[Data Story] Kill or Save: Reducing Euthanasia in California Is Starting To Pay Off
When Robbie the Rottweiler arrived at Oakland's animal shelter, everyone was heartbroken.
Robbie was just hit by a car when animal control found him. His jaw was bleeding, almost completely broken, and needed urgent medical attention. Within 24 hours, Friends of Oakland Animal Services (FOAS), a local non-profit supporting Oakland's only open-door animal shelter, received donations from over 120 community members, many of whom had received help from the shelter before. Robbie's surgery went successfully. After recovery, he will be prepared for adoption and eventually find himself in a loving home.
Robbie is one of the lucky ones. "He would have been euthanized. That (the surgery) was a lot of money," said Tony Cruz, Executive Director of FOAS. But for the past three years in California, more animals like Robbie were saved instead of put down.
Euthanasia Is Down
One of the biggest challenges for animal welfare in the US is the sheer number of animals coming into shelters, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). In the state of California, approximately 380,000 cats and dogs enter shelters every year, and only half of them would get adopted.
Many things could happen to the unadopted. Some go to other shelters with hopes of adoption opportunities elsewhere, some return to the wild after spaying and neutering, and a few escape by accident. Still, for the rest, death is almost certain.
As the most populous state in the United States, California has a history of a high number of shelter euthanasia cases. From 2016 to 2019, shelters in the state put down an average of 76,000 cats and dogs annually. In the past six years, California has put down the most animals among all states in the country, plus Washington DC, and US territories.
Meanwhile, California has been progressive in pursuing no-kill practices in animal shelters. Since 2020, California has funded shelter-support programs with the state budget and passed multiple legislation banning the retail sale of animals. In 2021, the city of Los Angeles officially became the largest no-kill city in the country, as the life-saving rate had reached the commonly defined no-kill standard of 90%。
Best Friends Animal Society, one of the biggest national advocating organizations for no-kill practices, reported an over 60% drop in overall shelter deaths in California by 2020.
But how did this come to be?
One of the reasons is Covid. According to an ASPCA survey, approximately 1 in 5 Americans acquired a cat or a dog during the first year during Covid.
In California, the desire for animal companionship through seemingly endless lockdowns and quarantines brought a light of hope to animal shelters statewide. The state's adoption rate went up from approximately 49% before Covid-19 to roughly 54% during the pandemic.
But the more significant reason is that fewer animals are entering shelters due to changes in how animal shelters function in communities. Jennifer McDevitt, Development Coordinator at Friends of Oakland Animal Services, has witnessed this effort first-hand.
During the pandemic, the Animal Control Officer of Oakland received a report that someone had chained a dog to the fence, which is illegal in California, McDevitt said.
The officer found out that it was a loving home for this animal, but they had fallen under some financial hardships and could not afford to care for the dog's medical situation. Instead of taking that animal away and into shelters, FOAS eventually came up with ways to fundraise and help the owner with medical costs.
The key is offering help to owners, working with low-income communities, and keeping animals in homes in the first place, McDevitt said. "Happy dogs, happy guardians, and we would have one more room in the shelters."
The cost, Cruz and McDevitt said, is much lower to keep animals in homes instead of taking them into shelters. As part of the effort, FOAS also helps shelters with pet fostering programs, monthly low-cost and free spay and neuter events for community cats, and nearly daily adoption events. The best way to lower shelter intakes and euthanasia is to make saving animals a community-wide effort and let shelters be a last resort for the animals that really need it, they said.
While animal welfare workers in Oakland continue their effort, the future of reducing shelter euthanasia still faces multiple layers of challenges.
One crucial obstacle is housing discrimination, Nathan Winograd, Executive Director of The No Kill Advocacy Center, wrote in an email.
"47% of rental housing did not allow pets, and only 9% of pet-friendly units allowed pets without limitations on type or size," citing a Columbia University Research.
Another concern for shelters like Oakland Animal Services is a recent increase in pets being returned to shelters as people started going back to work in person, McDevitt said.
"We are facing a problem that's never truly going away," Cruz said. "But there is so much room for more and more people to help out there, and starting with awareness would be a big one."
Author's note: Shelter Euthanasia data are extremely difficult to pinpoint precisely. All current datasets rely on monthly self-report from animal shelters around the US, and may not cover all shelters in operation. The analysis of this story relied mostly on the The Shelter Animals Count dataset, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive collection of shelter data nationwide. Part of the story also referred to dataset published by Best Friends Animal Society, another shelter data collecting organization. Euthanasia data from before 2016 are largely incomplete, therefore this story mostly refer to data dated between 2016 to 2021.
