Statesman Article cites 50% decrease in euthanasia

May 20, 2009

The Austin American Statesman published an article last Thursday about Austin and the animal euthanasia situation.  There are some very positive things happening in Austin and the article highlighted them very well.

Here's a quick distillation:

There are 2 major forces that will lead to No Kill.

1.  Prevention of animals being brought to the shelter. The intake has dropped from 12,529 to 10,969 compared to this time last year. The article highlighted the Mission Orange partners, who are responsible for this WONDERFUL work in Austin:

• Emancipet Spay/Neuter Clinic,


• Animal Trustees of Austin,


• Feral Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic at the Humane Society.

All of these entities have no doubt led to the huge decrease in animals entering TLAC by preventing unwanted litters from being born.  We congratulate these organizations and thank them for all of the work they are doing to help Austin's homeless pets.

2.  Ending the killing of animals that are already at the shelter. This is where APA! comes in.  There are many rescue groups, including the Humane Society, who rescue animals out of TLAC and made a big difference for the 1,986 pets they rescued through April  '08.  But there were still 9,946 pets who died last year.  APA!'s mission is to keep some of those pets from ever reaching the shelter and rescue the rest of the ones who do.

So far, this fiscal year, there has been an increase in the number of live outcomes from TLAC.    As you can see by the figures in the table at the bottom of the post, if APA! had not entered the picture and pulled out 748 dogs and cats, the raw number of "live releases" would have decreased (from 6,199 in '08 to 6,149 in'09).  APA! is the change that has been seen in live outcome numbers.



























So while the article did not cite our work, I think we should all take a moment to realize that the fruits of our efforts are paying off.  And the fruits of prevention efforts by Mission Orange are also making a huge impact.

We are attacking the same problem from two different angles and it is working.

BUT we need to only take a moment to congratulate ourselves and then get back to work.  We KNOW there will be at least 5,000-8,000 animals who will die this year at our shelter.  They need our help and they need it now.

(TLAC publishes all numbers online for the public to view, in case you're interested in looking at them yourself.)

	2008	2009
Adoptions	2337	2515
Return to owner	1876	1835
XFERs to rescues	1986	2547*
Total	6199	6897