We know that some shelters euthanise many more cats than other shelters even when they are in roughly the same place operating under similar circumstances. The difference can come down to management methods and attitudes.
Of course, there are often other pressures and barriers in achieving true-no kill status but management is probably the biggest influence on outcomes.
The Mercer County Animal Shelter in Bluefield, West Virginia, USA, have gone two months without euthanizing a single animal due to lack of space (does that mean they have euthanised some animals for other reasons?). For the time being I’ll presume that it means genuine no-kill.
Stacey Martin, the Rescue Coordinator for the shelter explains why:
“Most of the rescues are out of state. What I do is, along with a group of volunteers called Alive, they help me coordinate transports. I network the animals online through facebook. They have over 12,000 people who follow the page. Most of them are out of state people who rescue them,”
I take this to mean that she networks on Facebook for adopters and most of them are outside of the state of West Virginia.
They deal with the challenges of delivering cats and dogs over large distances by organizing excellent transport facilities. For transport the shelter uses an organisation called “Alive” run by volunteers. In 2014 they moved over 1,300 animals.
The way I read this example of enlightened and committed thinking is that they are using online networking combined with excellent transportation. This saves the lives of cat’s and dog’s where at one time they would be euthanised.
Source: Animal shelter goes two months with no euthanizations – Bluefield Daily Telegraph: News.
Michael, Thank you so much for this information. I’m passing it on to local rescue groups in my area.
Thanks. I hope it helps some people to better manage.