Best Friends Animal Society recently held its Bring No-Kill Home summit, a two-day virtual conference providing animal welfare advocates with the tools to effectively support (or start) no-kill initiatives in their community. The summit served the purpose of fulfilling Best Friends’ 2016 declaration to bring no-kill nationwide by 2025. With only 1,400 shelters left to implement no-kill initiatives in, their goal is within reach. But at what cost?
No-kill philosophy is about saving the lives of animals entering the shelter system based on the quality of life for the animals and community safety. Humane euthanasia is reserved for particular scenarios including: aggression that can not be medically treated or has failed rehabilitation attempts and would pose a danger to public or staff, veterinarian assessed cases where the recovery is not possible or quality of life is deemed unacceptable, and in situations where it is inhumane to allow the animal to live (i.e. when injuries sustained cause severe suffering and intervention would likely fail). No-kill initiatives utilize managed intake and intake diversion programs as life-saving strategies, success depending on collaboration and partnerships with rescues and fosters within the community. Euthanasia is never performed for space. Best Friends Animal Society reports a 60% decrease in shelter killings since announcing their nationwide no-kill declaration in 2016.
Best Friends Animal Society boasts impressive, and seemingly transparent, heavily data-driven results. Measures include intake numbers and the number of animals that leave the shelter alive. A shelter can be designated no-kill if its save rate measures 90% or higher, with exemptions given to specific conditions (i.e. neonatal kittens, senior/hospice care). However, one statistic that is not measured is how many animals a shelter turns away once it reaches capacity and closes their doors to intake. A data point that would impact the results.
When only the animals that officially enter the shelter system are measured, it proves difficult to gauge the true progress of the no-kill movement. Shelters and rescues across the nation are reporting slowing adoption rates, difficulty finding fosters and volunteers, dwindling donations, high employee turnover rates, and having to close their doors to intake due to space limitations. Many communities, as a result, are witnessing increased stray populations, and community members have expressed frustration, feeling they have nowhere to turn when all of their community's resources are at capacity, leaving them to solve the problem on their own.
Shelter and rescue workers and volunteers sound off anonymously in online forums about the negative impacts witnessed in striving for and maintaining no-kill designations. How do we account for the lives of those turned away? And without knowing the outcome, how do we truly know if no-kill saves more lives? If the only lives measured are the ones taken in, then the results do not represent the reality of the lives turned away. Shelters blame the people, and people blame the shelters.
The no-kill initiative is a beautiful, idealistic philosophy. It is successful and balanced in communities where enough resources exist to accommodate diversion programs. But it is a potentially inhumane death sentence in communities where the nearest shelter or veterinarian is miles away and where the service areas far exceed the existing resources.
As this nation’s people face increasing economic instability, decreasing access to affordable veterinary care, fewer pet-friendly housing options, and a rise in backyard breeding, and shelters and rescues are struggling to bring in funding, fosters, and volunteers, we have to ask ourselves if this is the appropriate timing to be pushing a no-kill narrative. Especially when communities where no-kill has been deemed successful are starting to report being overwhelmed.
While no-kill philosophy should be the ultimate goal, it is imperative that we make sure achieving no-kill status does not put animals at risk when facilities run out of space and resources. We need to find ways to be accountable for the animals being turned away from shelters on a daily basis. In order to save animals, we need people to step in where they can.
Find out what your community needs and start there. Create and expand the supporting programs that help no-kill initiatives succeed and keep animals from being turned away. Prioritize accessible adoptions, pet-friendly housing, foster programs, low-cost spay/neuter/vaccine/microchip clinics, education and outreach, and push for animal-friendly legislation.
Ask your local shelter what they need from you today.