The fifth year of the San Francisco Adoption Pact, completed on March 31, dropped the combined San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control and San Francisco SPCA euthanasia toll to a new low of 3,688 dogs and cats. The SF/DACC euthanized 2,526 dogs and cats due to irrecoverable injury, illness, or aggressive behavior, and 1,162 for other reasons, most often that they were neonatal kittens with possible upper respiratory disease and––though some might have recovered with much care, a poor prognosis. The SF/DACC returned 1,472 dogs and cats to their owners, adopted out 1,833, and sent 2,482 to the SF/SPCA. “Of these,” said the SF/SPCA, “1,598 had special impediments, often requiring medical or behavioral care prior to adoption,” as did “932 of the 2,643 dogs and cats whom the SF/SPCA accepted directly from the public.” The SF/SPCA returned 29 dogs and cats to their owners, and adopted out 4,971. The San Francisco rate of shelter killing, already the lowest of any major U.S. city, dropped to 5.01 per 1,000 residents.
Calgary Animal Services and the Calgary Humane Society again achieved the lowest known dog-and-cat killing ratio in Canada during 1998, at 5.76 per 1.000 residents. Taking in 16,538 total dogs and cats, CAS and CHS euthanized just 4,736––about 45% of the cats, and only one dog in 12. CAS and CHS returned 5,460 dogs to their owners and adopted out 1,908.
Sydney, Australia, claims the highest known rate of cat-neutering of any city in the world: 94%, according to the Petcare Information and Advisory Service. The owned cat population across Australia reportedly fell from 2.9 million in 1994 to 2.6 million in 1998. The percentage of households claiming cats plummeted from 31%––about the same as in the U.S.––to 26%. Much of the drop is attributed to legislation increasing the onus on cat owners to keep pet cats indoors.
According to Border Alert, “the official publication of U.S. Border Control,” the U.S. Customs Service has begun breeding sniffing dogs because it cannot afford to buy trained purebreds. Three litters of yellow Labrador retrievers have already been born. U.S. Customs trains about 500 dogs per year––about half, until now, purchased from abroad, while the rest come from animal shelters. Yellow Labs are readily available from shelters: animal control spokesperson Temma Martin, of Salt Lake County, Utah, recently told Scott Noland of the Salt Lake Tribune that her shelter killed 28% of the yellow Labs it received in 1998, along with 46% of the black Labs, due to lack of adoptive homes.
The Humane Society of the U.S., in a June mailing urging shelters to buy HSUS literature for public distribution, reported that according to a Peter D. Hart Research Associates poll sponsored by HSUS, “78% of respondents said that it was definitely or probably true that animal shelters primarily serve as a place where stray animals are temporarily held before they are euthanized”––exactly the image that HSUS itself has promoted in 45 years of urging humane societies to do animal control, while discouraging no-kill alternatives. Added HSUS National Shelter Appreciation Week campaign coordinator Cindy Stitely, “We know––and you know–– that most animal shelters do more. We urge you to promote the programs and services you provide.” As HSUS has amassed assets of $67 million largely by promoting itself as a national umbrella for humane societies, while rarely funding any hands-on animal care, some mailing recipients wondered why HSUS doesn’t help local shelters to promote themselves, by sharing free literature that also bears local shelters’ imprints, instead of expecting the often struggling hands-on locals to buy the handouts while HSUS gets the public credit for work it isn’t doing and never did.
Conflict between HSUS and the Michigan Humane Society over what to do about deer overpopulation at the Kensington Metropark near Detroit erupted into the media in June. HSUS has recently favored sharpshooting and hunting to cull deer in Indiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but argues that deer problems in Kensington Metropark should be handled via sterilization, relocation, and fencing. MHS president Gary Tiscornia favors sterilization in the long run, points out that relocation requires having somewhere to relocate the deer to, and adds that fencing will only divert the deer from one problematic place to another––but favors sharpshooting to knock deer numbers down meanwhile. Tiscornia told a recent meeting of the Huron-Clinton Metropark Authority wildlife management advisory committee that sharpshooting appears to be the method that will most minimize suffering, in an argument paralleling the HSUS position on population control killing of dogs and cats.
California animal care-and-control jurisdictions lining up for help to go no-kill from the $200 million Maddie’s Fund so far include San Diego County, whose supervisors on June 15 contributed $2 million toward the estimated $8 million cost of a new shelter, matching $2 million donated by San Diego Union-Tribune publisher Helen K. Copley; Contra Costa County, whose supervisors the same day approved building a $6 million shelter to increase animal holding capacity 34%; Sacramento, Yolo, and Placer counties, which on June 18 announced the formation of the Sacramento Area Animal Coalition, to begin planning a 10-year trajectory toward no-kill; and Los Angeles County, whose Department of Animal Care and Control on June 22 agreed to locate a pilot no-kill adoption shelter in El Segundo, El Segundo mayor Mike Gordon said. But a no-kill animal control policy was scrapped in June in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, after a behaviorist from the Potter League for Animals in Middletown said five of the 15 dogs at the North Kingstown pound were “kennel-crazy,” following more than a year in custody. Described by Providence Journal-Bulletin staff writer Jennifer Levitz as “small and malodorous,” the North Kingstown pound is not considered attractive to potential adoptors.
New Jersey rescue groups including People for Animals, Orphaned Pets, The Pet Adoption Network, and St. Hubert’s Giralda teamed up in June to place as many as possible of about 80 cats and 40 dogs who otherwise faced death with the June 30 closure of the East Orange Municipal Pound. Bad conditions at the pound were exposed by the Associated Humane Societies’ magazine Humane News as far back as 1987. A nationally distributed expose by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton in March 1989 brought further attention to the plight of impounded animals who were apparently neither fed nor ever offered for adoption. The expose was amplified by Charlotte Gaul, an ANIMAL PEOPLE subscriber and donor, in a letter to Cat Fancy. The West Orange Chronicle editorially called the pound “a virtual animal Auschwitz” in early 1989, but–– after public officials responded with outrage–– suspended publication of further complaints in July 1989. The pound was eventually closed, only to be reopened circa 1993, under assistant animal control officer Tracy Ross. Local activists credited Ross with bringing operations up to par, but she was unable to convice East Orange officials to fund a new facility. The dilapidated building will now be closed permanently, Ross told Sandra Koehler of the East Brunswick Home News Tribune. Ross has reportedly taken another job. The animal control contract is believed likely to go to the Associated Humane Societies––after an interim period under Ross’ predecessors.