In 1994, The San Francisco SPCA & Animal Care & Control City & County of San Francisco joined forces to pursue an ambitious aim: eliminate euthanasia as the common fate of homeless cats and dogs. The program “Partnerships For Life - Saving Homeless Dogs & Cats in San Francisco,” is now in its 10th year. This unique partnership between SF/SPCA, a non-profit and SF/ACC, a city agency has become a model for communities worldwide.
San Francisco has fundamentally reversed the pattern that prevails at many animal shelters, where healthy adoptable dogs and cats are routinely killed to make room for incoming animals.
San Francisco's success is based on several key elements:
- High-volume spay/neuter surgery to reduce pet overpopulation and cut shelter intake. The SFSPCA spends between $1 million and $2 million a year to subsidize surgery at its spay/neuter clinic, with free surgery for San Francisco's feral cats and animals adopted from the SFSPCA, and public fees that are about 60 percent below the city average. The clinic performs approximately 7,000 surgeries a year and has altered more than 100,000 dogs and cats (including more than 12,000 feral cats) since it began keeping records in 1988.
- Foster care and treatment to prepare dogs and cats for adoption
- Adoption programs to place shelter animals in loving homes
- Partnerships between The SF/SFCA and SF/ACC, and with other shelters, rescue groups, volunteers and the entire community
The result: between 1990 and 2002, the number of dogs and cats entering the San Francisco shelter system dropped by 41 percent, from 13,189 to 7,836. The chart below illustrates the drop in euthanasias from 2,163 in 2002 to 1,606 in 2003. At the same time, the adoption rate has increased from 4,975 in 2002 to 5,218 in 2003.
Source:
Tracy Pore
San Francisco SPCA
Ed Sayres
Former Pres. of SF/SPCA
The City of Palo Alto opened a low-cost spay and neuter clinic in 1972 as part of a new animal control and care facility. Promotion of spaying and neutering was a relatively new concept in our area of the time, and the City Council was skeptical that a spay and neuter clinic would have much of an impact on the numbers of animals handled at the public animal shelter. However, though an extensive public awareness campaign of pet overpopulation, the positive effects of the spay clinic were realized within two years of the opening of the clinic. The number of dogs and cats had increased every single year from 1955 to 1973. In 1974, in the second year of the clinic's operation, the number of dogs and cat received dropped every single year from then until 1996 (when there was a large human population spike in Palo Alto. Communities surrounding Palo Alto, who also use the clinic, have reported similar reductions in animal population since the opening of the clinic in 1972.
Source:
Greg Betts
City of Palo Alto
Dog and Cat Shelter Population Summary:
An Historic Review
NOTE: The following numbers are total numbers and do not distinguish between healthy homeless animals and those animals suffering from serious illness, injury, or behavioral problems.
** PHS/SPCA's education program created 1975
*** Totals are not shown for 1985, 1995 and 2000 because complete, comparable data is not available; data for 1986, 1993 and 2002 is used instead
**** PHS/SPCA's Pet Overpopulation Ordinance (POP) introduced 1990
Source:
Peninsula Humane Society
Audrey Boag, author of Feral Friends, A Guide to Living With Feral Cats, gathered data over a ten-year period from the major shelters in the Denver metropolitan area including nearby suburbs. The shelters included such large ones as the Aurora Animal Care Center, the Denver Dumb Friends League, the Denver Municipal Shelter and Table Mountain Animal Shelter. The area has conventional animal care and control programs, typical of American shelters, but keep better than average records on cat entries and exits. Since the advent of trap/neuter and return programs in the early 1990's there has been a dramatic decline in the numbers of cats in the shelter system as follows:
The difference in the drop in “owner surrended” (a very misleading term for animals brought to shelters by the public) and free-roaming adult cats taken in (only 60% as steep a drop) probably reflects the dent that predation and disease make in the feral population before kittens reach reproductive age.
All of this was achieved without the participation of the major agencies in trap/neuter-return programs. Incidentally, cat intakes in most categories actually rose slightly in 1999, probably reflecting the warmer-than-usual 1998-9 Winter.
Source:
Merritt Clifton, editor, Animal People
November, 2000
Note the dramatic declines in both shelter intakes and euthanasias after the program was begun in 1994; prior to that, intakes and euthanasias had plateaued. The state program has two parts: one for shelter adopters and one for low-income cat/dog owners on any one of several forms of public assistance. The cost to pet owners is $25 for s/n through the first program, $10 through the second. The program also pays up to $15 toward cost of pre-surgical immunizations. Funds for the program are derived from a $2 surcharge on all dog license fees.
See “State Programs” for more details on how the NH program works.
Source:
Peter Marsh
S.T.O.P.
In May of 1983, Assembly Bill 1917 was signed into law and became P.L. 1983, c. 172. This law directed the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHHS) to establish a low cost spay/neuter program to be called the Animal Population Control (APC) Program that would utilize the private sector (i.e., participating veterinarians) to provide the spay/neuter services.
Client eligibility to participate was based on the client being a recipient of any one of a number of public assistance programs, specifically: Food Stamp Program, Supplemental Security Income Program, Medical Assistance Program (Medicaid), Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), General Public assistant Program, Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled Program, Rental Assistance Program, Lifeline Credit Program, and Tenants Lifeline Assistance Program. Upon presentation to the veterinarian of proof of eligibility for any of the above-mentioned programs, the client's pet would receive a $10 copayment fee, all necessary presurgical immunizations, presurgical examination, surgery, and post surgical care.
On December 17, 1986, the DHSS was charged with implementing P.L. 1986, c. 192. The law became effective immediately. This law permits any dog or cat adopted from a licensed non-profit shelter or pound and licensed pursuant to state and municipal law to be eligible to participate in the Low Cost Spaying and Neutering Program for a $20 copayment fee. The objective was to encourage shelter adoptions and increase the number of altered pets reentering the pet ownership cycle.
P.L. 1991, c. 405, was approved January 17, 1992. This law opened the spay/neuter program up to dogs and cats adopted from nonprofit, incorporated, animal adoption referral agencies, which do not operate holding facilities. There have been more than 137,000 surgeries conducted on dogs and cats since the inception of the program in 1984.
Source:
Robert Monyer
State of New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services