OUT THE FRONT DOOR

Amelia County is a rural area of about 13,000 people located west of Richmond, Virginia. The municipal Amelia County Animal Shelter provides animal control and sheltering for the county. The shelter accepts owner surrenders at no charge during normal business hours. The shelter relies heavily on transfers, with about 650 animals transferred in 2012 and 401 transferred in 2013. A shelter officer told me in response to an e-mail query that the shelter releases animals only to approved rescues. The official also told me that the shelter does not dispatch animal control officers to pick up stray cats, but will provide traps to residents who wish to trap stray cats and bring them in to the shelter. The shelter describes its program as follows: “We promote our animals being housed at the shelter on the radio, in the local paper and on the internet at www.petfinder.org to reunite them with their owners and, if not, to hopefully find a new appropriate home. Adopters find a friendly knowledgeable staff always willing to help.” The shelter has a Petfinder page and there is a Facebook page run by a volunteer. Volunteers use the Facebook page to network for the shelter’s Urgent dogs. The Amelia Patrons For Animal Welfare (APAW), a non-profit that was formed in 1995, provides support for the shelter. Their first order of business back in 1995 was a new shelter facility, which they helped to accomplish in 1996. APAW works with local veterinarians on a low cost spay-neuter program, and their members also volunteer with the shelter. The shelter’s intake has ranged from 631 to 1057 in the last four years. This is an intake of from 49 to 81 per 1000 residents in its service area, which is a very high intake. Amelia County reports to the Virginia state database for animal shelters. It reported an 88% live release rate in 2010 and an 87% live release rate in 2011. In 2012, the shelter reached the 90% mark for the first time, with a live release rate of 91%. The state reporting form does not include a category for owner-requested euthanasia. The shelter’s live release rate for 2012 with the “died in facility” category counted with euthanasias was 90%. According to the statistics the shelter submitted to the state for 2013, the live release rate fell to 81%. This rate was unchanged if the one animal who died in shelter care is counted with euthanasias. Amelia County, MI, is counted in the Running Totals as an 80%+ community.

Jackson, Wyoming, is a town of just under 10,000 people located in the Jackson Hole valley in Teton County. Together, the city and county have a population of over 21,000. The town is a gateway for nearby Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park, and there are several notable ski resorts in the area. This makes for very heavy tourist traffic in addition to the permanent population. The Jackson-Teton County Animal Shelter (JTCAS) provides animal control and sheltering services for both the city and the county. The shelter accepts owner surrenders from Teton County residents as well as taking in strays. The shelter does not post its full statistics on its website. It states, however, that its intake is 500-600 dogs and over 200 cats per year, and that it either returns or adopts out almost all of the dogs and over 90% of the cats. JTCAS states on its Petfinder page  that “euthanasia is performed only in the case of terminal illness, serious irreparable injury, or aggression.” In addition to Petfinder, JTCAS has a Facebook page that it uses to network for its pets, including photos of available dogs and cats. JTCAS receives funding for its basic expenses from the city and county, but like many progressive shelters it relies on donations for the “extras.” As the shelter says: ”Additional services provided to our shelter animals, such as spay/neuter, vaccinations, and other medical care, are made possible through donations.” Teton County is counted in the Running Totals as a 90%+ community.

Seattle, with over 600,000 residents, is the largest city in the Pacific northwest, and ranks 22nd among US cities in population size. The Seattle city government provides animal control and sheltering for the city through the Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS). The shelter accepts owner surrenders from any person within its jurisdiction, and from outside the jurisdiction when possible. In addition to the city shelter, Seattle has the Humane Society for Seattle/King County (HSSKC), a private organization that also accepts owner surrenders. The humane society requires an appointment for owner surrenders. The city shelter and the humane society report their statistics as a coalition to Maddie’s Fund. The most recent available online report for the coalition is for 2010, and it shows a 91% live release rate for the coalition as a whole. HSSKC is at 94% and SAS is at 85%. A couple of notes about the statistics. First, there may be some overlap in intra-community transfers, as it is not clear that all of these were separated out. Second, there were 645 owner-requested euthanasias out of a total intake of 9921 animals. HSSKC offers owner-requested euthanasia for animals who are “seriously ill or suffering.” A modified live release rate for the coalition with owner-requested euthanasia and died/lost in shelter care counted in with euthanasia is 84%. It is problematic to use the figure for owner-requested euthanasia, however, since HSSKC may be receiving such requests from the larger metropolitan population of 3.5 million people. Seattle, WA, is counted in the Running Totals as a 90%+ community.

Grand County is in north central Colorado and had a population of 15,000 people as of the 2010 census. Municipalities in Grand County include Granby (population 1700), Kremmling (1400), and Winter Park, a resort town with a permanent population of 1000. I spoke to an official at the Grand County Animal Shelter (GCAS), located in Granby, who told me that the county sheriff’s department runs the shelter. GCAS serves the entire county, including the towns, and there are no other shelters in the county. Grand County Pet Pals (GCPP) is a private non-profit that assists GCAS and maintains the GCAS website. Grand County is also home to Mountain Pet Rescue (MPR), a foster-based rescue located in Winter Park. MPR specializes in transporting heavy-coated dogs of the working breeds in from out of state. These dogs are popular in the Colorado mountains and MPR reports that there is a shortage of them. GCAS charges a $20 fee for owner surrenders. Sometimes they ask people to wait to surrender animals if the shelter is full, but they always make exceptions if the owner cannot wait or if they think the animal would be better off impounded. Their general rule is to accept owner surrenders only from their jurisdictions, but they have occasionally made exceptions in the past and taken surrenders from outside the jurisdiction. They do not have a TNR program, but they have live traps that they lend to people who trap ferals. The shelter then neuters the cats and places them as barn cats. Shelters in Colorado report their statistics to the state’s Department of Agriculture each year. In 2012, GCAS took in 309 dogs and cats. This is an intake of 21 pets per 1000 human population. If MPR’s intake is counted, the intake is 45 pets per 1000 population. GCAS’s live release rate for 2012 was 98%. The live release rate was 97% if animals who died in shelter care are included with euthanasias. MPR also submits statistics to the state. In 2012 they took in 354 dogs, of which 301 were transported in from out of state, and they took in 6 owner-surrendered cats. They had a 100% live release rate, which drops to 99% if the 4 dogs who died in their care are counted against their live releases.

[NOTE: The Worth Watching category lists communities whose animal shelter systems are doing substantially better than average, but have not reported a sustained (for one year or more) 90%+ live release rate. These communities are not counted in the running total in the blog’s subtitle. For more about the Worth Watching category, see the Worth Watching page link in the blog’s header.] Orange County is in a rural area of Virginia that is noted for its Civil War historical sites. The county, which is about 2 hours southwest of Washington, DC, has a population of over 33,000 people. Its county seat is the town of Orange. The Orange County Animal Shelter (OCAS) is a municipal agency that provides animal sheltering for the county (animal control is provided by a separate county agency).  The shelter takes in owner surrenders from county residents without restriction, although it does ask residents to provide records and information for surrendered pets. The Orange County Humane Society is a local rescue that works with OCAS, helping with offsite adoptions, transfers, and spay-neuter. OCAS, like other municipal shelters in Virginia, is required to report its statistics yearly to the Virginia Department of Agriculture. According to the reports it has submitted, OCAS has had a live release rate of over 80% for several years. See the links for the reports for 2008, 2009, and 2010. In 2011, the live release rate was 84% (81% with animals who died in shelter care included). In 2012, the live release rate improved to 87% (85% with animals who died in shelter care included). OCAS relies heavily on transfers to maintain its live release rate. In 2012, for example, it transferred 562 animals out of a total intake of 2210, with 369 animals going to out-of-state rescues. This is not unusual in Virginia, which is located on I-95, a major transport route to northeast cities and New England.

Southampton, New York, is a city of about 57,000 people located in east Long Island. In 2009, the city stopped funding its animal control department. The citizens rallied to help the animals and formed the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, also known as the Southampton Animal Shelter (SAS), a 501(c)(3) organization that took over management of the shelter. SAS has provided animal control and sheltering for the city since January 1, 2010. The shelter takes in strays and accepts owner surrenders from its jurisdiction. In a 2011 newsletter that is no longer available online, SAS listed the communities it serves as “Eastport, Speonk, Westhampton, Westhampton Beach, Quiogue, Quogue, East Quogue, Hampton Bays, Southampton, Southampton Village, Watermill, Bridgehampton, Sagaponack, Wainscott, North Sea, Noyack, Sag Harbor, Sag Harbor Village, Northampton, North Haven, Riverside and Flanders.” That is 21 communities with a total of over 40,000 people. The shelter has a Training and Behavior Department that has developed a group socialization program for its dogs with the help of noted behavioralist Aimee Sadler. The shelter also offers group and private lessons for dogs, and puppy training classes. Southampton is a member of the Center for Shelter Dogs program run by the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and uses the center’s Match-Up II system for behavior evaluation for its dogs. They offer low cost spay-neuter. The shelter supports TNR for community cats. The shelter reports a 94% live release rate on its website. The Southampton cities are counted in the Running Totals as 90%+ communities.

The city of Rockwall is the county seat of Rockwall County, which is part of the Dallas metro area. The city has about 37,000 residents. In 2011, a non-profit volunteer organization called Rockwall Pets was formed for the purpose of increasing the live release rate of the city shelter, which was at about 60%. Rockwall Pets brought the live release rate of the shelter up to well over 90%, but the city employees who managed the shelter were not completely on board with the effort. The Rockwall city council voted in August 2012 to contract out the operation of the city shelter to the Collin County Humane Society (CCHS), a non-profit organization, and retain only animal control duties. The contract price was 15% less than the amount the city had paid to run the shelter previously. CCHS accepts owner surrenders from Rockwall and the city of Heath. Rockwall Pets has posted statistics for the Rockwall shelter from 2008 through 2013. The live release rate for 2012 was 97%, with a total intake of 2086 animals. The shelter had a 70% adoption rate and 18% return-to-owner rate. In 2013, the first full year of operation under CCHS, the shelter reported a 96% live release rate. Total intake was 2189, with 14% of animals returned to their owners and 68% adopted. I am listing this community as 90% Reported because I was not able to locate or obtain a full listing of statistics online as required for the right sidebar. Rockwall Pets has moved on to other initiatives in their area. Michael Kitkoski, one of the founders of Rockwall Pets, told me that they are now focusing on the cities of Royse, Rowlett, and Dallas. Rockwall, TX, is counted in the Running Totals as a 90%+ community.

As everyone in animal sheltering and rescue knows, there is a very complicated debate swirling around the issue of whether outdoor cats are significant predators on wild birds. The No Kill movement is fortunate to have Peter Wolf, who writes the blog Vox Felina, to help elucidate the scientific issues in this debate. Although the debate is complicated, one thing is certainly true, and that is that if bird populations are flourishing then cat predation cannot be all that terrible. A recently published book indicates that in at least one important environment – green suburbs – birds are flourishing in spite of the presence of lots of cats. The book is Welcome to Subirdia, by John M. Marzluff, who is a professor of wildlife at the University of Washington. Since I’m not an expert on bird ecology, I’m relying on a review of the book that appeared in the November 20, 2014, issue of The New York Review of Books. The review is “It’s Time to Live With the Birds,” by Robert O. Paxton, who is an emeritus professor of social sciences at Columbia and a former president of the Linnaean Society of New York. The surprising thing about suburbs is that they not only have lots of birds but they have lots of bird species. One thing that concerns conservationists is when a few species of birds – such as starlings, house sparrows, and pigeons – predominate. That is not true in the suburbs, and one example from Marzluff’s book that Paxton cites is the finding that Central Park in the heart of New York City has a greater number of bird species than Yellowstone. Not all suburbs qualify as suitable habitat for a diverse bird population. Marzluff found that a suburb needs to have about 30% of its landscape planted in natural vegetation. It is actually the variety of habitat, including parks, trees, gardens, ponds, and even lawns (if they are messy), that allows such a variety of bird species to flourish. Suburbia, unlike urban cores or farms, supports diversity of bird species by its diversity of micro-habitats. Marzluff’s thesis is much more complex than this short summary suggests, and neither he nor Paxton sees the suburban habitat as a solution to the great extinction going on. The interesting thing about his thesis for the bird-cat debate, though, is simply the fact that birds can flourish in an environment that is full of cats as long as the environment otherwise meets the birds’ needs for food, shelter, and a place to raise their young. One of Marzluff’s recommendations for encouraging bird numbers is to keep cats indoors. That may be a good recommendation, but the fact is that we’ve had cats in the United States at least since the early immigrants came over from Europe, and there has never yet been a time when everyone kept their cats indoors. And feral cats, of course, do not live in suburban houses. The recommendation is also a bit puzzling in the face of Marzluff’s own finding that birds are flourishing in a cat-rich environment. If suburbs have a greater variety of bird species than our large national parks, then it is very hard to argue that suburban cats are bad for bird conservation.

Bird conservationists are perhaps the most effective opponents of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs for feral cats. The conservationists argue that scientific studies show that cats kill huge numbers of birds, and that therefore cats must be removed from the environment to protect birds. TNR supporters argue that estimates of cat predation are overblown and, in any event, TNR is the only successful way to manage cat populations. Although most of the bird conservationists won’t come right out and say it, what they all seem to want is to round up and kill all homeless and feral cats and to force people who own pet cats to confine them indoors. Current estimates are that there are at least 80 million pet cats and tens of millions of feral cats in the United States. Recently I began studying the science of the cat-predation issue. Because the science is controversial I expected to find what I usually see in scientific controversies, which is evidence on both sides of the issue. What I actually found ran completely counter to my expectations, and shocked me. In journal article after journal article, and book after book, I found cat-predation studies that were flawed by small sample size, samples that were not shown to be typical, unjustified generalizations, a failure to account for confounding factors, and a tendency to assume that predation of individual birds necessarily resulted in damage to bird populations at the species level. After perusing the studies and writings of many bird conservationists I came to the conclusion that they were unable to see the data clearly. As someone who is a great believer in the scientific method, and who respects scientists, I don’t say this lightly. I’m used to scientists being the people we can rely on to look at issues dispassionately and give us objective conclusions based on data. I had always assumed that there must be some “there” there in the cat-predation controversy, simply because there are reputable scientists who strongly believe that cats harm bird populations. So it was a very rude awakening when I began to study the data and saw how unconvincing the evidence against cats in general, and TNR in particular, actually was. I don’t have the space in this blog post to dissect the weaknesses of all the scientific studies, and others have done that anyway (see Peter Wolf’s “Vox Felina” blog, linked in the left sidebar). The point that I want to make here is somewhat different, and that is that the bird conservationists, regardless of the validity or lack of validity in the studies they publish in journals, exhibit contradictions in their own writings about cats that are clear evidence of their lack of objectivity on this issue. As a case in point, we need only look at John M. Marzluff’s book “Welcome to Subirdia.” Marzluff is a respected professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington. I thought “Welcome to Subirdia” was a delightful and important book, and I would recommend it to anyone. The thesis of the book is that green suburbs are unexpectedly wonderful habitat for birds, and nurture a wide variety of bird species. But in spite of Marzluff’s happy message of birds doing extremely well in the suburbs, his book is marred with inexplicable internal contradictions when he talks about cats. To start with, we know that there are probably as many free-roaming cats in the suburbs as there are anyplace on earth, except possibly for some neglected urban areas. Given this, how would you complete the following syllogism: In the suburbs we find an abundance of bird species, cats are also abundant in the suburbs, so — Choice A:  cats do not harm and may even help bird species, or Choice B:  we need to confine or kill all the cats in order to save the birds. It seems to me that any rational scientist would pick “A” to complete the syllogism, but Marzluff pretty clearly agrees with “B.” In fact, on page 85 of the book he says that cat predation on birds is “horrifying.” On page 173 he says that the “most uniformly serious” peril to birds and other animals in the city is the free-roaming domestic cat. But wait, Dr. Marzluff, wait! Didn’t you just explain to us in a very well-written and convincing way that green suburbs are among the best habitats for birds? Didn’t you tell us on pages 15-16 that you found more bird diversity in Central Park in New York City than you did in Yellowstone? And aren’t there a whole lot more domestic cats in the suburbs than in Yellowstone?– my head is hurting. There’s more. One of Marzluff’s students did an experiment to examine causes of mortality of fledgling birds (pages 91-93). Unlike many bird-mortality studies, this one seems to have been designed and carried out fairly well. It was perhaps a bit small, with a sample size of 122 fledglings, but that number is large enough to be at least indicative, although not conclusive. The best thing about the study design was that the birds were radio-tracked. This allowed Marzluff and his student to determine the location and movements of the fledglings for the approximately three to nine weeks that the batteries lasted. The period of a few days when a bird is learning to fly is one of the most vulnerable time periods of its life. If cats really do account for 10% of deaths of all birds in the United States (as Marzluff maintains, see pages 85 and 188) then we would expect cats to kill a substantially higher percentage of fledglings – 20%, 30%, perhaps even upwards of 50%. The results were extremely interesting. What the study actually showed was that cats were “implicated” in the death of only one fledgling. And Marzluff admits that it was not clear that the one fledgling was actually killed by a cat, and it could have been killed by another mammal or even another bird. Now, one would think that a good scientist like Marzluff, on receiving this data from an experiment that he and his student performed themselves, might scratch his head and say — maybe cats really aren’t as bad as we thought. Or at least — this is interesting, we need to study this in more depth. But that isn’t what Marzluff said. Instead, he dismissed the “rarity” of cat predation in the study (by which I think he means the “non-existence” or “near non-existence” of cat predation in the study) by opining that it was due to the presence of coyotes in the area. If coyotes were prevalent enough in the area of the study to chase away or kill off all the cats, then one would think that coyotes would have killed some of those fledglings themselves. Perhaps they did. But Marzluff believes that coyote predation is good for bird populations (page 199). According to Marzluff, cats kill birds (bad), but coyotes “cull” their prey, which is good because it is nature’s way and they only kill the injured, weak and overly abundant. Predator coyotes are wonderful, while the slightly smaller predator cat is horrible. Okay, now my head is going to explode. I really don’t mean to pick on Marzluff. Others are worse than him. I’m discussing “Welcome to Subirdia” in this blog post because it happens to offer a particularly clear example of the way the cat issue seems to twist the thinking of even good scientists. So, back to the question – why does this happen? Why are bird conservationists, who make their careers by being logical and fair and sticking to the data, seemingly so blinded by their anti-cat emotions that they cannot see the data clearly? If I were going to study the issue I would start with two hypotheses. One is the hypothesis that bird conservationists have an animus toward cats because they view cats as an “invasive” species. As I discussed in a blog post last month, there is recent thinking that the whole “invasive species” thing is really just mother nature’s reaction to the massive changes that humans have made in the environment. My second hypothesis is that there is a prejudice against cats due to the perception that they are cruel killers because they sometimes seem to torment their prey or play with it before killing it. Scientists ought to know, if anyone does, that species do not survive and thrive the way cats have if they waste energy. Therefore, there is probably a reason for the way cats sometimes make their kills. One obvious reason would be that they are learning or improving hunting skills. Cats are not very big, and in some habitats they need to kill prey animals, such as rats, that are almost as big as they are. A cat does not have the luxury of the size and weight of a coyote or wolf. Since cats cannot always overpower their prey by brute force, they have to fight with skill and tactics – which takes practice. Whatever the reason or reasons for the animus that bird conservationists have toward cats, it has consequences. We need look no further than Washington, DC, where a battle is now being waged between TNR advocates and conservationists who want to round up cats and take them to shelters (where the feral ones would be killed) and force owners of pet cats to keep them indoors on pain of death (death to the cats, not the owners, although sometimes one wonders). This is already a long blog post and I don’t have space here to get very deeply into the related question of why bird conservationists reject TNR. There is one glaring logical contradiction here, too, though, that I want to touch on. Even if we all were to agree that cats are damaging bird populations at the species level (an idea that Welcome to Subirdia very neatly refutes), one would think that bird conservationists and cat advocates could nevertheless agree on TNR, because TNR not only reduces the number of cats, it also reduces the need of cats to hunt, since colony caregivers feed the cats. Moreover, probably 99% of the labor and supplies that are expended on TNR and colony care are donated by volunteers, without costing taxpayers or businesses a dime. Catch-and-kill methods have to be repeated every two years at least, they are expensive, and the advocates of the catch-and-kill method have not figured out how to keep people from sabotaging it by very naturally doing everything they can short of going to jail to save their neighborhood cats. The bird-conservationist ranks do not seem to contain enough people who are willing to catch and kill cats all over the country with volunteer labor and supplies, so the bird conservationists expect governments to pick up the tab for their cat-killing program. This adds insult to injury, because it means that citizens who pay taxes are forced to pay for killing cats, when in fact the majority do not approve of the wholesale slaughter of cats. This is not a winning scenario for the conservationists. It can only lead to long, drawn-out, pitched battles that the conservationists will ultimately lose, because they are not only in the wrong, they are in the minority. One would think that the bird conservationists would realize that TNR is the best solution that is actually possible to achieve, even if it is not their favorite solution. Instead, they continue to oppose TNR, holding out for the unrealistic option of somehow finding, catching and killing every cat that wanders outdoors, and forcing people who disagree with them to pay for it. We can’t send all the bird conservationists back to science school, so all we can do is hope that eventually rationality will prevail. In the meantime, pick up a copy of Welcome to Subirdia. I’m sure you’ll love it. It’s a very convincing argument that birds do better with cats around.

Flathead County is located in the northwest part of Montana, along the Canadian border. Its population is about 91,000 people. The county has a municipal shelter, the Flathead County Animal Shelter, which houses animals and adopts them out, and an animal control division that works with the shelter and provides animal control throughout the county. I was told in a telephone conversation with a shelter representative that the shelter also receives strays from the cities of Kalispell (population 20,000), Whitefish (6400), and Columbia Falls (4700). The shelter accepts owner surrenders with a $20 fee, but reserves the right to decline surrenders when full. The shelter used to be high-kill, but has steadily improved over the years. The shelter’s director, Cliff Bennett, attributes their success to several factors, including foster, volunteer, marketing, and adoption programs as well as spay-neuter efforts and outreach to rescues. A non-profit in Kalispell, Flathead Shelter Friends, provides help and support to the shelter. An article posted on Petfinder describes many of the innovations the shelter has made, including a strong return to owner initiative and many projects to make the animals more comfortable while in the shelter. It appears that the shelter’s live release rate has been above 90% since 2010. According to a news report, the county had a 9% euthanasia rate in 2010 with an intake of 2200 cats and dogs. And the Flathead Shelter Friends reported, on a page that has since been updated, that the county had a live release rate of 92% in 2011. The shelter’s 2012 statistics are posted on its website and show a 97% live release rate for the year, with an intake of 1950 cats and dogs. In 2013, the shelter had a live release rate of 98%, with an intake of 1764 cats and dogs. If animals who died or were lost in shelter care are counted as part of the euthanasia total, the live release rate was 95% in 2012 and 97% in 2013. Flathead County, Montana, was originally listed by this blog on April 24, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

[NOTE: The Worth Watching category lists communities whose animal shelter systems are doing substantially better than average, but have not reported a sustained (for one year or more) 90%+ live release rate. These communities are not counted in the running total in the blog’s subtitle. For more about the Worth Watching category, see the Worth Watching page link in the blog’s header.] Richmond is an independent city (not part of a county) located along I-95 in eastern Virginia. There is a Richmond County in Virginia, but it is a rural county located more than an hour away from the city of Richmond. The population living within the Richmond city limits was 204,000 at the 2010 census, and the metro area population is estimated at about 1.3 million people. The Richmond city shelter is called Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC). It is a municipal agency that provides animal control and sheltering for the city of Richmond. The shelter states on its website that “we take in any animal in need in the City of Richmond – including animals that are sick, severely injured or too aggressive to be placed for adoption.” RACC became an independent city agency in 2012. RACC is doing a major renovation of its building that should be completed by mid-2014. The Richmond SPCA is a non-profit that takes in owner surrenders from the public by appointment, and offers a suite of pet retention programs. The SPCA also takes in a large number of shelter transfers. In 2012, for example, the SPCA reported to the state that it took in 982 owner surrenders and 2393 transfers from other Virginia agencies. From 2001 until 2008, RACC had a formal public-private partnership with the Richmond SPCA. In 2008, the formal agreement between the city and the SPCA expired, but the organizations continued to work together. Then, in the spring of 2012, RACC and the SPCA “parted ways.” SPCA CEO Robin Starr said that the city had failed to offer a new partnership agreement even though it had been directed to do so by the city council. Starr noted that RACC’s live release rate had dropped significantly in 2011, and opined that RACC policies were heading in the wrong direction. Starr stated that “[d]espite the absence of a working relationship with the City, we took in nearly the number of animals from RACC in 2011 that we did in prior years” and that the SPCA would not “desert the homeless animals of the City of Richmond who need us now more than ever.” RACC and the SPCA reported statistics to Maddie’s Fund as a coalition in the years 2008 and 2009 (they also reported as a coalition for 2010, but with the addition of Hanover County). The live release rate was 80% for the coalition for 2008 and 79% for 2009.  In 2010, RACC by itself (without combining its statistics with the SPCA) reported a live release rate of 71% with an intake of 4292 cats and dogs. In 2011, RACC had an intake of 4658 animals and a live release rate of 64% according to its statistics reported to the state. In 2012, RACC’s reported statistics showed an intake of 4740 animals and the live release rate was again 64%. (The Richmond SPCA reported an intake of 3777 cats and dogs and a live release rate of 99.6% to the state for 2011, and an intake of 3761 cats and dogs and a live release rate of 99.6% for 2012. Many of these animals were transfers from RACC.) After RACC became an independent agency in 2012, the city conducted a nationwide search for a director. Starr described the selection of the new director as an “issue of crucial importance.” Christie C. Peters, who had been the executive director of the Portsmouth Humane Society, was selected and took over at RACC in February of 2013. In May of 2013, RACC announced that its live release rate had hit 80% for the first time. Starr commented that the informal relationship between RACC and the SPCA was going well and said: “The statistics bear out the fact that we’re achieving pretty terrific results together.” In October of 2013, Peters announced that the number of cats euthanized had dropped to 212 for the year so far, compared to 639 for 2012. Peters said that fewer animals were entering the shelter because of new pet-retention programs and a new appointment policy for owner surrenders. RACC and the Richmond SPCA are not the only intake facilities in the city. The Richmond Animal League (AHS) has its own shelter that can house up to 30 dogs and 60 cats and kittens. AHS reported to the state of Virginia that in 2012 it took in 1509 cats and dogs. The majority — 1161 — came from other Virginia agencies, but AHS also took in 255 owner surrenders and 20 strays. AHS’s live release rate for 2012 was 99% — 98% if animals who died in shelter care are counted in with euthanasias.

Routt County is located in northwest Colorado, bordering Wyoming. The population recorded in the 2010 census was 23,500. The county seat is the city of Steamboat Springs, which has 12,000 people. Steamboat Springs has a city-run animal control and shelter called the Steamboat Springs Animal Shelter (SSAS). SSAS serves the entire county, including all the incorporated and unincorporated towns. I was told in a telephone call to SSAS that Routt County has its own animal control officers but contracts with Steamboat Springs for strays to be taken in by SSAS. The shelter official told me that SSAS takes in owner surrenders for the city and the county. Once in a while the shelter gets full, and when that happens they ask owners who want to surrender animals if they can wait. If the owner cannot wait, SSAS takes the animal immediately. The shelter gets support and volunteer help from the Routt County Humane Society (RCHS). This recent newsletter describes how RCHS volunteers staff the shelter to extend the hours that it is open to the public, and raise funds for spaying and neutering and medical care for shelter animals. As an example of an animal that would not have survived without medical care provided by RCHS, the newsletter describes the case of a 4-week-old puppy who stopped nursing and required several days of intensive care before he recovered. RCHS also provides assistance for low-income families to spay and neuter their pets. Another organization that supports the shelter is the Animal Assistance League of Northwest Colorado (AALN), which serves 5 counties, including Routt. AALN provides humane education, spay-neuter funding, assistance to horses and other livestock in need, and other programs. The Colorado Department of Agriculture collects information on the statistics of animal shelters in the state. The 2012 report submitted by SSAS shows a total intake of 625 animals. Intake per 1000 people was 27. The live release rate was 98%. One animal died in shelter care, but if that is counted in with euthanasias it does not change the live release rate. The Colorado reporting form does not separate out owner-requested euthanasia.