makes perfect sense to recommend that the term not be used at all, or not be used unless it is clarified by context. It does not make sense to conclude that the whole topic that the ambiguous term refers to (in this case, euthanasia policies) should be declared off limits. If you are opposed to No Kill itself as a substantive matter (rather than just the terminology) because you believe that shelters should have the option to kill for time or space — honestly, that is not the kind of thing that you can toss off in one short paragraph in a position paper, especially a position paper that is ostensibly about terminology. And especially without any explanation of why you have decided that capacity issues cannot be dealt with by means other than killing. That third paragraph says something that I can’t believe you really meant to say. The question of whether shelters have to kill for capacity reasons is the most important issue in animal sheltering today. You don’t need to poke this metaphorical elephant, because everyone knows that it is a complicated issue that we are all wrestling with. Taking the attitude that it is a fit topic for a throwaway sentence in a position paper that is ostensibly on another topic is incomprehensible. If you are determined to address this topic, you owe it to your profession not to do it in the careless, poorly written, poorly organized, logically incoherent, ambiguous, and superficial way embodied in this draft. Shelter medicine in general, and the ASV in particular, are critically important to shelter lifesaving. A great deal of the progress that has occurred in shelter lifesaving since 1999 is directly due to shelter medicine. ASV veterinarians are at the forefront of some of the most effective innovations in lifesaving that are being made in sheltering today. Everyone who supports shelter reform, whether they call it “No Kill” or something else, has a stake in seeing the ASV succeed and grow. Don’t embarrass yourselves by adopting this deeply flawed document as a position statement of your organization.

A lot has happened in the No Kill world in 2014, and a lot of progress has been made. In fact, I think 2014 has been one of the most important years for No Kill since the 1990s. To celebrate the year I’m going to have a series of blog posts discussing some of the major events and accomplishments of 2014. Today I’d like to start out by listing some of No Kill’s notable people of the year. In coming days I’ll be looking at organizations and particular innovations in 2014. Drs. Kate Hurley and Julie Levy are in the process of revolutionizing how shelters handle cats. They have developed recommendations that combine managed admission and “shelter-neuter-return” techniques for a roadmap to saving every healthy or treatable cat. This has been the huge news story in the shelter world in 2014, and the good news is that this story will be even bigger in 2015, with the recent rollout of the Million Cat Challenge. I will be discussing the Million Cat Challenge in more detail in a post later this month. Bonney Brown and Diane Blankenburg are teaching a certificate course at the University of the Pacific in “lifesaving-centered” animal shelter management. This is the first university-level series of courses in lifesaving shelter management that has ever been taught by people who have actually succeeded at getting to 90% with a large urban shelter. This certificate is extremely important because it can help people get hired as shelter managers who do not have the traditional qualifications of long years in animal control or shelter operations. Rebecca Guinn, founder of LifeLine Animal Project in Atlanta, has proven the “power of one” by forming a non-profit that took over the animal sheltering contract in 2013 for Fulton and DeKalb counties. LifeLine is not at a 90% save rate yet, but it looks like a lot of progress was made in 2014. Guinn is right in the center of two of the most important trends in No Kill. One is that No Kill advocates are forming non-profits and taking over city shelters rather than waiting for shelters to reform. The other is that big cities are going No Kill these days faster than smaller communities. It used to be thought that No Kill was harder to achieve in big cities, but people like Guinn are proving that idea wrong. Rick DuCharme and Peter Marsh have started an effort — Target Zero — to take No Kill to some tough venues, including places where past No Kill efforts have failed. They have had some success already, but to me the most notable point about what they are doing is that they are not shrinking from any challenge. In fact, their “fellow city” list, which includes Waco, Pensacola, Indianapolis, and Baton Rouge, looks as though they deliberately picked the hardest cities they could find. In the past, people have often carefully selected their venues for No Kill efforts. DuCharme and Marsh have blown that approach out of the water. Dr. Ellen Jefferson is another example of someone who picked a very tough city to reform when she expanded her successful Austin program to San Antonio. In its fiscal year ending in 2014, San Antonio had an 81.3% live release rate. This is an enormous accomplishment. Many people were involved in it, of course, but Dr. Jefferson’s formation of San Antonio Pets Alive! really lit the fire. There are many other people who did notable things in 2014 to advance the cause of No Kill, and there have been a lot of incremental changes at the city and county level. It’s a positive sign for the movement when there are far too many people with significant accomplishments to fit into any one list.

2014 was the year when it became impossible for one part-time person to keep up with reporting on all the communities getting to No Kill — at least, it became impossible for this part-time person. I updated over 100 shelters in over 230 communities in 2014, plus several “Worth Watching” communities. I’ve also been watching lots of larger communities that are well on the way to No Kill. There’s been no time to keep track of all the small communities with No Kill efforts because there are so many of them. I’ve been meditating what to do about the “Running Total,” now that it no longer provides a good snapshot of the true total of No Kill communities. I may change it to a population-based rather than community-based total, with a caveat that it includes only larger jurisdictions. With No Kill spreading so fast, the population total may give a better picture of the true situation. Or it might be better to switch to an emphasis on the number of animals killed in shelters each year, which has been steadily declining. There is another trend that may be even more important than the number of new 90% communities, and that is that the median live release rate of shelters that are not at 90% seems to be going up. Just 3 or 4 years ago most knowledgeable people would have estimated that shelters were killing about 50% of intake nationwide. Today, HSUS estimates that we have a nationwide live release rate of about 60%. Actual nationwide data on live release rates does not exist, so I have to go on impressions, but it seems to me based on what I’ve seen in my research for the blog that the HSUS estimate is close to the mark. A 10% increase in the average live release rate may not sound like much, but it means about 700,000 more lives saved per year. If we get another 10% increase in the live release rate in 2015, and 200,000 or more additional lives saved by the Million Cat Challenge, we could easily be under 2 million euthanasias for shelters nationwide in 2015, for a live release rate of about 73%. And that is just if current trends continue. If current trends improve, the 2015 live release rate nationwide could be even higher. So all-in-all it’s a good picture. Not the overnight change we’d all like to see, but moving forward at a good clip on what seems to be a very sustainable path. One caveat is that we may run into a slowdown in improvement when we hit the 70% or 80% mark nationwide. I’ve heard from many people that it gets harder to improve as the save rate goes up from 70% to 80%, and even more from 80% to 90%. One thing that may be key as shelters get to 70% is the aid and support they get from non-profit organizations in the community.