ANIMAL CONTROL AND SHELTERING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2000:

The Humane Society of Utah, working with Best Friends and other shelters in a concerted drive to make Utah a no-kill state, in 1999 placed 68% of the dogs it received and 61% of cats. Director Gene Baierschmidt told Douglas D. Palmer of the Desert News that the humane society killed 35,000 animals in 1975, but cut the toll to 2,500 in 1999, achieving a 21% reduction from 1998, and aims to go even lower.

The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society on February 1 became the third major shelter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to join a pact to make Pittsburgh a nokill city within five years. The A n i m a l Rescue League and Washington Area Humane Society announced their commitments to no-kill in late 1999. The Alleghany County shelter killing rate is 15.8 animals per 1,000 residents, low enough to suggest that the goal is realistic.

The West Hollywood, California, city council in mid-January enacted a bylaw guaranteeing senior citizens, disabled people, and AIDS patients the right to keep up to two pets in rental units, regardless of building policies. “No one should ever live with the fear of having to choose between their home and their beloved pet,” said council member Paul Koretz, who initiated the bylaw.

Following the examples of The Netherlands and Britain, which banned breeding pit bull terriers in 1991, France on January 6 introduced a national sterilization requirement for pit bulls and other dogs deemed dangerous. Many U.S. cities adopted similar legislation in the 1980s, but enforcement has usually failed due to the difficulty of legally defining dog breeds. In Lucas County, Ohio, which made one of the more vigorous efforts to restrict dangerous breeds, of 5,150 dogs received in 1999, 14% were chows or chow mixes; 11% were Rottweilers or Rottweiler mixes; and 8% were pit bulls or pit bull mixes, dog warden Tom Skeldon told Robin Erb of the Toledo Blade.

A push by the Hawaii Vector Control Branch and Hawaii Community A u t h o r i t y to ban feeding animals in public parks was opposed at a stormy January 16 hearing by Haleakala National Park wildlife biologist Cathleen Hodges, who testified that a neuter/return program begun in 1998 by the Maui Humane Society is reducing feral cat predation on birds. Maui Humane executive director Gary Hendel said that before the neuter/return program began, cat intake at the humane society had risen by 10% to 12% per year; in 1999, the first full year of the program, it fell 14%.]]]