LETTERS: San Francisco SPCA wins hands down

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:
San Francisco SPCA wins hands down

In our continuing war against more legislation and law enforcement aimed at pet owners, we sent a recent update of our pamphlet 20 Questions to the Progressive Animal Welfare Society in Lynnwood, Washington. We had taken data from the Animal Legislation Awareness Network report entitled An Analysis of King County, WA Animal Control Ordinance 10423. We received a call from PAWS’ Lisa Wathne, who offered to send us the 1994 Annual Report of King County Animal Control, which thanks to her, we now have. The euthanasia numbers in the two reports agree.

Our conclusion from analysis of the ALAN report, which covered just one shelter in King county, was that, “There is
certainly no evidence that the tougher legislation has made significant improvement in reducing euthanasias.”

As we have been challenged by a number of people on this conclusion, we were very anxious to see if the King County report would cause us to change our stance on such matters as high license fees, door-to-door license enforcement, and public awareness campaigns to encourage licensing, all of which are central features of the celebrated King County anti-pet overpopulation ordinance.What have we found? The report claims, “Dramatic initial success allowed for the continuation of the programs…Figures for this second annual report show further improvements in all areas
targeted by Ordinance 10423.”

But the program cost, for 1994, was $243,000, and the revenue obtained by license fee increases was $200,000. The program cost much more than it brought it. And consider how many animal lives were saved. In 1993, there were 9,032 shelter euthanasias, and in 1994, only 8,738, a one-year reduction of 3.26%. But in the
same period, according to statistics ANIMAL PEOPLE published in June 1994, the national average euthanasia reduction rate was 5.88%.

Without a program, the rest of the nation reduced euthanasias at almost twice the King County pace.

And now for the shocker. King County euthanized 294 less animals, at a cost of $826.53 per life saved. Dividing total budget by adoptions, the San Francisco SPCA spends, on average, $600 per animal adopted, and kills no adoptable or treatable animals, while running 54 other programs that help reduce animal suffering throughout the city. Even if you only count the net loss from the King County program, $146 per animal saved, that could cover free neutering and licensing for 294 animals with savings of $50 per animal left over.

There are several other shelters in King County besides the county animal control shelter, and we don’t have complete shelter statistics for the whole jurisdiction, hence we are unable to compare the King County results with national norms in any meaningful way.

But we did call PAWS to verify our interpretation of the cost figures. Checking further with King County Animal Control, we were told that the first year and a half was more expensive because they had start-up costs, and there were some license tracking problems that may have inflated the figures, and they expect better results this year. The only firm conclusion we can draw is that the King County ordinance was correctly evaluated in our original statement. The new
statistics only make our evaluation more negative.

By contrast, the SF/SPCA has maintained an 18.5% annual reducation rate in euthanasias, citywide, and is against mandatory licensing. Why? Because the poor are unable to pay high license fees, and are consequently afraid to use low-cost neutering programs through which noncompliance with licensing requirements might be detected, making them vulnerable to fines that they can’t afford, either.

The following table compares the percentage of animals entering shelters who leave alive via redemption, adoption, and euthanasia, together with our estimate of maximum possible success:

National King S. F. Ultimate
% redeemed 16.6% 15.6% 10.6% 10.6%
% adopted 20.9% 17.1% 53.9% 63.9%
% euth. 62.5% 68.0% 35.6% 25.5%

We do not have shelter statistics for the whole of King County, so cannot make a comparison based on national normalized data. We do have the numbers of pets entering shelters and euthanized per year per 1,000 human residents for the U.S. as a whole, San Francisco, and Washington state, which are as follow:

National Washington San Francisco
Entries: 29.97 30.82 16.70
Euthanized: 20.38 18.49 6.18

San Francisco wins hands down in the fight to reduce euthanasias, and the San Francisco polices are directly opposite to the tough-law/blame-the-public/more-animal-control-with-door-to-door, etcetera: less legislation, not more; an end to mandatory licensing, not door-to-door enforcement; and more service, not more lobbying.

We also note that the King County neutering voucher program is a dismal failure, with only 633 vouchers redeemed (11.2%) of the 5,654 handed out. Our tiny organization in rural Butte County, California, achieves that much. This indicates to us that poor people, those the voucher program should target, are not licensing their animals because of the fees involved, and are then afraid to use the vouchers. It is not clear to the public whether the $25 King County vouchers are a rebate on the $55 unaltered license fee or are given without requiring the purchase of a license. And for all the effort of door-to-door canvasing, the King County licensing compliance rate is still officially estimated to be about 33%. That two-thirds of the pet-owning public do not support this program should send a message to elected representatives.
–Lewis R. Plumb
Promotion of Animal Welfare Society
Paradise, California
Get a clue!

I feel that higher licensing fees create an ever-smaller base of support for pet population control programs as compliance drops. A review of the Sacramento animal control budget indicated that license revenue dropped by $20,000 when the fee went up 33% in 1993. Only canvasing brought revenues back up. Yet animal control stated
that they didn’t think doubling the current unaltered licensing fee would harm license sales. I predict compliance will drop and revenue too, and animal control will do more canvasing, have increased enforcement costs, and seek a bigger budget. Am I the only person who sees that with the majority of licenses being sold at the lower altered rate, and salary plus overhead and vehicle costs for animal control officers close to $70,000 per year here, that canvasing is
not cost-effective?

The poor can’t afford to neuter or license, or reclaim their animals from animal control, which costs nearly $100 if an unaltered animal isn’t licensed, so the poor relinquish lost pets. Then animal control comes back and says, “See, we have all these unclaimed animals, which cost us money. Aren’t people awful? Let’s raise fees to force them to be responsible.” Meanwhile the poor pick up more animals from the readily available pool of free animals.

Animal control policies perpetuate the problem. Debating the new Sacramento licensing structure, I said that your idea of “Mobile vets at combat pay” (editorial, March 1994) is the answer. An HSUS representative said flat out that anyone who doesn’t have $50 for neutering shouldn’t keep pets. I find such an attitude extremely inhumane. I have been poor, fortunately temporarily, and I am offended that someone cannot understand that there are people who don’t have credit or a spare $50, but need the comfort that pets provide. Kim Sturla of the Fund for Animals committed what I consider a Freudian slip when she said, “We need to spay and neuter people on welfare,” tee hee hee.

I went through all the information about positive incentives versus coercion, the San Francisco Adoption Pact, cost/benefit of neuter/release, etcetera, with the animal control director, who admitted that most animal pick-ups are from poor neighborhoods. But she knew someone who was middle-class, whose cat had kittens by accident, so out the window went my statistics on frequency and probability.

As to the San Francisco Adoption Pact, she said she completely disagrees with Richard Avanzino and doesn’t believe they really have zero euthanasia of healthy animals. This is widespread, as are the beliefs that the SF/SPCA has city animal control do all the killing so that they can look good, and that it’s only because SF/SPCA has money that they can do what they do.

Get a clue! They have the money because people support an organization that demonstrates effectiveness. San Francisco has proven that proper policy and management can solve the pet overpopulation problem. I am frustrated that money is wasted, people are wrongly blamed, and animals are needlessly dying because of demonstrably bad policy.
–Margaret Anne Cleek
Sacramento, California

BOOKS: Breaking the Cycles of Violence

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Breaking the Cycles of Violence
Guidebook and video to crosstrain child and animal protection personnel.
Latham Foundation (Latham Plaza Bldg., Clement & Schiller, Alameda, CA 94501),
1995. Text: 63 pages. Video: 28 minutes. $29.75/kit; $10.95/extra texts.
Early on June 17, Santiago
Sanguillen, 32, of Los Angeles, a 260-
pound weightlifter, severely beat his wife,
in front of her 14-year-old daughter. Waving
a loaded gun, Sanguillen then battered the
daughter’s puppy to death. On July 25, after
a three-day jury trial, Sanguillen was sen-
tenced. Perhaps because the case was moni-
tored by local humane activists, Sanguillen
drew 270 days, of a maximum 365, for
killing the puppy––but for abusing and terror-
izing the women, got just 90 days.
“We have become accustomed to
small victories,” observer Bill Dyer said.
Many such cases aren’t even prosecuted.

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COURT CALENDAR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:
Humane Enforcement
The USDA on July 14 announced penalties levied
against five Class B animal dealers and one exhibitor f o r
multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Pat Hoctor,
of Terre Haute, Indiana, drew a $7,500 fine and 40-day
license suspension; Ronald DeBruin, of Prairie City, Iowa,
drew a fine of $5,000 and a 30-day license suspension; David
Kanagy of Readsville, Pennsylvania, drew a fine of $6,000
and a 60-day license suspension; Clyde and Goldie Rogers
of Rogers TLC Kennel in Gassville, Arkansas, drew a
$25,000 suspended fine and a 6-month license suspension;

Larry Roney of Cougar Acrews in Naubinway, Michigan,
drew a fine of $2,000 and lost his license for five years; and
Kelly Young, of Katt Chez Enterprises in Las Vegas,
Nevada, drew a fine of $8,000 and lost her license for 30 days.
Paul Nemeth, former mayor of Bethlehem
Township, Pennsylvania, was charged on August 2 with
shooting one of 11-year-old Jeanine Chiaffarino’s two
Samoyed puppies––in front of the girl––for purportedly bark-
ing too much in anticipation of her supper. The puppy who
was barking was not the puppy Nemeth killed.
Convicted in late June of cruelly neglecting 237
r a b b i t s, 200 of whom were euthanized upon discovery last
March, San Diego “Bunny Lady” Janice Taylor walked with
five years on probation, during which she may not own ani-
mals while Animal Control may search her premises without a
warrant to ensure compliance.
Rabbit and fighting cock breeders Richard and
Carol Beckwith and their daughter Lori Clay, of Scotts
Valley, Califonia, still denying any wrongdoing, drew 300
hours of community service apiece on August 2 for allowing
Clay’s three daughters, ages 7, 3, and 2, to live amid filth,
dead animals, and rodent infestation at the Beckwiths’ San
Jose farm. They were also barred from again keeping animals.
Forty counts of negligent cruelty filed in July
against cat breeder and vet tech Laura Duffy, 37, of La
Honda, California, as result of an April 29 raid, may become
a court test of the controversial San Mateo County animal con-
trol ordinance, friends told ANIMAL PEOPLE. Five people
who knew Duffy said that while she is no spiffy housekeeper,
her animals are well cared-for, and the April 29 conditions
were caused by two weeks of heavy rain that flooded her prop-
erty and mired her horses––whose plight first brought Animal
Control to investigate. There was contrastingly no controversy
over the June 29 seizure of 16 Persian cats from Pleasanton
breeder Linda Johnston, 47, who allegedly kept them in
“filthy and inhumane conditions,” nor over the order given to
Ann Mitchell of Monte Sereno to get rid of 78 cats, who took
over her 2-story home while she lived in a trailer in the yard.

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Fields hit for alleged Love & Care fraud

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

COVINGTON COUNTY, Alabama––A six-
year probe by the Alabama office of the attorney general,
assisted by ANIMAL PEOPLE, on June 26 brought
counts of fraud, deceit, and deceptive trade practices
against the no-kill shelter Love And Care for God’s
Animalife Inc., Ann P. Fields a.k.a. Ann Lagunas a.k.a.
Marjorie Jacobs a.k.a. Rebecca Garcia, her former husband
Jerry Fields, and her apparently much younger current hus-
band, Victor Lagunas.
Suing on behalf of three named creditors plus
“numerous contributors,” the complaint seeks to dissolve
Love And Care and turn the shelter facility, near
Andalusia, Alabama, over to a properly constituted non-
profit board of directors.

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New York didn’t reinstitute pound seizure

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

ALBANY, N.Y––Frantic online postings from vari-
ous activists who wanted New York governor George Pataki to
veto state bills A8002 and S3869B, together with a follow-up
posting by James Corrigan of Animal Rights America, “con-
gratulating” the American SPCA on their passage, produced a
fast-spreading rumor in mid-August that New York, at instiga-
tion of the ASPCA, had backhandedly repealed a 1977 ban on
the sale of shelter animals to biomedical research.
The rumor struck a nerve, especially among antivivi-
sectionists old enough to remember that the ASPCA supported
the institution of pound seizure, the mandatory sale of animals
to research, in the 1940s, and fought the 1977 law. A8002
pertained to the use of animals in endotracheal intubation train-
ing, further alarming those who recalled that the ASPCA
allowed cats who were anesthetized for neutering to be used in
such training until 1990, when executives and the board were
advised by counsel that this could constitute a violation of the
1977 law. Subsequently, in 1992, the ASPCA sought retroac-
tive legalization of the intubation training.

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Aquariums

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

An autopsy on a five-year-old dolphin w h o
died of lead poisoning on July 23 at the Luna Park tank
in Tel Aviv found she had ingested about 100 air rifle
bullets. X-rays found that her companion, Fiadora, 12
had also ingested several dozen bullets, and could die
soon without surgery. A third dolphin, Max, died of
unknown causes earlier in the year. All three were
imported from Russia about two and a half years ago.
Ric O’Barry, who staged an eight-day hunger strike to
get such imports stopped in early 1993, told ANIMAL
PEOPLE on August 7 that, “We will have Fiadora con-
fiscated soon, I feel. I will return to Tel Aviv to transfer
her to a sea pen at Elat, on the Red Sea. Then, when
the Sugarloaf Key project is over (page one), I will
rehab and release Fiadora back into the Black Sea off
Turkey. She will be the first Russian Navy dolphin to be
set free,” at least officially; another dolphin believed to
have been trained by the Russian Navy spent the early
summer begging for fish in the harbor at Bakar, Croatia.

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Why call it science? by Ric O’Barry

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

A lot of people have a misconception about how
we prepare captive dolphins to return to the wild. They
think we t r a i n them for that. We taught them to jump
through hoops; now we teach them to survive in the wild.
And how do we teach them? Scientifically.
Even many of the people working to readapt and
release captive dolphins think this is what we’re doing. But
how could dolphins be taught what they ought to know when
what they need to know is not to listen to me or anyone else?
What I actually do is so simple that most people
don’t get it. There is no mystery to it. In my protocol for the
readaption and release of captive dolphins, I have three
basic rules: 1) Assume you know nothing. 2) Maintain
sustained observation. 3) Consider the obvious.

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WHAT’S BREWING IN MILWAUKEE?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

MILWAUKEE––The Milwaukee County Board committee on parks, recreation, and culture
on July 12 ordered the county corporation council to share records pertaining to the Wisconsin Humane
Society with Wisconsin Animal Protection Society president Kay Mannes, but refused to probe allega-
tions of animal abuse and mismanagement at WHS, which closed its books and meetings to the public in
1990. WHS executive director Victoria Wellens, hired at $90,000/year in mid-1994 despite having no
background in animal work, recently ired both staff and outside critics by trading in several vehicles used
to haul animals and supplies for a $28,000 Ford Bronco, from which animals are barred.

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Animal control & rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

New legislation
An update of Louisiana animal
protection laws long sought by
Legislation In Support of Animals, the
Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates,
and other state groups includes the stiffest
felony cruelty statute in the U.S., mandat-
ing a fine of not less than $1,000, up to
$25,000, plus from one year in prison up
to 10 years at hard labor; fines for misde-
meanor cruelty of up to $1,000 and 48
hours of community service plus jail time;
the extension of the cruelty law to cover
parrots, parakeets, and lovebirds (but not
fighting cocks); the extension of the state’s
anti-dog theft law to cover other pets, with
stiffer penalties; and the creation of a fund
to help save the scarce Louisiana specta-
cled bear, funded by sales of a special
license plate. Known for gung-ho effica-
cy––on a budget of just $50,000/year––
LISA celebrated by bringing the
Spay/Neuter Assistance Program mobile
clinic from Houston to New Orleans for a
weekend of providing free neutering to
low-income families.

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