Shelter killing drops after upward spike
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:
The numbers of dogs and cats killed in U.S. animal
shelters appears to have resumed a 35-year decline after a brief
spike upward, according to the 12th annual ANIMAL PEO-
P L E review of shelter exit data. The overall rate of shelter
killing per 1,000 Americans now stands at 15.5.
Shelter killing is coming down in all parts of the U.S.,
but progress remains most apparent where low-cost and early-
age dog and cat sterilization programs started first, decades
ago, followed by aggressive neuter/return feral cat sterilization,
introduced on a large scale during the early 1990s.
Regions with harsh winters that inhibit the survival of
stray and feral kittens were usually killing more than 100 dogs
and cats per 1,000 humans circa 1970. The U.S. average was
115, and the Southern toll (where known) soared above 250.
Current regional norms vary from 3.6 in the
Northeast to 27.5 along the Gulf Coast and 29.2 in Appalachia.
The Northeast toll is as low as it is partly because
most animal control agencies in Connecticut still do not active-
ly pick up cats, although they were authorized to do so in
1991––but even if Connecticut agencies collected two or three
times as many cats as dogs, the overall Northeast rate of shelter
killing would be less than 4.5 dogs and cats per 1,000 humans.
For most cities in most parts of the U.S. 5.0 is for all
practical purposes the threshold of achieving no-kill animal
control, as on average about five animals per 1,000 humans
will be too severely injured, ill, or dangerous to save. New
York City is unique in having by far the highest human popula-
tion density in the U.S., with only about half the U.S. per capi-
ta rate of pet-keeping. This reflects the predominance of high-
rise apartment house living.
The no-kill threshold for New York City is accord-
ingly about 2.5––and the city is almost there, having cut shelter
killing almost in half during the 18-month tenure of current
Center for Animal Care & Control director Ed Boks.
San Francisco, a distant second in human population
density, crossed the no-kill threshold in 1994, and continues to
reduce shelter killing by finding ways to save ever more of the
animals who would have no chance elsewhere due to lack of
resources for treatment and rehabilitation.
At the present rate of New York City progress, how-
ever, New York could become the most successful U.S. city at
saving animals’ lives in one more year––or less.
The most remarkable new finding in the A N I M A L
P E O P L E data analysis is that the percentage of unsterilized
dogs and cats who have homes is now almost equal, in many
locales, to the number killed in shelters per 1,000 humans.
This quick-and-crude approach to estimating dog-
and-cat reproductive potential may be more a recurring coinci-
dence than a rule, and does not appear to hold up where the
rate of dog and cat sterilization is known to be less than 70%,
but it did hold up in every U.S. city where ANIMAL PEOPLE
had both sterilization and shelter killing data.
Seventy percent is the tipping point at which the
remaining unsterilized animals cannot reproduce in excess of
attrition, if the 70% sterilization ratio is maintained.
After initially estimating U.S. shelter killing each
year by projecting the rate per 1,000 humans based on a limited
number of whole-state surveys, ANIMAL PEOPLE in 1997
shifted to the present method of using only data from the three
most recent fiscal years, and using proportionally weighted city
and county data where whole-state surveys are unavailable.
Research commissioned by the National Council on
Pet Population Study, done during 1994-1996, subsequently
confirmed the estimate of dogs and cats killed in shelters that
ANIMAL PEOPLE projected.
A new paper resulting from the NCPPS investigation,
“Birth and Death Rate Estimates of Cats and Dogs in U.S.
Households and Related Factors,” appeared in volume 7.4 of
the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science just as the
July/August 2005 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLEwent to press.
Co-authors of the paper included John C. New Jr. and
William Kelch of the University of Tennessee, Jennifer
Hutchison of the Australian Department of Agriculture,
Fisheries, and Forestry, Mo Salman and Mike King of
Colorado State University, Janet Scarlett of Cornell University,
and Philip Kass of the University of California at Davis.
Estimating feral cats
Based on 1996 survey data from 7,399 U.S. house-
holds, the new paper establishes that “The crude birth rate was
estimated to be about 11.2 kittens per 100 cats in households,
and 11.4 puppies per 100 dogs in households.”
Attrition included a death rate of 8.3 amog cats,
7.9% among dogs, plus a disappearance rate of 3% among cats,
1.1% among dogs. Cat births in households equalled attrition;
dog births in households exceeded attrition by 2.4%.
Twice as many kitten litters as puppy litters were
born, with a surprisingly large average kitten litter size of 5.73
and puppy litter size of 7.57. About 82% of the animals were
from unplanned litters.
Thus about 6.63 million kittens were born in house-
holds, 5.46 million of them through unplanned births, along
with six million puppies, 2.6 million through unplanned births.
The number of unplanned births was almost exactly
equal to U.S. shelter admissions, and movement of feral cats
into homes and shelters appears to have been approximately
equal to net growth in the household population pus cat killing
in shelters, as projected by ANIMAL PEOPLE.
The number of feral cats in any locale can be estimat-
ed by adding net cat acquisition to shelter killing and multiply-
ing by three, to account for the numbers of queens, toms, and
siblings not entering homes or shelters who must exist to pro-
duce the numbers of ferals who are either adopted or killed.
However, nationally the feral population is markedly
reduced. A total of only six million feral cats surviving each
winter and 12 million at the summer population peak (about
16% of the current household cat population) would be suffi-
cient to produce all of the current annual net gain in pet cats
and all of the cats killed in shelters.
U.S. shelter killing had declined from 17.4 in 1996 to
14.8 in 2000-2001, according to the ANIMAL PEOPLE pro-
jections, but rebounded to the 1996 level after the high-tech
stock market slump and terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
brought a catastrophic dip in funding for nonprofit and govern-
ment-subsidized low-cost dog and cat sterilization.
Neuter/return had apparently caught on well enough
that the feral cat population continued to drop, but at a slower
rate than in the 1990s.
However, shelter dog intake and killing sharply
increased during the first half-decade of the 21st century, coin-
ciding with a five-fold increase in admissions of pit bull terriers
and Rottweilers, from under 5% of the dogs received to more
than 26%, according to ANIMAL PEOPLE shelter surveys
done in 1993 and 2004.
The same years brought a 789% increase in the num-
bers of people killed or maimed by pit bulls, who committed
about half of all the life-threatening or fatal dog attacks in the
U.S., plus a 2000% increase in the numbers of people killed or
maimed by Rottweilers, who committed about 25% of the life-
threatening or fatal dog attacks.
The increasing volume of pit bulls and Rottweilers
entering shelters was enough to tip the balance of shelter killing
from 43% dogs and 57% cats in 1996-1997 to 57% dogs and
43% cats in 2003-2004.
ANIMAL PEOPLE did not re-survey the shelter dog
population in 2005, as there seemed to be no indication of any
change in the trend since 2004.
Fifteen Americans were killed by pet dogs during the
first six months of 2005, 11 by pit bulls and three by
Rottweilers. Police seized 693 pit bulls in connection with dog-
fighting, 14% fewer than in the first half of 2002 but approach-
ing the totals seized in each full year from 1999 through 2001,
and nearly twice as many as were seized in 1998.
(Please note that the regional and national totals
appearing in the accompanying table in bold are not tallies of
the data used to produce them, but are rather estimates pro –
portionately weighted to reflect demography. The percentage
figure in parenthesis is the percentage of the regional human
population from which the totals were derived.)
Animals killed YEAR 1,000s Animals
per 1,000 people of people killed
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
CONNECTICUT 0.8 2003 3,483 2,647
Ithaca, NY 2.2 2003 97 214
New York City 2.6 2005 8,086 21,171
Onandaga County, NY 4.2 2003 311 1,300
Oswego, NY 7.5 2003 18 135
Madison County, NY 7.8 2003 70 548
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
NORTHEAST(36%) 3.6 33,396
120,486
NEW JERSEY 5.9 2003 8,638 50,637
Pittsburgh, PA 8.6 2003 1,261 10,907
Baltimore 9.2 2003 762 7,003
Harford Cnty, MD 11.2 2002 219 2,448
Berks County, PA 11.8 2002 85 4,489
Frederick Cnty, MD 13.7 2003 203 2,784
Philadelphia 19.7 2002 1,518 29,935
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
MID-ATLANTIC (43%) 8.5 29,704
251,634
Chicago 10.4 2002 2,896 30,000
Cincinnati 13.1 2002 835 10,951
MICHIGAN 13.3 2004 9,991 133,000
Tippecanoe Cty, IN 15.2 2003 155 2,360
St. Louis 15.6 2003 1,365 21,336
Butler County, OH 15.8 2002 835 5,329
Kansas City 16.6 2002 1,500 25,000
Springfield, MO 16.9 2002 594 9,689
Minneapolis 17.9 2002 1,115 20,000
Jefferson Cty, MO 18.9 2003 198 3,745
Winnebago Cty, IL 19.2 2004 284 5,449
Clermnt Cnty, OH 20.3 2002 182 3,700
Kansas City, KS 21.6 2004 158 3,412
Indianapolis 23.5 2003 857 20,100
Madison/St Clair IL 24.5 2003 515 12,627
Warren County, OH 27.1 2002 169 4,572
Athens, OH 46.6 2004 64 3,000
Columbia, MO 50.4 2002 80 4,033
Hamilton, IN 60.5 2000 172 10,406
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
MIDWEST (36%) 15.1 60,436
913,081
Animals killed YEAR 1,000s Animals
per 1,000 people of people killed
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Richmond, VA 7.7 2004 195 1,489
Miami/Dade County 9.2 2003 2,300 21,205
Wake Cty, NC 15.2 2003 656 10,000
Norfolk 15.9 2003 1,500 23,869
VIRGINIA 18.1 2003 7,386 133,800
Lee County, FL 18.7 2002 463 8,667
Tallahassee 22.4 2004 239 5,350
Coweta Cty, GA 22.6 2004 101 2,288
Muskogee Cnty, GA 27.5 2003 275 7,500
Volusia County, FL 28.6 2003 455 13,000
NORTH CAROLINA 31.2 2002 8,407 265,289
Tampa 32.4 2002 1,000 32,431
Columbia, SC 37.0 2004 332 12,275
Augusta, GA 45.3 2004 198 8,967
Buncombe Cty, NC 49.4 2004 213 10,528
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
SO. ATLANTIC (52%) 23.5 45,644
1,070,496
Lewisville, TX 17.5 2001 78 1,367
Fort Worth 19.6 2004 1,486 29,177
LaPlace, LA 20.8 2003 50 1,042
Dallas/FtWorth 23.0 2002 3,439 79,207
El Paso, TX 31.4 2004 700 22,000
Lafayette, LA 28.0 2004 195 5,439
Tuskaloosa, AL 33.0 2003 167 5,502
San Antonio 35.3 2003 1,418 50,000
Amarillo 50.9 2002 174 8,859
Hattiesburg, MS 56.2 2002 73 4,100
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
GULF COAST (19%) 27.5 33,997
934,295
Loudon Cty TN 18.9 2003 40 754
Chattanooga 22.5 2004 307 6,918
Blount Cty, TN 22.6 2003 108 2,437
Knoxville 27.6 2004 393 10,848
Roane Cty, TN 32.1 2003 52 1,669
Anderson Cty, TN 32.3 2003 72 2,327
Spartanburg TN 32.8 2004 261 8,562
Union Cty, TN 42.8 2003 18 788
Lincoln County, KY 43.7 2003 24 1,045
Sevier Cty, TN 44.4 2003 74 3,275
Jefferson Cty TN 53.1 2003 45 2,390
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
APPALACHIA (34%) 29.2 4,124
120,627
Animals killed YEAR 1,000s Animals
per 1,000 people of people killed
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
San Francisco 2.5 2004 771 1,892
San Diego 5.9 2004 2,931 17,421
Portland/Multnomah 6.8 2004 686 4,714
SF Bay area 7.1 2003 7,039 50,000
Silicon Valley 8.5 2003 1,668 14,097
Los Angeles 8.7 2003 9,638 83,780
OREGON 9.3 2002 3,560 33,132
Sacramento 13.4 2002 1,269 17,000
Lodi, CA 13.9 2002 57 790
Clark County, WA 14.6 2003 361 5,283
Grants Pass, OR 17.8 2003 78 1,400
San Bernardino 18.5 2002 1,766 32,656
Riverside, CA 24.3 2002 1,636 39,687
Modesto 30.5 2004 489 14,903
Victorville, CA 28.6 2002 300 8,598
Longview, WA 31.3 2002 80 2,500
Bakersfield, CA 33.3 2003 676 22,500
Fresno, CA 80.0 2002 500 40,000
Visalia, CA 81.1 2002 100 8,100
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
PACIFIC (69%) 12.1 47,082
570,636
Denver 5.8 2002 1,961 11,407
Phoenix, AZ 11.9 2003 3,195 38,048
Billings 14.3 2004 133 1,900
Las Vegas area 14.5 2003 1,641 23,758
UTAH 15.4 2004 2,352 36,121
Payette, ID 16.6 2002 60 1,000
Albuquerque 26.9 2004 581 15,600
Flagstaff, AZ 30.7 2003 59 1,848
Kingman area, AZ 39.5 2003 162 6,404
Navajo Nation 136.0 2003 46 6,952
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
WEST (53%) 14.3 18,883
269,883
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
U.S. TOTAL 15.5 290,810
