From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The SPCA of Texas, formerly the
Dallas SPCA, recently celebrated the one hundred
thousandth pet sterilization since it began
offering on-site neutering surgery in 1976. In
1996, the SPCA of Texas––which claims a
92% adoption rate––placed 10,091 animals in
new homes, and neutered 11,601.
Because the Argentine senate clerk
“accidentally” sent a 1995 update and revision
of the Argentine Criminal Law for the Protection
of Animals to the wrong committee after it
was approved by the legislature, the bill was to
die due to inaction on November 30––despite
the signatures of more than 150,000 Argentine
citizens who signed petitions favoring it. At
deadline the Club de Animales Felices asked
the world to e-mail messages of support for passage
to >>quinzio@senado.gov.ar≤≤.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:

The table below represents the third ANIMAL
PEOPLE biennial updated projection of U.S. animal shelter
intake and killing statistics, based on the most recent available
intake/exit data from every shelter or nearly every shelter
in particular states. Our method builds upon previous projections
based on smaller data samples, published in 1990 by
Andrew Rowan and in 1993 by Phil Arkow.
In October 1993, ANIMAL PEOPLE projected
from the data produced from a geographically balanced sample
of states totaling 40% of the U.S. human population that
the annual shelter killing toll, humane societies and animal
control agencies combined, might have fallen as low as 5.1
million dogs and cats per year––about a third of the thenprevalent
guesstimates by national organizations. Our 1995
projection, published in March 1996, was based on a geographically
balanced sample of states totaling 51.5% of the
U.S. population, and affirmed the 1993 estimate. However,
both the 1993 and 1995 projections undercounted the Florida
numbers by half, as we misunderstood Florida Animal
Control Association statistics to represent all Florida shelters,
not just animal control agencies. This year the FACA produced
a state shelter survey which does represent all Florida
shelters. We have accordingly corrected the previous error.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:

SAN MATEO, Calif.––Two years after the
Homeless Cat Network and the Peninsula Humane Society
began formal cooperation, the homeless cat population of San
Mateo County is reportedly down by half.
So far, 111 volunteers are looking after 129 homeless
cat colonies. All cats have been neutered and vaccinated. Cats
who can be handled are removed from the colonies and adopted
out. The number of cats within the monitored colonies fell
from 1,215 in 1995 to just 658 after the 1997 kitten season,
while 540 cats were placed in homes.
The results mirror the earlier success of
neuter/release, vaccination, and adoption efforts coordinated
by the Stanford Cat Coalition, just to the south, and the San
Francisco SPCA, just to the north––and also replicates the
experience of individual cat rescuers across the U.S., surveyed
by ANIMAL PEOPLE in 1992 and 1995.

Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

NEW YORK CITY–– ”Spay
/neuter and responsible pet ownership are
the ways to reduce the numbers” of animals
killed in shelters due to pet overpopulation,
American SPCA president Roger
Caras wrote on August 21, declining an
invitation to attend the 1997 No Kill
Conference as a guest of the Humane
Coalition of Massachusetts.
“Running on about no-kill as the
answer is maybe okay in San Francisco,
with a population of 70,000, one third
who are gay,” Caras continued, as “the
gay community is traditionally the most
animal-friendly,” but in New York City,
he went on, where the ASPCA is the primary
humane agency, “The numbers do
not work.”

Read more