We want our Santa Cruz County Animal Services Board to initiate these programs to:
- Improve our current 50% save rate for shelter cats. For example, 92 healthy cats and kittens were killed in June/July 2015.
- Reduce our cat overpopulation
- Save the shelter money, kennel space, staff time, and heartache... and use our resources for other animals
These programs work at shelters throughout California and nationwide.
We want our tax dollars to improve the lives of all animals, not end them.
Please help by signing and sharing this petition.
Thank you.
Reference Footnotes
1.http://www.scanimalshelter.org/sites/default/files/BoardAgenda_10_19_2015.pdf (pg. 13)
2. http://www.scanimalshelter.org/sites/default/files/BoardAgenda_8_10_2015.pdf (pg. 48 - Count of 92 healthy cats and kittens killed does not include the 45 euthanized for medical reasons)
3. “Figuring that it costs $100 to take in, shelter, care for, and euthanize each cat—a conservative estimate—the shelter saves $300,000 a year by using the SNR approach.“ - Jon Cicirelli, SJACS. http://www.animalsheltering.org/resources/magazine/sep_oct_2013/change-for-community-cats.pdf
4. Feral cats held and euthanized by a veterinarian contracted by the city cost roughly $200 per cat.”– Twin Cities MN http://ht.ly/SCQSe
5. Trap/Neuter/ Return (TNR) has been declared by The Humane Society of the United States to be the best practice nationwide for community cat management and states that - "Programs that attempt to use lethal control to eliminate cat populations are inhumane, ineffective, and wasteful of scarce resources." http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/cats/facts/cat_statement.html