Austin is a leading voice in the nation for the protection of sheltered animals.
This year, Austin became a no-kill city and saved 91 percent of animals from being euthanized unnecessarily.
According to austinpetsalive.org, “A no-kill community is one that doesn’t kill healthy or treatable pets. There are many different interpretations of what ‘healthy and treatable’ could mean, but the communities leading the way have found that at least 90 percent of pets entering the shelter fit into one of these two categories. Thus, communities that are considered no-kill save 90 percent or more of the pets that enter the shelters.”
Austin’s success hinged on crucial legislative victories because of its being a community that values its furry counterparts, but it didn’t happen overnight. It was a three-year process, but hard work paid off. Austin residents can be proud of their animal treatment policies.
In Nov. 2009, Austin’s City Council passed a resolution which directed their city’s staff to work with Austin’s Animal Advisory Commission. The two came together to develop an implementation plan that was released by March 2010. The Commission recommended changes that would get Austin to a save rate of 90 percent.
On March 11, 2010, a bill including the recommendations passed Austin’s City Council with bipartisan support. It was a clean-sweep (7-0) decision. Perhaps the most visible facet of the bill is a moratorium on killing animals if cages are available, which sounds like common sense to me.
Austin Animal Center is Austin’s only facility that kills. They do not turn away any animals, similar to Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC). Before March 2010, if a dog did not meet the qualifications for adoption he was placed on the euthanasia list and was killed the following morning.
According to nokillhouston.org, five shelters in Houston practice the same procedure, including BARC, Harris County Animal Control, Houston SPCA, Houston Humane Society and the Citizens for Animal Protection.
Austin Animal Center helped remedy the problem by no longer producing a euthanasia list. They now produce a “no holds” list. If cage space capacity is reached, the animals on the aforementioned list are euthanized first. Rescue centers work in accordance with Austin Animal Center to save many of the condemned pets.
Countless animals have been saved in Austin. In Houston, however, we leave the death of defenseless animals to a business decision.
We have not succumbed to our better angels. As a city which prides itself as a pet-friendly place, we can do better. We should do better. Mayor Annise Parker promised to nudge the city in a direction similar to Austin, in terms of animal treatment.
Parker was given a No Kill questionnaire from then congress person, Jolanda Jones while on the campaign trail. She was asked, “Would you commit to making ‘no kill’ — defined as killing less than 10 percent of pets sheltered at an open-admission shelter — the official policy of Houston and support any laws or policy changes necessary to achieve this goal?”
She answered, “Yes.”
Unfortunately, the reforms have been miniscule and as a consequence, the results are miniscule. Houston is not close to attaining no-kill status. From 2010 to 2011 the kill rate at BARC has only dropped three percent. For March 2012, the kill rate for BARC was 46 percent.
In March alone, 1,009 dogs and cats were euthanized at BARC, according to results BARC releases each month.
Parker’s tenure in office was supposed to close the gap between Houston and Austin’s animal policies, but it remains the same.
The author is drunk on that "No Kill" koolaid. Austin ain't doing as well as you would like to think. Turning people away who have lost their jobs, their homes, is not the way to go. Austin has twice the owner surrender rate as California. So where do these turnaways land? On the streets, abandoned. Nope Austin hasn't done anything but loaded the streets up with strays. Does Houston want to be the next victim, like Philly or Indy, of "No Kill"?
Jolanda Jones didn't give her that questionnaire, and has never been a congresswoman. She was a City Council Member. The questionnaire was from No Kill Advocates, a political organization. Please check your facts.
Part 1-Christopher, thank you for writing this article and helping to raise awareness of the atrocities going on in our city’s “shelters”. I would like to correct a couple statements though.
1) Jolanda Jones did not give the questionnaire to Annise Parker. In 2009, No Kill Houston sent questionnaires to all of the candidates running for mayor, city council and controller as part of a non-partisan effort to make the public aware of how the candidates feel about animal issues. Parker and Jones both responded along with several other candidates. (I can send you their responses if you would like to use them). Parker did answer that she supported making Houston a No Kill city. She has also made this statement several times during her election campaign and afterwards. See 2 of them here: http://www.examiner.com/article/has-houston-s-may…
She has failed to keep her promises. When Fox 26 reporter, Randy Wallace asked her about her promises, she changed “her” definition of No Kill in order to cover for her failures: http://www.examiner.com/article/changing-definiti…
Part 2,
In 2011, No Kill Texas Advocates, a political organization, sent questionnaires to all candidates running for Houston’s mayor and city council. Even after repeated requests, Parker refused to respond. This speaks volumes to me.
2) BARC’s Kill rate actually INCREASED from 2010 to 2011. See all Intake/Outcome records here: http://bit.ly/h5phiM
The reason that BARC’s kill rate INCREASED 2 ½ YEARS after the international No Kill expert, Nathan Winograd, assessed BARC and gave the city an almost 200 page report, is that BARC leaders have consistently refused to implement most of Winograd's recommendations.
In addition, BARC leaders i.e. Alfred Moran continues to operate BARC in the archaic “catch and kill” method (Annise Parker put Moran in charge of BARC), i.e.
* BARC has banned 6 volunteers/foster parents in the last couple of years: http://bit.ly/oO3UQd
* Moran continues to threaten volunteers with banning if they say words that might reveal that BARC is still killing thousands of animals: http://exm.nr/I9ZinL
Part 3
* BARC employees take pets to BARC even when the pet owner is standing in front of them asking for his/her lost pet. This means that there is a 100% guarantee that an animal will be killed to make space for that owned, wanted pet http://exm.nr/JkrE4a
* Other Open Admission shelters are returning 60%-80% of all animals to their owners who want them back, while BARC is returning around 7%. This is a foolish waste of BARC's limited kennel space and a foolish waste of BARC's resources. If BARC implemented the same Return to Owner program that is working in Washoe Co NV, it could free up over 8,000 kennels and save over $970,000 per year (because it costs MORE to kill animals than to save them). http://exm.nr/dw4VmK
* Instead of working with the community, BARC gives $200 tickets to citizens who give food or water to homeless pets: http://www.examiner.com/article/barc-tickets-resc…
Part 4
* Instead of wisely using the little money that has been dedicated to BARC over the last 2 ½ years by implementing programs that have been proven to save lives, BARC leaders have been foolish and wasteful with BARC and with donor dollars:
1) http://www.examiner.com/article/what-happened-to-…
2) http://s312584456.initial-website.com/houston-kil…
Regardless of Alfred Moran’s rosy proclamations that BARC has made “significant progress”, there is A LOT that is still wrong with BARC, which results in a sky high kill rate.
The bottom line is that the most important element that determines whether a shelter stops killing is the Leadership who will implement all of the programs and services that have been proven to save lives. As you pointed out, we saw Austin's Leadership step up for the animals. Austin city council passed a No Kill resolution which is saving lives.
Part 5
In BARC’s case that Leadership, Alfred Moran and Annise Parker have totally failed to implement the programs and services that is SAVING 90% or more of all animals entering other Open Admission shelters across the US (including 4 in Texas). They have failed even when a step by step roadmap to No Kill was literally handed to them by the international No Kill expert.
It is clear that BARC still does not have Leadership that truly cares about saving lives. We just have different spin doctors telling us that “BARC is better” when it is not.
I would urge citizens to get involved politically to save animals. If city leadership does not reflect your values i.e. if you do not want BARC to continue killing an average of 1,088 animals every single month, then tell your city council (contact information is on No Kill Houston and No Kill Texas Advocates websites). Also, when elections roll around again, remember if your elected officials represented your values. If not, then we need to take a hard look at other candidates.
Save the whales or man the harpoons?