AR-News: (IL - US) Kill shelters vs. no-kill in Chicago: Animals are suffering more

[Snugglezzz at aol.com]

For anyone who might think that animal overpopulation is not a major problem 
in the "Windy City" this article sheds a little light on a problem all to 
common in our nation's cities.
 
Chicago's Anti Cruelty Society has implemented a new policy which directs 
stray animals to be driven to the county shelter where they await the fate of 
death in a shelter described as "not fit for a cockroach."  While the "winds" are 
shifting to the world of NO Kill unfortunately society's view of NO KILL is 
more smoke and mirrors than honoring the commitment to the phrase. 
 
While the county shelter will hold stray animals for five days less than one 
out of four survive the stay.
 
>From Chicago Tribune:

By H. Gregory Meyer
Tribune staff reporter

July 1, 2004

Weary of euthanizing thousands of dogs and cats each year, Chicago's 
century-old Anti-Cruelty Society will soon begin turning all strays 
over to the city pound.

Society officials acknowledge that their change in policy just moves 
the problem elsewhere. The society estimates it will have to 
euthanize 3,000 fewer dogs and cats each year, while the city 
estimates it will have to kill at least that many.

Dr. Gene Mueller, the society's president, called it a historic 
change in policy, one reflective of new attitudes shaped by the "no-
kill" movement in the animal welfare community.

The society now will accept animals dropped off by city residents 
who don't want their pets and focus on caring for them and finding 
new homes.

"People don't support us to kill animals," Mueller said. "People 
support us to place animals in loving homes."

Starting this fall, the city's Animal Care and Control Department 
expects to be flooded with 4,000 additional animals annually because 
of the Anti-Cruelty Society's new policy.

"It is a limited amount of space, and we are going to have to 
euthanize more animals," said Melanie Sobel, director of program 
services for the city agency.

In March the society's board unanimously decided not to renew an 
agreement with the city, signed in 1977, to hold strays for at least 
five days. After that, the society could either kill the animal or 
put it up for adoption. Typically, 75 percent of strays have been 
killed, officials said. Euthanization involves injecting a lethal 
dose of sodium pentobarbitol.

Starting this fall, any stray dropped off at the society will be 
driven that day to the city pound at 27th Street and Western Avenue, 
where it will join the 26,000 animals the city Animal Care and 
Control Department takes in each year, Sobel said.

The city pound is already close to capacity, said Cynthia Bathurst, 
a member of the city Animal Care and Control Commission.

"The impact may be that more animals are euthanized, because there 
is a limited amount of space at Animal Care and Control. There is a 
limited staff, and then they're going to have this influx," Bathurst 
said.

In all, the city pound kills 18,000 of its 26,000 arrivals each 
year, Sobel said.

Anti-Cruelty Society officials say euthanizing stray animals is the 
job of a city agency, not a humane society. And they say they'll 
continue to end the lives of about 5,000 animals each year at the 
request or consent of their owners.

Founded in 1899 by women upset with the treatment of horses, the 
society began installing drinking fountains for them around the 
city. In later decades, the organization even became an advocate for 
abused children. By the 1930s, it was taking in stray dogs, society 
officials said.

Dr. Shelly Rubin, a veterinarian who is vice chairman of the 
society's board, said the organization kept taking in strays as a 
reaction to deplorable conditions at the city pound on Lawndale 
Avenue.

"You wouldn't want a cockroach to live in there, much less an 
animal," Rubin said.

The city has since built a new facility on Western Avenue. And the 
strays, which fill cages and chain-link dog runs on the society's 
second floor, were taking up space that could be used to 
rehabilitate sick but adoptable animals, Rubin said.

The move reflects a shift toward the no-kill philosophy, whose 
boosters have in the past criticized shelters such as the Anti-
Cruelty Society for euthanizing so many animals. The goal is 
adoption for every healthy and non-vicious pet.

Paula Fasseas, the founder of PAWS Chicago, a local no-kill advocacy 
group that runs a spaying and neutering clinic in Little Village, 
said private humane groups have tended to overdo euthanasia.

"What ends up happening is it becomes a management tool. It's kind 
of like managing an orphanage for children by euthanizing the 
problem kids. Killing should never be a management tool," Fasseas 
said.

Catalyzing the shift toward no-kill shelters has been Maddie's Fund, 
a private foundation named after a software billionaire's miniature 
schnauzer and capitalized with $240 million. Its goal is to increase 
spaying and neutering surgery and end the killing of healthy dogs 
and cats.

However, society leaders said the policy shift was not driven by 
fundraising concerns. According to its 2002 tax return, the latest 
available, the organization's assets were $29.8 million and expenses 
$4.7 million--higher than Animal Care and Control's annual budget.

Mueller said the new policy would "absolutely not" lead to a net 
increase in the number of deaths by euthanasia each year.

Mueller, who used to run the city pound, said that in fact it could 
cut such deaths as the society would now have space to treat more 
dogs with kennel cough or cats with respiratory ailments, eventually 
placing them in its adoption showcase along Grand Avenue.

In addition, Mueller said he hopes that by centralizing stray 
animals' holding pens at the pound, it will improve Chicago's dismal 
6 to 8 percent rate of lost pets reunited with their owners.

Neither agency would have to shoulder the dirty work if the public 
took more responsibility, animal welfare experts say.

"If people are upset by reading about the possibility that hundreds 
more animals may be euthanized in Chicago, then the important thing 
to recognize is to say what can we do about it? When I say `we' I 
mean each and every individual resident of Chicago," said Amy 
Breyer, a lawyer who is chair of the Chicago Bar Association's 
Animal Law Committee.

"The problem of overpopulation would end tomorrow if people would be 
more responsible about pet ownership." 
 
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